Dust! Anybody? No?

Remember the sketch in Little Britain where Marjorie Dawes is asking the "fatties" whether certain foods are High In Fat or Low In Fat? "What about dust? High in fat, low in fat? Dust. Anybody? No? Dust. Anybody? No?" and so it went on.

Well, would you believe that according to Tim Flannery in The Weathermakers dust is very important? Who would have thought it? There I was thinking that it was just something that fat people ate to lose weight.

According to Tim, "dust is important stuff, because tiny particles can scatter and absorb light, thereby lowering temperature [doesn't seem to work in my house]. These particles also carry nutrients [presumably why people can eat it if they want to lose weight] into the ocean and to distant lands, assisting the growth of plants and plankton, and thereby increasing the absorption of CO2. Around half of the global dust in the air today originates in arid Africa, and the impact of the drying is so great that the planet's atmospheric dust loading has increased by a third [whatever that means]."

Apparently climatologists think this will have an impact on something but so far they don't know on what, or to what extent. But they're working on figuring it out which is good to know.

So there you go. You can now look at your household dust in a totally new light, knowing that it is important, lowers temperature, helps plants grow and in some way may or may not contribute to something to do with climate change or some such thing.

Incidentally, in South-east Queensland, where I live, the summers get so humid that the dust gets damp and sticks to things in a really disgusting manner. More like scum really.

(In case you were wondering, dust is low in fat.)