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.

Air, Water and Food (Part 2)

Our bodies are 70% water. We need water to activate our digestion of food. As I mentioned in my previous post we could survive 3-5 days without water. Dehydration can kill us as much as downing.

The surface of the earth is 70% covered by water. Although as a percentage of the mass of the planet the percentage of water is roughly 2%.

Water is created by the bond between two hydrogen molecules and one oxgen molecule. A larger electrical charge is needed to create and to break this bond, indicating that there is a significant amount of energy contained in this very simple element bond.

Without water our body functions begin to shutdown. Our blood thickens and can lead to respiratory and cardiovascular issues.

Considering the importance of water we seem to have low regard for this precious element. Civilizations sprung up around rivers and lakes because of the need of fresh water for human existence. Today we flush fresh water down the drain and use drinking water to wash our cars.

In the past households maintained cisterns to collect rainwater and used this water for everything from washing clothes, watering plants and even drinking. We could save a tremendous amount of water by simply using rain barrels and using this rainwater to water household plants. If we were allowed to it would be very effective to allow households to recycle “greywater”.

Greywater is what we flush or dump down the drain that could be reused. For example when we wash dishes the water could be filtered an then used to flush your toilet. Even toilet water could be cleaned and reused for watering your lawn.

Air, Water and Food (Part 1)

What I have been told is that humans can survive 3-5 minutes without air; 3-5 Days without water and 3-5 weeks without food. These are the very essentials of life.

In the western and “first world” nations food is plentiful. In many parts of the world hunger and starvation due to lack of food is a crisis. Yet, even in the western and industrialized nations we are at risk.

My grandparents were subsistence farmers. They had land to grow wheat, which they harvested and stored, taking some for future crops and taking the rest to the baker to make bread. Fruits and vegetables were grown for the family to eat and what was surplus was sold. My grandfather would harvest weed, like oregano and pick mushrooms from the local forest to eat and sell to the town’s people without farms. One grandfather kept goats and sheep for milk and meat; the other grandparents had cattle for the same reason. With all this they fed their family and bartered with the surplus for services; like the baker baking bread in exchange for some excess flour; milk turned into cheese to sell to buy products like clothes and tools. In those days a farmer could raise a family and make a living as long as the harvest was good.

Even my father grew a vegetable garden and kept a victory garden in Southern Ontario. The produce supplemented our family diet. During the harvest season when there were too many tomatoes, zucchinis and lettuce my dad would give away the surplus to friends and neighbors. My own garden is a weak shadow of my heritage; a small snack rather the full meal. The harvest doesn’t even cover the cost of planting, I fear.

Toronto is known as Hogtown, because historically this is where hogs were shipped from local farms, slaughtered and turned into ham to be sold. Most of the slaughterhouses are now gone. The neighborhood of Cabaggetown, was so named because of the Irish immigrates that tended potatoes and cabbages in their front yard to supplement their diet. Both cabbages and potatoes could be stored over winter and eaten year round. Now a day few of us need to do this, yet we should reconsider this custom.

As a society we have a large risk with our food supply. Most of us don’t grow our own food. We buy it. And much of what we buy comes from a far. Fruit shipped from South America, vegetables from California. All of this is dependent on transportation systems and national trade. What would happen to us if we couldn’t ship and distribute produce the we all depend on?

Raising transportation costs and political instability could severly impact our food supply. Even the flu pandemic can create an issue. What would you and your family eat if you couldn’t go shopping for food at the local store? Or if there is a shortage of produce?

Humans can survive 3 to 5 weeks without food. How would you survive without the easy access to food?