Air: a Precious Commodity

We rely on many things to survive, oxygen, shelter, food, drink, clothing, medicine, etc. All of those things cost money except for oxygen. But, could you imagine what it would be like if air cost money? Sure, that’s impossible, but we never said that I had to write about only the possible.

Hear me out. I have a thought that could actually be done, or could already be done. We’ve all got bills, electricity, water, all of that and taxes. Imagine, now, that a price was added to your taxes, a so called Breathing Bill. This is like something a crazy conspiracy theorist would believe. No one owns the air, it floats around for all to enjoy indiscriminately. However, maybe someone can capitalize on it somehow saying ‘well, we do our best to keep it clean and flowing for you.’ There’s another story entirely. The cleanness of air, what am I paying these people for anyway? My costly air is polluted on a daily basis by them… and even me. Wait… no, I had nothing to do with polluting it.

So, how much would you even be bothered with to pay for this air and would the price fluctuate from area to area? I would imagine that the air of a busy city would cost less than that of a very rural area. So, really, it all comes down to location, location, location, that catchy little slogan.

Now, while air is being taxed, smokers may be fined for contaminating a precious commodity or charged more for ‘damaging’ their own supply of air in their homes. In this insane scenario a smoker would be like a company dumping hazardous materials into a river.

Well, in summation, you can’t pay for air. Namely because that’s ridiculous and secondly because everyone ruins it with cars, machines, factories, cigarettes, and all the like. You’d think we’d take a little better care of this thing so near and dear to our lungs.