TAKE YOUR BREATH AWAY
a continuing investigation into breath storage and human CO2 emission control
On September 18th 2009 the Experimental Skeleton Group participated in Park(ing) Day.
Park(ing) Day is an annual international event that was conceived by the San Fransisco based group Rebar. As the beginning of a more complex debate over how human beings affect climate change ES Inc. accepted the invitation of the Tampa based organization Supertest to take one of the parking spaces in downtown Tampa under the umbrella of Rebar’s original template for the September 18th event.
ES Inc.’s concept was simple. Try to store the same amount of CO2 from gathering people’s exhaled breath as would be absorbed by a forest plot the same size as the parking spot for that day.
A forest absorbs 3,500 Lbs of CO2 per acre per year.
1 acre equals about 44,000 square feet.
That is 12.5714286 Lbs per square foot annually.
That is about 0.03492064 Lbs per square foot per day.
A human breath contains about 0.002204 Lbs of CO2.
That means that a forest absorbs the equivalent of 15.8442105 human breaths per square foot per day.
So it would take 1,584 or so breaths to equal what a 100 square foot parking space would absorb if it were a forest plot.
With this information in mind ES created a coffin shaped container that was placed in the reserved parking space in downtown Tampa. Group members bagged what was described as the participant’s last breath to be released into the atmosphere and placed them in the container.
This project leads to a more complex question. How can the CO2 emissions of human breathing, which are responsible for perhaps 8% of man made CO2, be stored or diverted to other uses?
In the case of the first action the breath is stored for future release into the atmosphere ( the year 2079) but this does nothing but delay the inevitable. The ES group is now searching for other answers, strategies, and projects to develop effective methods of CO2 storage and diversion as well as continuing a campaign to raise awareness through interventions and collaborations.
