Abstract

Air is perhaps the most difficult topic to consider in terms of environmental sustainability or (more specifically) in a Rights of Nature context because it is vast, ever shifting, generally invisible, and—even more than all the water on Earth—literally envelops the entire world. No part of the globe’s surface is without air, and no system of human ownership can parcel it among users. Thus, to discuss the global health of the air with respect to life, or to a sustainable climate, is exceedingly challenging.