Guest Post by Patrick Fossett
I had a dream the other night and so have tried to put the essence down on paper. It was in a primary school and the pupils were about to start a general science lesson. Richard, the teacher asked, “Does anyone know what a trace gas is?”
General mumbling amongst the children. “Well, they are gases that are present in very small amounts within an environment such as a planet’s atmosphere. So how much do you think you can have as a trace gas before it is no longer considered ‘trace’?”
Sacha volunteered “less than one percent?” “Not a bad response” said the teacher, but I prefer ten times less, so less than zero point one percent (0.1%) or one part per thousand. Imagine, if you had a thousand yellow tennis balls in an empty swimming pool and one red one, you would have some difficulty in finding the red one don’t you think?”
All the children agreed and seemed to think that one in a thousand was, indeed, a miniscule amount.
“Well” said the teacher, “let me tell you about one trace gas of which there is actually less than half that definition of ‘trace’ and which we will call Trace Gas One, or TG1. It is not a very exciting gas, but it does have one or two interesting properties. It is colourless and odourless but is the one of the few gases in the atmosphere that allows us humans to exist on the face of this wonderful planet. Most of us know that we need oxygen to breathe and without this we would die. But there is plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere (about 21%) so this is not in any sense a trace gas. But TG1 is the one and only gas that allows plants to grow. So the grass which the cows eat to enable us to eat hamburgers, the wheat that grows so we can bake bread, the cane and beet that give you sugar for your fizzy soft drinks, the grapes that your parents are so glad exist so that they can drink the fermented juice, and the barley and hops that go so well together to make my favourite beer are all dependant on enough TG1. Without TG1 we would have nothing to eat, and only water to drink.”
“Equally we would have no wood to build our houses or make our furniture. This TG1is so important that, if the level drops below a certain amount, all living plants will die. TG1 is the fuel that allows all plants to grow.”
“So” said Alexi, “how can we make sure that we have enough? It seems to me that the government should be making laws that ensure that we have enough TG1 for all our food and other requirements.” “Good point” said the teacher, “what can we do?”
There followed an animated discussion between all the children, but after a while the teacher weighed in and said “Well, what if I told you that the activity of making more TG1 would also make your lives better and increase the living standards of the whole world?”
“What, you mean a real win-win situation?” said Gregory. “Yes” said the teacher, “the more TG1 we make, the better peoples’ lives will be and food, plants, trees and all living animals will prosper.”
“Well, why don’t we hear more about this problem of not enough TG1?” asked Julie. “Ah, but you do” said the teacher, “there is almost no day that goes by in the western democracies without the press, the media and politicians of all colours banging on about the problem.”
At this point, since the children were understandably perplexed, the teacher returned to the blackboard where he had previously written “TG1”. Underneath the “T” he wrote “C”, underneath the “G” he wrote “O” and underneath the “1” he wrote “2” thus changing TG1 into CO2.
A deathly silence descended on the classroom and (not surprisingly) I woke up.
