Air quality is a global issue. In many urban centers around the world, particularly in developing countries, deteriorating air quality is a deepening environmental concern. Poor air quality threatens human health and contributes to environmental damage. Also heatwave could be an important parameter which affect the quality of air (Geronikolou et. al. 2024; Geronikolou et. al. 2023). Many sources affect the quality of air like the natural sources, and the man-made sources leading most of times in the increase of pollution (Hajat et. al. 2014). The impact of air pollution on urban climates and air quality monitoring in general is an ongoing research to introduce models related to air quality management and detection of problematic patterns in pollutants’ measurements (McElroy, 2002; Anderson et. Al. 2013a). Before that it is crucial to analyse the philosophy behind air pollution in Europe. Environmental and statistical management techniques to address air quality issues are also presented. Data and results based on the proposed models would be illustrated based on environmental characteristics that affect the human health.

In this speech I will follow two lines of investigation. On one side, I will try to outline the disruptive contribution of the philosophy of breathing, the philosophy of air, and the aesthetic practices of breathing to a correct public vision of the environmental theme (i.e., learning to breathe) after centuries of deep neglect of air/breathing in Western philosophy. Using the philosophical discourse of the ‘oblivion of the air’ (Luce Irigaray) to provoke a re-declination of the vision of the environment and life towards a better understanding of the quality of life and democracy of air. Therefore, I will contrast and put in dialogue this oblivion with the apical philosophical and physical practises of healing and perfection in Asian traditions (see Tu 1998, Rošker 2018, Brasovan 2017). Activity such as yoga, prāṇāyāma, taiji 太極, qigong 氣功, ect. As a second step, I will try to propose a tentative corpus of what I name the “air market,” i.e., courses and practices connected to breathing (ancient, revisited practices), forest bath, and in general those environmental experiences that shows the necessity of a “good breathing” and a new connection with the impalpable concept of “air”. These two phases will allow me to suggest key insights on how the concept of air fits into the definition of quality of life and how this concept, which is so socio-culturally variable, actually serves as an open dialogue between cultures on the future of life on the planet (see Ambrogio 2024).

Air and breathing are vital conditions of and for our human existence. So familiar as to be invisible, the air we breathe has often been overlooked in cultural debates— especially in western contexts—while also being unequally distributed. Recognizing that humanity’s current challenge is “a matter of no less than reconstructing a habitable earth to give all of us the breath of life” (Mbembe 2021: 62), this paper aims to foreground air and atmospheres as dynamic sites of convergences and contestations, where environmental and cultural crises intersect and unfold. Moving beyond the mechanistic and materialistic understanding of air put forth by the natural sciences, this contribution draws on the interdisciplinary analytical framework of elemental ecocriticism (Cohen and Duckert 2015) to explore its more figurative dimensions. It will examine how modern literary works engage with air both as a subject and a medium. First, the emergence and significance of the “respiratory humanities” (Berndtson 2023) and “atmospheric humanities” (Hepach et al. 2024) will be addressed, considering their connections to other branches of ecocriticism. Next, representations of the atmosphere in selected contemporary narratives in English will be critically analyzed, exploring how the humanities and social sciences can help reimagine human responsibility in the Anthropocene. In conclusion, air is not an intangible void lacking agency or visibility. Instead, it has increasingly emerged as a crucial space of inquiry, a vital materiality that has the potential to challenge human exceptionalism and foster a new environmental ethics.