GLOBAL WARMING: GAS, RADIATION AND MANKIND’S FUTURE
The wonder of natural phenomena involving plants and animals presented on High Definition Television overwhelms the viewer. Internet images and science documentaries hyper accentuate the reality of earth becoming warmer each year, providing proof positive that the glaciers of the Arctic and Antarctica are melting at a frightful rate.
Alarming news in a world filled with so much natural beauty and such an infinite variety of flora and fauna.
Many voices have been heard about global warming from all sources of media. Politicians have given speeches and lectures and debated the topic. Governments and even the Pope have joined in the increasing crescendo of warning and a need to take greater action. No longer is global warming so much an international controversy as it is an accepted scientific fact. The proof is irrefutable and easily accessible to all via scientific telecommunications technology.
Alarming old news: There is a hole in the ozone over the Arctic.
Think of the beauty of Arctic icebergs and creatures like polar bears, fox, reindeer, walrus, seal, ox, moose, orca, snowy owls superimposed on a super white landscape of ice and frosty snow, rich blue skies, pristinely clear above the horizon. Picture some of the world's renowned glaciers diminished in size or completely gone, while others continue melting exposing barren rock in their place.
Even more alarming old news: previously announced news, perpetually available on the Internet for the world community to observe: There is an even larger hole in the ozone over Antarctica, as there are presently other holes in the ozone layer covering the earth.
Antarctica besides the tragedy of her melting icebergs; this mighty continent supports animals like the penguin, whales, seals, albatross and other seabirds.
It seems impossible that anyone would question the reality of global warming, yet there are those who have aggressively spoken against the evidence supporting the phenomenon. The controversy continues to foment argument, but as time passes and calamities relating to rising global temperatures turn apocalyptic - dissenting voices will wane.
Take the rampant fires throughout various western states like Oregon and California, even in the tundra of Alaska. It is easy to ignore catastrophe when we are not directly connected to the event. We who live in the United States hear daily the ubiquitous adverse geologic, meteorological, and human political or religious upheavals. Our human minds often tune out excessive bad news even when great populations of human life are taken by genocide. Earthquake, tsunami, tornado, hurricane, human warfare - become sundry terms due to repetitious sound and image bites. The daily routine of personal concerns easily drowns out world environmental issues.
Global warming is hard to ignore. It daily affects us on a personal level whether acknowledged or not. It has affected the economy and supplies of fresh water. It has affected the weather. Recall three or four years ago unprecedented high temperatures in Europe killing large human populations, particularly the elderly. Summer heat in the Northern and Western Hemispheres has become unprecedentedly extreme, lingering and extending deeper into autumns.
Drought continues to linger not only in California, as we hope, pray and wait for a wet El Nino. We beseech this imaginary meteorological child as if were actually a living entity, just as we invoke the name of Mother Nature when weather affects us negatively. We sometimes combine anthropomorphic attributes to events in nature in order to appease our fears when our understanding is based on ignorance and uncertainty. And so we turn to science and do our part to try and rectify the problem by saving water, driving electric cars, recycling resources - Going Green.
Scientists report that carbon dioxide is a major contributor to global warming. Some report that earth's concentration of this gas was proportionately high in earth's past history with no dire consequences to plants and animals of that era. Some state that high concentrations of carbon dioxide are caused by earth’s natural geological events. Solutions are offered by some to capture this gas and pump it deep into the earth or to use it for economic purposes like in manufacturing or converting it to an inert or less harmful molecular product.
Force your exhalation and inhalation into a paper bag without benefit of our atmosphere’s mixture of oxygen and nitrogen and other gases and you will pass out. This foolish demonstration demonstrates that carbon dioxide can be breathed but cause unhealthy bodily symptoms and death at concentrated levels.
Plants produce oxygen in the process of transpiration involving carbon dioxide. Mammals inhale oxygen. Carbon dioxide is a human waste product involved in the respiratory process which cycles back to plants.
The astronauts of Apollo 13 improvised a solution to a deadly problem. Carbon dioxide was concentrating in their tiny space capsule on their emergency return trip to earth. The scrub filters they had on board required a square fitting in their command module which they lacked. They had round scrubbers from the lunar module. Using duct tape they solved the proverbial problem of: “How do you put a round peg into a square hole?” This procedure saved their lives from poisonous levels of carbon dioxide.
We know that Earth suffers from excessive heat due to the Green House Effect where carbon dioxide is trapped within earth’s atmosphere. Most of us are familiar with ozone? Remember that oxygen is made of two atoms and ozone has three. Ozone is harmful to the lungs and skin, but its beneficial effect is to shield the earth from solar radiation. It is found in the atmospheric layer called stratosphere, 6 to 10 miles in altitude. Scientists have determined there are holes in the ozone all over the globe and have shown that human use of fluorocarbons contribute to these holes. Solar radiation can then penetrate into our lowest atmosphere negatively affecting our health. We have bad air days when ozone layers are higher than normal.
Do you suppose leaking solar radiation into our earth's surface adds to the global warming problem? Most of us have heard Newton's classic expression in paraphrase, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." Also include Euler's laws of motion which extend Newton's laws of for point particles to rigid body motion when you consider the following:
All matter, even radiation is physical and made of particles. If you study these laws and even read the layman's versions you should get a clue for a simple yes or no.
Gases are good but they are bad. How's that for an oxymoron. Example: oxygen is vital for life, but will oxidize human body tissue. Excess amounts it can lead to death. It’s clear that these some gases are essential to life on earth, but can also cause problems with living organisms. The terms used when talking about carbon dioxide gas and the greenhouse effect and the principles I have used in the foregoing, are commonly used vernacular among grade school children. Presently, this topic is often discussed in our global community and have become a global consciousness in an Internet Info-Age.
A suggestion to drive the point home as a means of educating the public for greater awareness on Global Warming might be following a simple exercise using the integration of simple mathematics and the internet for visual concepts and research. Here is one such exercise:
Using direct observation or other media means, ask students or people you know consider the amount of cars in the world. You can start by asking yourselves whether you’ve been on a trip or trips to major metropolitan cities like Los Angeles, New York, Mexico City, etc. Juxtaposition this idea with the visual of long streams of cars, often bumper to bumper on a major freeway connecting major destinations. Students will relate better if you can share your own experiences or observations. I’m sure most of us have peered to the ends of the freeway’s horizon in daylight or night driving. Long lines of assorted vehicles can overwhelm the view through the front and back windshields reflecting myriad rays of sunlight from bumpers, mirrors and windows in all directions. At night the reflections and illumination of lights is dazzling, appearing as a sort of lit, living serpent.
This amazing wonder would qualify as one added to the Seven Wonders of the World, especially if you can imagine this same sight multiplied throughout the world. This is without even considering vehicles that are not on freeways and those that are not passenger cars. Do not neglect to mention ocean or water-way machines, yard equipment – the list is virtually non-exhaustive, practically speaking. A good exercise would be to list and discuss any other machines using internal combustion technology. Everyone involved in this learning exercise would be busy.
Now for the coup de grace; besides computing amazing statistical data, everyone should arrive at one of the most obvious conclusions of the exercise, which might be: Man by virtue of his technological prowess of inventiveness; has succeeded in a highly effective means of transportation when contrasted by previous forms since the Egyptians and prior. Or, better yet: Man by his inventiveness, has created the world’s largest conglomerate machine system utilizing internal combustion engines which translates to a monstrous heater! Viola. It would be interesting to calculate how much heat our world fleet of machines emit into the Green House ceiling, or atmosphere. We need to also mention the total volume of gas this composite machine produces per second, hour . . . month . . . or year, even as the population of these cars increases daily like earth’s human population.
Incidentally, Earth Science principles in the study meteorology explain that weather is caused by the Sun. Our sun is a magnificent heat engine. Weather is driven or created by heat meeting cold fronts of air temperature. Another simple example: the sun heats the oceans of the world and creates temperature differences between land and air.
I often work outside during summer months of San Joaquin Valley heat wearing only tee shirt, shorts and sandals or go barefoot. It seems that sunlight is causing more of a burning or stinging sensation to the tops of my feet, arms and neck comparative to past experiences. After minimal time of a few minutes to direct sun posture, the pain becomes intolerable. Consequently, I apply a high SPF rating of sunscreen to help withstand our nearest star's invisible waves of radiation. I don’t recall the same symptoms of sunburn and pain while chopping cotton in the fields or going barefoot as young man. Maybe I’ve become sensitive to the sun because of being older. Maybe the sun's effect are synergized by some of the medication I take.
Two years ago, my 56 year old friend said he lay on a Mexican beach for about 2 hours. His foot was exposed to the sun during this time resulting in a severe sunburn approximately 25 square centimeters in area. It contracted into an awful looking melanoma on the top of his foot. It looked like a cancerous tumor, purplish black and raised like a boil. It was surgically removed leaving a deep indentation and remains potentially Mel anomic.
Global warming as a headline, is not usually discussed contextually with nuclear energy and its possible involvement with global warming. Based on my reading and exposure to media, I do not recall the two topics, carbon dioxide and nuclear energy being joined as a platform discussing and drawing attention to earth warming issues.
We learned in physics class that for every cause there is an effect. Newton's third law of motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, meaning that in every interaction, there are forces interacting with objects. I think other, very significant, obvious factors, besides trapped gases and holes in the ozone are contributing to global warming. How about the burning of fossil fuels like petroleum, gases and coal? Of course. These produce toxic by- products as well as heat which are trapped within the confines of our atmosphere. Challenge: picture all of these industrial components of human use across the globe operating 24/7 year around.
Now consider a form of energy which I believe also contributes to global warming. Nuclear energy seems to be overlooked or ignored by the media while carbon dioxide remains at center stage. As mentioned above, there ozone holes in the stratosphere. These allow solar radiation into our lowest atmospheric layer. I know about it too, but forget, unless I'm writing a piece like this one or talking to a friend.
The law of conservation of mass states that for any system the mass must remain constant over time because its quantity cannot be changed. So, the quantity of mass is conserved over time, meaning that mass cannot be created or destroyed; it just takes on other forms or rearranged. Think about nuclear matter used in reactors or nuclear weapons. Think how the energy of these systems is transformed into particles like radiation, light and heat and taking on different, even exotic, invisible forms, released into space, underground, soil surface, water and . . . living things.
This law supports the fact that during any chemical reaction, nuclear reaction, or radioactive decay in an isolated system, the total mass of the reactants or starting materials must be equal to the mass of the products. An example for simplification the same number of particles in wood before you burn it, are the same after combustion - all accounted for. Except that he wood changes form. It has become fire, heat, smoke, chemicals, wouldn't a class in quantum mechanics be cool? Keep these ideas in mind as you read below.
Think about the radiation releases since the early 1950's in Alamogordo, New Mexico and Oppenheimer's atomic detonation test, precursor to the Atomic Age with the many that followed both in our United States, Russia and proliferating countries. Many were conducted on the ground and others below the ocean, remember the Navy ships and Atomic warfare test in the Bikini Atolls region? Some nuclear tests involved the neutron bomb which detonated above the ground in the atmosphere. Does most of the modern generation of elementary grade student remember the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan? These were planned, not accidental. Then came the more powerful nuclear devices, planned for warfare. The acronym MADD is interesting. Type it in your search engine. Hints of another oxymoron, or metaphor - Pandora's Box, not the radio.
Research nuclear power plant accidents when you have time. Some leaked seemingly minor radiation like the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Philadelphia, U.S.A and others across the globe. There's Chernobyl in Russia and the Fukushima nuclear plant accident in Japan, still leaking substantial radiation into air and water according to some reports and allegedly, still major threat after leaving radioactive devastation in its wake. Refer to YouTube using the Internet and you will drive quickly get the point. Radiation is emitted by elemental isotopic decay. Some elements emit radiation for hundreds, Thousands – even millions of years.
What effect does radiation have on human beings, animal and plant life. Well, man’s contribution to nature via nuclear technology is not a natural phenomenon like volcanic activity. Manmade radiation is not star radiation, or cosmic, it is created by mankind and introduced into the air, ground and water in phenomenal quantities. Mankind’s scientific research has even produced synthetic radioactive substances that are new to nature’s periodic table of natural elements. Don’t you think radiation has an unnatural or adverse effect on our planet? Of course it does. Have synthetic radioactive by-products increased since their conception and release into the environment? Yes.
Where does radiation go in the wake of a nuclear accident or test detonation? For an indirect clue to demonstrate that particles of any substance don’t just disappear, or cannot be accounted for, just google Rachael Carson and her book, Silent Spring.
DDT a banned insecticide used worldwide. Where did the DDT particles and sub particles go? They entered the bald eagle's biome and food chain, affected its biochemistry and caused the thinning of its egg shells, resulting in diminishing populations to the point of near extinction or yet another endanged species. To this day, DDT can be found on all parts of the globe housed within the soil and the body fat of mammals.
I have striven to provide a composite of reasons in my essay so the reader is able more clearly understand reasons for an increasingly warmer earth.
PROBLEM: Does Global Warming Caused by Atmospheric Gas and Radiation Synthesized by Humans, Such as That Produced by Nuclear Technology Affect Contribute to Global Warming?
HYPOTHESIS: based on some science education, common sense, reflection and introspection borne of personal experience: There is a high probability that Global Warming is caused by the elements denoted in the PROBLEM directly above.
A solution to the PROBLEM is possible, but it is about as easy to solve as trying to provide a Unified Theory or of Relativity as Einstein did. There are not many Sir Isaac Newton’s, Albert Einsteins, or Stephen Hawkings in our global community and the PROBLEM has exacerbated during the previous 250 years since the start of the Industrial revolution to the present.
As I write this essay, images flash across my mind's field of vision. Still frames of a childhood exposure to an amazing comic book suddenly appear. My focus hones-in on one frame; a masterpiece of artwork. The comic book I first held many years ago captivated me. I knew nothing at all of environmental problems back then.
The setting of the comic book story takes place on the planet Krypton. A baby named is Kal-El, is born on the planet Krypton. Just before the planet’s destruction, his mother and scientist father, Jor-El, placed him inside a spaceship and rocketed him in an escape voyage to a planet called Earth. In the next comic book frame, I remember Kal-El’s parents standing watch as the spaceship ascends into space leaving them behind to die on Krypton. Even now, I vividly remember feeling a weight of sadness. I can still feel it today. The denizens of Krypton were a technologically advanced planetary community with planetary problems. Kal-El was the only one to survive the doomed planet and arrive safely to our Earth.
On Earth, the alien child became known as Superman with superhuman powers which he used to help mankind.
Missions to Mars are being planned. Will we curb the large scale consequences of global warming caused by mankind’s releases of gas and radioactive pollution? How will we achieve the reversal of environmental abuse? Can we regrow the deforestation of the Amazon Forest? Can we replace its forever lost species of animal and other plant life? No one has been able to resurrect extinct species. We almost lost the American Bison. We have lost many other species already.
Do you cringe at the thought: What happens if our Sequoia Giant Trees burn due to wildfires, diminishing their population, or are sent to the verge of extinction due to other secondary effects caused by drought, like insect infestations and weakened trees? This principle applies to most all other species.
. . . Go to the beauty of Arctic icebergs and the creatures that live there and superimpose these marvelous animals on the canvas of your mind’s eye and imagine pristine, clean snow white landscape of ice . . .
Our planet is beautiful beyond description. It is not too late to be like Superman and each do our part to help preserve beautiful planet Earth.
#write4good and #iam4