Don’t Save the Planet…save yourself

There still seems to be debate about climate change. I’ve been a greenie since the 70′s. Not a fanatic environmentalist, just a regular person seeing the damage the we have created and doing what I can to change. I riled against the large gas-guzzlers Detroit built even though my father worked in the auto industry. Going to school in Windsor it is hard not to have a “car mentality”. Still I recycled before cities started recycling collection and composted before municipalities provided compost bins.

It not easy living green. I installed a tank-less water heater to eliminated our wasteful hot-water tank. We added solar panels to generate green power. Both costly endeavours with little financial return, yet environmentally friendly. I’ve always felt it is the least I can do. Everyone can do their part but it is difficult for an individual to have global impact.

Solar Panels

Today the developing countries are resisting change to combat CO2 emissions. We want to save the Amazon Rainforest and the Congo in Africa, because these represent earth’s lungs cleaning our air. Yet, in North America we deforested the largest deciduous forests when we settled Canada and the US. In Europe deforestation began with the Romans. Industrialized 1st world counties want to slow China’s growth as an industrial power because it would contribute to fuel emission and fossil fuel usage. How can we ask these nations to do what we haven’t been able to do.

Polar ice caps melting

Melting polar ice caps are as indisputable as the depletion of the ozone layer in Antarctica. We reversed ozone depletion by reducing fluorocarbons. Melting ice-caps maybe irreversible. Ice is a reflective surface, open seas absorb sunlight. As ice melts less sunlight is reflected more is absorbed leading to more melting and the cycle continues. The cascading effect is nearly impossible to reverse once it begins on a large scale. And there is no denying that it has started. The longer we wait, the faster the process. The melting of the arctic ice will raise sea levels, affect weather world wide, causing erratic shifts in temperature, hurricanes, typhoons, flooding and droughts.

Change is difficult unless there is an immediate need. We have environment problems at a time of devastating economic crisis. Why not take advantage of this to make positive change. During the Great Depression the New Deal resulted in job creation through the building of large hydro-electric plants. During this current economic upheaval we can apply knowledge and labour to create a green economy. Building wind farms and solar generation is not enough. We also need to replace coal powered plants.

Nuclear Plants help reduce CO2 emmission

The only feasible way to generate the power that developing countries and western societies need wihtout harming the environment further is to replace coal powered plants with low emission nuclear plants. This would remove large CO2 and cut fossil fuel usage.

There is disagreement about the degree of climate change and whether we are experiencing global warming or a naturally ocurring hot-house affect. However, the human impact on the planet is undeniable. Governments should use the economic crisis as an oportunity to make real change in our envirnoment by building new infrastructure that is environmentally supportive, rather than technology that damages our environment.

Air, Water and Food (Part 3)

Of all the essentials of life air is one that no-one can do without. It is life’s medium. We breathe it constantly and without it we are dead in minutes.

Our atmosphere is 21% Oxygen and 78% nitrogen the other gases are les the 1%. When we breathe we exhale 16-17 % oxygen. Which means that we only really use 4-5 % of the oxygen mixture. Yet, if the air quality were reduced significantly there would be a tremendous increase in respiratory illness and many fatalities due to only a minor change in the percentage of the air mixture.

For many of us air is free, at least for all the healthy land dwellers. Even whales don’t pay for air. Fish extract the air they need from water, a technique that is being developed for human underwater use also. Generally we have not monetized air. Yet for me I know generally what air costs.

As a scuba diver my 80 or 100 cu.ft. tanks of compressed air cost about $5 to $10 per to refill. This amount of air would last approximately 45 minutes to an hour, as long the diver didn’t go too deep or do much strenuous work. So if you are to breathe “store bought” air for 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year it would cost approximately $61,320 for one year. Lucky for us we don’t need to buy air for everyday use, at least not yet.

Scuba divers have also developed and used different air mixtures. Nitrox also known as enriched air; it contains a greater percentage of oxygen than normal air. By adding oxygen and removing nitrogen the diver reduce fatigue and also lowers the chance of nitrogen narcosis, which is a build up of nitrogen in the body; commonly called the “bends” because it can lead to sever pain in the joints of the body. Nitrox can range from 22% up to 40% oxygen. But because oxygen is toxic and can lead to blackouts at high levels in your body, it is not used deep dives (general 110 ft max). This is all due to physical properties of dissolved gases in our blood steam, size of air bubbles and partial pressures. If you are interested in this see this posting regarding dive tables and decompression needs for divers. http://www.sdm.scot.nhs.uk/dive_tables/

So increased oxygen helps with respiratory issues and overcome fatigue. There are patients with respiratory conditions that are prescribed medical grade gases such as nitrox for home use to keep them alive. This air costs a bit more then what I factored before.

Back to my scuba example, when divers want to do deep exploration even the 21% oxygen found in normal air can be dangerous. More importantly the high nitrogen creates a euphoric experience that has been compared to being intoxicated. Scuba divers refer to this as “martini’s law” each atmosphere below 90 ft can be equal to having one martini, straight up, no rocks, no olive. You really don’t want to be drunk down at 180 or 200 ft.. It could very well kill you. To offset this effect deep underwater divers have experimented with different mixtures. Trimix or heliox are commonly used. What these gas mixures do is reduce the Oxygen levels down to 15-17 % lowering the amount of oxygen, thus reducing the oxygen toxicity to prevent deep water blackouts, which are fatal. Then they replace 40-50% of the nitrogen with helium or another inert gas that we don’t process or retain in our system. By lowering the nitrogen the effect of narcosis is reduced. Of course your voice has a distinct Donald Duck sound, if you are using two-way radios to communicate. The cost of such mixtures can be very high at least compared to “free air”.

Without air we die, so if a comet were to brush by earth and strip away our atmosphere there is little we as humans could do. While this is unlikely, we are now altering our atmosphere gradually and eventually changing the air mixture.

Many of us could survive with 16 – 17% oxygen mixture, with higher CO2 in our air we would see a increase in respiratory issues and heart attacks; I know I hadn’t mentioned this before as we exert ourselves there is increased heart problems due to lack of oxygen in our blood. These individuals would likely then need to buy enriched air just to survive. Still many will die sooner then they normally would have. The rest of us would adjust, until the next decline in oxygen, then we would all would be supplementing our free air with canisters of enriched air the same way we use bottled water instead of free rainwater or tap water (yes, I know we pay for tap water too).

The environment is seen by some people as being “out there”; somehow disconnected or disjointed from ourselves. This is not the case, the environment is the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat. It is all connected. When we look to save the environment we aren’t saving the planet we are attempting to save ourselves.