Clean air: You'll know it when you see it

The Smirking Chimp

by Jane Stillwater | July 15, 2011 - 3:18pm

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According to recent articles that have been published in such various sources as Counterpunch, NucNews, the Huffington Post and Fox News, there's been a 35% spike in infant mortality in the Pacific northwest since the nuclear meltdowns at Fukushima began last March. Not only that but there are approximately 600 coal-fired power plants now operating in America that are pumping out pollution that is slowly but surely destroying a whole lot of people's lungs. Plus we still have to deal with old-fashioned vehicle-produced smog. Clean air is getting harder and harder to find!
But I found some.
I happened to stumble across a very small pocket of clean air while visiting the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Minneapolis recently, over in Wirth Park. I had gone to Minneapolis in order to attend the 2011 Netroots Nation convention for progressive bloggers, and one of the convention's features was a "Day of Service" which involved getting conference participants away from their keyboards and actually luring us out into the local wildflower garden to pull weeds. I want to pull weeds! I'll try anything once.
Well, the garden turned out to be more than just a garden. It was also a forest, a wetland, a bog and a bird sanctuary. "Look!" cried one bird-watching blogger. "There's an Indigo Bunting!" A what?
And as we walked deeper into the woodland, that's where I found it -- actual, real, honest-to-goodness clean air. Not even manufactured or bottled. This was the real stuff. Trust me. You will know it when you see it. It smelled wonderful. I was in awe.
Suddenly, I wanted this stuff! I want MORE of this magical stuff. I lusted after more of this wonderful stuff. I wanted to own it, to love it, to take it home with me in my suitcase. Clean air is amazing, better than fine wine or drugs.

The Smirking Chimp