Our atmosphere is a delicate life-giving blanket of air
that surrounds the fragile earth. In one way or an-
other, it infl uences everything we see and hear — it is
intimately connected to our lives. Air is with us from birth,
and we cannot detach ourselves from its presence. In the
open air, we can travel for many thousands of kilometers in
any horizontal direction, but should we move a mere eight
kilometers above the surface, we would suffocate. We may be
able to survive without food for a few weeks, or without wa-
ter for a few days, but, without our atmosphere, we would not
survive more than a few minutes.