Though finals are typically a very stressful time for Patriots, and it gets hard to breathe, the one thing that I can personally guarantee you have not thought about yet is the air quality in which your academic travails take place in. As construction workers run rampantly across our glorious campus in their attempts to slowly piece together the new school, just appreciate that ever since the new asphalt has been laid, your rights guaranteed under the Clean Air Act are protected.

As ambulances piled up in the bus lane last year, carting poor innocent students away to the ER as they react to the harsh tar fumes in the air, we came to question the ethics with which the construction is operating. Though a problem this severe usually warrants some sort of response from the UN followed by a harsh finger-wagging, this time it seemed to slide. One could easily argue that this is the desecration of a common good, yet no action has even been hinted at by either the administration or by the construction company. Whether this issue will be addressed head on or just waited out, we can rest assured knowing that one day we will be in greener pastures, and breathing cleaner air.

Some may argue that this is an insignificant issue, but take warning, because your health may be in serious danger. Take this statistic, for example: 100% of people who breathe air die at some point in their lives. If this problem is so pervasive and ubiquitous, why are we not giving it the attention it requires? If we band together and all bring a vacuum to school in order to cleanse the air of its toxins by vacuuming the air, we may someday find ourselves on par with the air that laps at the summit of the Himalayas.