Our planet has an history of 4.5 billion years during which he changed appearance and evolutionary conditions.
The so-called geological ages we briefly describe the characteristics of different stages of his change in the passage of time.
The first phase was incandescent and characterized by continuous volcanic eruptions.
In those primitive conditions the atmosphere prevailed in carbon dioxide and, in the absence of oxygen, was prohibitive for life.
Hundreds of millions of years after its cooling and the consequent changes in physical conditions - chemical environment, the Earth has allowed the development of the first forms of life that over time, with photosynthesis, have produced oxygen necessary for the development of the living complex bodies.
This gradual change, spacing with cataclysms from internal and external to the planet (glacial eras, catastrophic earthquakes caused by continental drift, volcanic eruptions, acid rain, fallen asteroids etc.) was instrumental in creating those special conditions for the selection and growth of living species that will colonize water and land.
Approximately 1.5 billion years ago a cyclical climate, that gave rise to major glaciations interspersed by periods warmer, was accentuated.
These various climatic conditions were due to periodic variations of the slope of the rotation axis of the Earth, to the change of several physical parameters such astronomical intrinsic eccentricity of the earth and the precession of perihelion.
Although modest, the variation in these values over time caused temperature changes due to a significant change in the solar radiation coming to the Earth.
Since the last glaciation, which ended about 10,000 years ago, began a strong climate change that led to the melting of ice that covered much of the northern hemisphere and that designed, with the lands released from ice, the current map of the planet.
In effect, the chemistry composition of the Earth has always been linked to climate, and in particular to the switch between glacial periods and tempered periods.
During the warmer periods this composition is changed, recording a quantity of greenhouse gases significantly higher than the cooler glacial eras.
These variations, in so far as they are naturally defined, have allowed the development of biology as we know it today.
The richness and diversity of life and its uniqueness in terms of every single living form are part of our daily experience.
The presence of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, in the warmer periods that have followed over time, has always been limited, not exceeding never certain values.
In particular carbon dioxide is not never gone beyond 280 parts per million (280 molecules of carbon dioxide every million air molecules) and methane has never exceeded the value of 0.7 parts per million by volume.
The percentage of these gases in the atmosphere is very small compared to that of other gases such as nitrogen and oxygen, but also a modest variation of their percentage greatly affect the climate.
The hot stage that the Earth is experiencing is characterized by the prevalence of the “homo sapiens" species on all the other living species.
The life of this species, our life, is changing definitively the future history of the Earth planet.
If in fact we consider the values of carbon dioxide and methane being nowadays in the atmosphere, we see an increase of 30% of carbon dioxide and about twice as methane compared to natural emissions.
At a so short warmer period we have never recorded such high values (especially in such a "small" amount of time).
In the past, the growth of greenhouse gases in the warmer periods spacing glacial ages, increased over tens of thousands of years. Minimum disruptions of the general conditions of climate stability, referring to a specific period, generated climatic changes, even major, after several centuries.
In our age human activities during only a few generations have produced serious effects on atmospheric chemistry and composition, then on the climate, with an acceleration never occurred before.
The effects, the first small, very small effects we are already seeing them every year that passes and they are increasingly strong and violent. Unlike the past, they not wait thousands of years to manifest itself. But how has started all this kind of things?
Until about 10 thousand years ago our ancestors lived what nature gave them.
Hunting, fishing, fruit trees, roots, berries: all that was enough for them to live.
Then he began to develop agriculture that guaranteed certainty of food and with it the first organised families of several individuals who cooperated each other to ensure the whole group survival food.
To cultivate edible plant species our ancestors settled on the most favourable and, through irrigation, they increased productivity of land, ensuring, with the introduction of farming animals, stocks of food and remarkable workforce.
Human society began to organize and expand.
It took millions of years so that the human population to reach five million individuals, but only 10 thousand years to arrive, at the end of 1800, to a billion individuals and just over two hundred years to reach nowadays 6.5 billion.
If unpredictable dramatic episodes will not occur in the future, the human population should stabilize at around 10 billion individuals between the middle and the end of the century just begun.
lunedì 16 marzo 2009
What could happen?
The most glaring phenomenon concern climate change induced by human being.
Since the middle of last century to now, the average temperature of the planet has risen by about one degree, rising from 13.5 ° C to over 14.5 ° C.
This rate of change in average temperature is unusual.
Typically fluctuations of a degree occurred in the past over thousands of years, not decades.
The acceleration of average temperature trend of the planet is due to a sudden change in the composition chemistry induced in recent decades by human activities.
In addition to carbon dioxide and methane, the Earth's atmosphere is enriched with oxides of nitrogen, chlorofluorocarbons and sulphur dioxide from burning oil and coal.
These are all greenhouse-gas: that is, they have the capacity to absorb and retain some atmospheric heat emitted from Earth, which under normal conditions would be reflected to the space.
The greenhouse-gas, in general, increase the average temperature of the planet for natural tightening of the greenhouse effect, and they are the cause of the mild climate to which we are accustomed.
The impact of human activities on the environment has been uncontrolled, this could cause major disasters in the future, mainly because to global pollution so far produced by one part of humanity, which has thrived in welfare, is adding pollution resulting from activities of billions of other people who tend to achieve the same standard of living.
Can the Earth endure the plundering of resources which is subject to? And if so, for how long? And then, human activity amplified by globalization is acceptable? And again, the energy of which human activities need will be available to everyone? And if it were not, (as expected) there will be a part of humanity that will not survive? And if so, which? The West? The block India - China? The countries of the Muslim religion? These questions let presage a clash between civilizations for the survival of one than the other. It will be the case?
Since the middle of last century to now, the average temperature of the planet has risen by about one degree, rising from 13.5 ° C to over 14.5 ° C.
This rate of change in average temperature is unusual.
Typically fluctuations of a degree occurred in the past over thousands of years, not decades.
The acceleration of average temperature trend of the planet is due to a sudden change in the composition chemistry induced in recent decades by human activities.
In addition to carbon dioxide and methane, the Earth's atmosphere is enriched with oxides of nitrogen, chlorofluorocarbons and sulphur dioxide from burning oil and coal.
These are all greenhouse-gas: that is, they have the capacity to absorb and retain some atmospheric heat emitted from Earth, which under normal conditions would be reflected to the space.
The greenhouse-gas, in general, increase the average temperature of the planet for natural tightening of the greenhouse effect, and they are the cause of the mild climate to which we are accustomed.
The impact of human activities on the environment has been uncontrolled, this could cause major disasters in the future, mainly because to global pollution so far produced by one part of humanity, which has thrived in welfare, is adding pollution resulting from activities of billions of other people who tend to achieve the same standard of living.
Can the Earth endure the plundering of resources which is subject to? And if so, for how long? And then, human activity amplified by globalization is acceptable? And again, the energy of which human activities need will be available to everyone? And if it were not, (as expected) there will be a part of humanity that will not survive? And if so, which? The West? The block India - China? The countries of the Muslim religion? These questions let presage a clash between civilizations for the survival of one than the other. It will be the case?
Some solutions above the horizon
Finally, there is the energy that moves, that allows us to live, the light of the Sun.
The flow of light energy that comes from the Sun is not very intense, it is around 343 watts per square meter as an average over the Earth's surface over a year. Being able to exploit it, we must do it. The technologies that will transform the energy from the sun directly into electricity in the quantities that will be needed to live and to produce are being developed.
There are those who say that the future energy on a large scale will be nuclear and solar.
At present nuclear technology is much more advanced than solar. But things could soon change. The studies and ongoing research provides hope. Photovoltaic technology, now in use, costs too much respect to energy efficiency. But we are doing enormous steps forward.
Recently new systems called concentration plants, that induce optimism, have been developed. These systems use photovoltaic cells joined to lenses or mirrors focusing the light, so increasing efficiency. In these plants the costs are about 45 euro cents per peak watt produced, with a cost reduction of about seven times the photovoltaic technology currently in use. A nice step forward.
In addition, there are experimental technologies that further raise the performance of cells up to touch the 70 per cent. These include the use of nanotechnology that will make solar panels sensitive to infrared radiation, enabling the production of electricity at night: they would transform into electricity infrared energy accumulated during the day and emitted at night from Earth, energy that today is not used. It would be necessary to have just a square of 500 km side of these solar panels to provide energy to the whole planet. What a fantastic thing! And yet…
It’s just completed the experimental phase, with the consequent beginning and move to the industrial phase, of plants that are able to accumulate the warmth of sunlight, with a thermodynamic process, in a mixture of salts zone where the temperature reaches about 600 degrees centigrade. The heat from the accumulated salts is made available to the production of steam, which feeds a pressure turbo electric at night, that is, even in the absence of sunlight, with a continuity of production of 24 hours.
However, all technologies available today (not excluding solar) have strong environmental impacts, are expensive and in the case of solar occupy large spaces.
In finding new ways of production we have to find a compromise between cost, practicality, environmental impact and other factors.
And it’s well-known the difficulty of new technologies to supplant the old technologies for reasons of investment, consumer inertia, skepticism, governmental settings etc.
These factors can be overcame only when the new technology has an overwhelming technical superiority than the old, or well below cost.
All technological transitions take years and considerable investments.
In the energy sector two of these transitions have been already occurred in the past, that from wood to coal in the nineteenth century and later that from coal to oil. Both have requested a century to be completed. Today we have not this time, cause the situation related to climate change is already very critical.
The knowledge, the technology, the pressure of public opinion, never as today so aware on these issues, will be useful for a faster transition from fossil fuels to another source of energy. Even in the most optimistic forecasts of availability of oil, we could obtain a "sweet" transition only starting now…
The flow of light energy that comes from the Sun is not very intense, it is around 343 watts per square meter as an average over the Earth's surface over a year. Being able to exploit it, we must do it. The technologies that will transform the energy from the sun directly into electricity in the quantities that will be needed to live and to produce are being developed.
There are those who say that the future energy on a large scale will be nuclear and solar.
At present nuclear technology is much more advanced than solar. But things could soon change. The studies and ongoing research provides hope. Photovoltaic technology, now in use, costs too much respect to energy efficiency. But we are doing enormous steps forward.
Recently new systems called concentration plants, that induce optimism, have been developed. These systems use photovoltaic cells joined to lenses or mirrors focusing the light, so increasing efficiency. In these plants the costs are about 45 euro cents per peak watt produced, with a cost reduction of about seven times the photovoltaic technology currently in use. A nice step forward.
In addition, there are experimental technologies that further raise the performance of cells up to touch the 70 per cent. These include the use of nanotechnology that will make solar panels sensitive to infrared radiation, enabling the production of electricity at night: they would transform into electricity infrared energy accumulated during the day and emitted at night from Earth, energy that today is not used. It would be necessary to have just a square of 500 km side of these solar panels to provide energy to the whole planet. What a fantastic thing! And yet…
It’s just completed the experimental phase, with the consequent beginning and move to the industrial phase, of plants that are able to accumulate the warmth of sunlight, with a thermodynamic process, in a mixture of salts zone where the temperature reaches about 600 degrees centigrade. The heat from the accumulated salts is made available to the production of steam, which feeds a pressure turbo electric at night, that is, even in the absence of sunlight, with a continuity of production of 24 hours.
However, all technologies available today (not excluding solar) have strong environmental impacts, are expensive and in the case of solar occupy large spaces.
In finding new ways of production we have to find a compromise between cost, practicality, environmental impact and other factors.
And it’s well-known the difficulty of new technologies to supplant the old technologies for reasons of investment, consumer inertia, skepticism, governmental settings etc.
These factors can be overcame only when the new technology has an overwhelming technical superiority than the old, or well below cost.
All technological transitions take years and considerable investments.
In the energy sector two of these transitions have been already occurred in the past, that from wood to coal in the nineteenth century and later that from coal to oil. Both have requested a century to be completed. Today we have not this time, cause the situation related to climate change is already very critical.
The knowledge, the technology, the pressure of public opinion, never as today so aware on these issues, will be useful for a faster transition from fossil fuels to another source of energy. Even in the most optimistic forecasts of availability of oil, we could obtain a "sweet" transition only starting now…
Environment desertification and nanotechnology
According to the estimates of the UN Environment Programme (United Nations Environment Programme - UNEP), one quarter of land on the planet is threatened by desertification. The lives of over a billion and half people in over 100 nations are put at risk by this phenomenon, since the crops become less productive.
Desertification is a gradual process by which a fertile and inhabited territory becomes an uninhabited and sterile region. This is an ancient disaster (nowadays desert regions were once rich in forests, pastures, cultivated fields), but only a few years ago it raises serious concerns, as the processes of desertification are developing on a global scale and their pace accelerated, making unusable every year worldwide approximately 60,000 km ² of land. In general the main cause of process of natural desertification is the natural fluctuations of climate conditions, but the decisive cause, nowadays, is undoubtedly the excessive human pressure on natural resources. Little rain, marked variability of rainfall from one year to another, persistent drought, deterioration of structures of soils, wind erosion, are all factors that predispose to desertification. It is therefore a process of "degradation of arable land in arid areas, semi-arid and dry sub-humid as a result of numerous factors, including climatic variations and human activities". Spots of degraded land may be hundreds of kilometres from the nearest desert. But they can expand and join with one another, creating conditions similar to those of a desert. And today we can partly control this phenomenon, thanks to research, in particular focused on nanotechnology. Let's see how.
The most precious asset we have is water.
It is estimated that the Earth contains about 1,400 million km3 of water, of which 35 million km3 (2.5 percent) are freshwater. The average annual rainfall on the ground amounted to 120,000 km3, of which approximately 75,000 km3 go back into the atmosphere by evaporation, the remaining 45000 km3 converge in lakes, ponds and flowing or infiltrate into the ground.
This fraction is what is commonly referred to as "water" world. All of these 45000 km3 part is not accessible because of the water is channelled into rivers inaccessible or dispersed during the seasonal floods. The quantity today taken for the various human activities amounted to 6,000 km3 of water resources. Since both the water that people are distributed in a non-uniform way, the situation is already critical in various countries and regions in the world. Increasingly large areas of the world are plagued by endemic shortages of fresh water and competition among various users is growing.
Current estimates showed that the human withdraw is about 3 600 km3 of fresh water, the equivalent of 580 m3 per year per capita.
Except for Europe and North America, agriculture is, by far, the largest consumer of water with about 70% of all levies in the world, while the civilian use (citizen) has about 10% and industry uses about 21%. With the increase in temperature the "useful" precipitation (not torrential) will decrease and we will have always less water in order to live, work and nourish. How will we do? Do not worry! Science and technology will solve this problem.
We have just have to use our head and begin to plan and design tens of thousands of “desalinators” that taking water from the sea and return it ready for all uses. People might say that desalination plants are too costly both in the realization that in management, but the nanotechnology will give us a hand, and what a hand!
For example, scientists are testing an advanced system for the desalination of water (no more than reverse osmosis as the existing facilities) that, by using a membrane of carbon nanotubes, will reduce by 80% the cost of desalination of seawater .
Not only that: membranes, which select the molecules according to size, thanks to electrostatic forces, could also separate various gases in the atmosphere and contribute to develop economic methods to seize the enormous quantity of carbon dioxide emitted, for example, by power plants, and prevent their release into the atmosphere.
Desertification is a gradual process by which a fertile and inhabited territory becomes an uninhabited and sterile region. This is an ancient disaster (nowadays desert regions were once rich in forests, pastures, cultivated fields), but only a few years ago it raises serious concerns, as the processes of desertification are developing on a global scale and their pace accelerated, making unusable every year worldwide approximately 60,000 km ² of land. In general the main cause of process of natural desertification is the natural fluctuations of climate conditions, but the decisive cause, nowadays, is undoubtedly the excessive human pressure on natural resources. Little rain, marked variability of rainfall from one year to another, persistent drought, deterioration of structures of soils, wind erosion, are all factors that predispose to desertification. It is therefore a process of "degradation of arable land in arid areas, semi-arid and dry sub-humid as a result of numerous factors, including climatic variations and human activities". Spots of degraded land may be hundreds of kilometres from the nearest desert. But they can expand and join with one another, creating conditions similar to those of a desert. And today we can partly control this phenomenon, thanks to research, in particular focused on nanotechnology. Let's see how.
The most precious asset we have is water.
It is estimated that the Earth contains about 1,400 million km3 of water, of which 35 million km3 (2.5 percent) are freshwater. The average annual rainfall on the ground amounted to 120,000 km3, of which approximately 75,000 km3 go back into the atmosphere by evaporation, the remaining 45000 km3 converge in lakes, ponds and flowing or infiltrate into the ground.
This fraction is what is commonly referred to as "water" world. All of these 45000 km3 part is not accessible because of the water is channelled into rivers inaccessible or dispersed during the seasonal floods. The quantity today taken for the various human activities amounted to 6,000 km3 of water resources. Since both the water that people are distributed in a non-uniform way, the situation is already critical in various countries and regions in the world. Increasingly large areas of the world are plagued by endemic shortages of fresh water and competition among various users is growing.
Current estimates showed that the human withdraw is about 3 600 km3 of fresh water, the equivalent of 580 m3 per year per capita.
Except for Europe and North America, agriculture is, by far, the largest consumer of water with about 70% of all levies in the world, while the civilian use (citizen) has about 10% and industry uses about 21%. With the increase in temperature the "useful" precipitation (not torrential) will decrease and we will have always less water in order to live, work and nourish. How will we do? Do not worry! Science and technology will solve this problem.
We have just have to use our head and begin to plan and design tens of thousands of “desalinators” that taking water from the sea and return it ready for all uses. People might say that desalination plants are too costly both in the realization that in management, but the nanotechnology will give us a hand, and what a hand!
For example, scientists are testing an advanced system for the desalination of water (no more than reverse osmosis as the existing facilities) that, by using a membrane of carbon nanotubes, will reduce by 80% the cost of desalination of seawater .
Not only that: membranes, which select the molecules according to size, thanks to electrostatic forces, could also separate various gases in the atmosphere and contribute to develop economic methods to seize the enormous quantity of carbon dioxide emitted, for example, by power plants, and prevent their release into the atmosphere.
Controlling Earth’s temperature
As we have already seen, the greenhouse effect is determined by trapping infrared radiation emitted from Earth due to its heating, by means of the clouds and greenhouse gases.
So if we covered extensive areas of the Earth, such as deserts, with material reflecting the sunlight, we would prevent to these large areas to heat and emit infrared radiation, thus changing the energy that determines the greenhouse effect.
The desert areas are such because they generally are not overhanged from clouds that intercept solar radiation arriving. In these areas the atmosphere is transparent to sunlight rays and therefore it would be transparent to sunlight reflected to space by the reflective material placed there. Obviously a small amount of infrared radiation would be retained in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, but it would be very small proportion compared with the infrared radiation emitted by deserts heated by solar radiation.
Or on the contrary, we could fill those vast desert areas of black material (strongly absorbing light). In this case the light from the sun would be absorbed in all its components and not emitted towards the atmosphere and space. Such a surface would heat a lot and, if we subtracted it this heat, for example with fluid contained in tubes, we should join the return to the pleasure, using the hot fluids for different activities. Of course, the total thermodynamic equilibrium is always restored, but at least we would have a little more time to think about what to do before that our planet become an hell. Or…
Or we could try to reduce the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I think that we could do that by adapting a mix of interventions, partner - politicians - cheap on the one hand, and physical - technological on the other. Let’s talk about the latter.
Carbon dioxide produced by human activity has been absorbed mainly from the oceans and vegetation. Then oceans and vegetation are the main "macrophages" of carbon dioxide.
In order for the oceans to continue to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide the natural conditions of temperature difference between the equatorial belt and the polar areas should be assessed as soon as possible. To do that quickly we need global interventions (see Project Atlas http://www.rlangone2.blogspot.com).
The oceans are in fact an immense thermal reserve cause they retain the heat for a time higher than the lands.
Without the ocean climate would be more rigid and the difference in temperature between the poles and equator would be higher.
The waters of the oceans moving from equator to the poles shift towards higher latitudes the heat stored at low latitudes. The movement of heat is made along the meridians and depends on the difference of solar energy that the Earth receives at the equator than at the poles, from the direction of the winds, by continents and the horizontal component of the flow of heat from Earth's rotation.
The system of their movement, similar to a conveyor belt, shuffle medium height waters of the great depth with those superficial. When the warm equatorial waters reach the poles their density increases due to the cooling that causes an increase in salinity. The water then became heavier and moves toward the bottom, triggering the mechanism of the conveyor belt whose movement has great influence on the climate.
In addition to affect the climate, oceans also have another important function: the regulation of carbon cycle. Indeed the upper layers of ocean water recycle a quantity of carbon higher than that is present in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide: part of this carbon was treated by plankton during photosynthesis and returned to its part through breathing the same bodies; the rest are filed at great depths and was used by other marine organisms to form shells or skeletons.
But now things are changing.
Some research done in one of the oceans that has been more active in absorbing carbon dioxide, the Antarctic Ocean, show that there is a radical change in its function of "recycling" of carbon dioxide. In fact due to global warming, the Antarctic Ocean is less and less able to absorb the carbon dioxide produced by humans. Research shows like this one has begun to absorb from the atmosphere ever less carbon dioxide. According to these surveys the cause can be attributed to increased local heating which led the Antarctic seas to be much more windy than in the past with the result that water, increasingly agitated, are no longer able to absorb carbon dioxide, at a rate related to the large amount of it produced by the globalized economic activities.
Corinne Le Quéré and colleagues of the University of East Anglia found that as the Antarctic Ocean will became increasingly windy, there is a greater mixing of water that brings the most cold and deep, and then more loads of carbon, to rise to the surface, releasing, in the atmosphere, part of carbon dioxide "trapped " in depth. To Restore a "normal" wind activity over the Arctic and a "normal" temperature would help to reactivate the mechanism of the belt over to reactivate the function of its waters, big squanderers of carbon dioxide (see Atlas Project http://wwwrlangone2.blogspot.com).
However, interventions more easy to be implemented in order to reduce carbon dioxide, must go in two directions. The first concerns the role of vegetation in absorbing carbon dioxide, the second is lied to its drastic reduction in emissions from human globalized activities.
Thanks to a survey of scientist of Stanford, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we know that the influence of trees on climate change occurs primarily through three mechanisms, two cooling, one heating. Temperatures drop due to absorption of carbon dioxide and transpiration (the mechanism that generates the clouds by water evaporation), and rise through the ownership of the leaves to catch the sunlight. Only the first of these mechanisms remains unchanged with the latitude, while the other two functions can also give opposite effects from one place to another of the planet. The negative effects of plants are found in a more evident way in boreal areas, but they would not appear at tropics, where the action by the luxuriant vegetation remains useful. So planting a tree in Canada or Russia is not advantageous as in Cuba.
If the ground wet of tropics allows plants to generate clouds that mitigate the heat of the sun's rays, a forest on a snowy field, however, fails to make the sky cloudy and thus balance the high absorption of light. What concerns us, however, is the role that plants have at all latitudes: absorption of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Then, in order, it would be useful a logging planned and cyclical (taking into account the preservation of biodiversity) of the existing forests. This is because old forests catch very little carbon dioxide and should be replaced with new vegetation that to grow will absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. If by the calculations that area is not sufficient we can program the increase of it through the transformation of desert areas in fertile areas, by irrigation facilities fed by thousands of desalinators.
We have seen previously that there are new equipments, that by using nanotechnology, it is possible to do this extremely cost-effective. We have also seen how it is possible, using their nature, and then across oceans and vegetation, enable the processes of absorption in excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But this would not help anything if we do not drastically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.
So if we covered extensive areas of the Earth, such as deserts, with material reflecting the sunlight, we would prevent to these large areas to heat and emit infrared radiation, thus changing the energy that determines the greenhouse effect.
The desert areas are such because they generally are not overhanged from clouds that intercept solar radiation arriving. In these areas the atmosphere is transparent to sunlight rays and therefore it would be transparent to sunlight reflected to space by the reflective material placed there. Obviously a small amount of infrared radiation would be retained in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, but it would be very small proportion compared with the infrared radiation emitted by deserts heated by solar radiation.
Or on the contrary, we could fill those vast desert areas of black material (strongly absorbing light). In this case the light from the sun would be absorbed in all its components and not emitted towards the atmosphere and space. Such a surface would heat a lot and, if we subtracted it this heat, for example with fluid contained in tubes, we should join the return to the pleasure, using the hot fluids for different activities. Of course, the total thermodynamic equilibrium is always restored, but at least we would have a little more time to think about what to do before that our planet become an hell. Or…
Or we could try to reduce the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I think that we could do that by adapting a mix of interventions, partner - politicians - cheap on the one hand, and physical - technological on the other. Let’s talk about the latter.
Carbon dioxide produced by human activity has been absorbed mainly from the oceans and vegetation. Then oceans and vegetation are the main "macrophages" of carbon dioxide.
In order for the oceans to continue to absorb large amounts of carbon dioxide the natural conditions of temperature difference between the equatorial belt and the polar areas should be assessed as soon as possible. To do that quickly we need global interventions (see Project Atlas http://www.rlangone2.blogspot.com).
The oceans are in fact an immense thermal reserve cause they retain the heat for a time higher than the lands.
Without the ocean climate would be more rigid and the difference in temperature between the poles and equator would be higher.
The waters of the oceans moving from equator to the poles shift towards higher latitudes the heat stored at low latitudes. The movement of heat is made along the meridians and depends on the difference of solar energy that the Earth receives at the equator than at the poles, from the direction of the winds, by continents and the horizontal component of the flow of heat from Earth's rotation.
The system of their movement, similar to a conveyor belt, shuffle medium height waters of the great depth with those superficial. When the warm equatorial waters reach the poles their density increases due to the cooling that causes an increase in salinity. The water then became heavier and moves toward the bottom, triggering the mechanism of the conveyor belt whose movement has great influence on the climate.
In addition to affect the climate, oceans also have another important function: the regulation of carbon cycle. Indeed the upper layers of ocean water recycle a quantity of carbon higher than that is present in the atmosphere like carbon dioxide: part of this carbon was treated by plankton during photosynthesis and returned to its part through breathing the same bodies; the rest are filed at great depths and was used by other marine organisms to form shells or skeletons.
But now things are changing.
Some research done in one of the oceans that has been more active in absorbing carbon dioxide, the Antarctic Ocean, show that there is a radical change in its function of "recycling" of carbon dioxide. In fact due to global warming, the Antarctic Ocean is less and less able to absorb the carbon dioxide produced by humans. Research shows like this one has begun to absorb from the atmosphere ever less carbon dioxide. According to these surveys the cause can be attributed to increased local heating which led the Antarctic seas to be much more windy than in the past with the result that water, increasingly agitated, are no longer able to absorb carbon dioxide, at a rate related to the large amount of it produced by the globalized economic activities.
Corinne Le Quéré and colleagues of the University of East Anglia found that as the Antarctic Ocean will became increasingly windy, there is a greater mixing of water that brings the most cold and deep, and then more loads of carbon, to rise to the surface, releasing, in the atmosphere, part of carbon dioxide "trapped " in depth. To Restore a "normal" wind activity over the Arctic and a "normal" temperature would help to reactivate the mechanism of the belt over to reactivate the function of its waters, big squanderers of carbon dioxide (see Atlas Project http://wwwrlangone2.blogspot.com).
However, interventions more easy to be implemented in order to reduce carbon dioxide, must go in two directions. The first concerns the role of vegetation in absorbing carbon dioxide, the second is lied to its drastic reduction in emissions from human globalized activities.
Thanks to a survey of scientist of Stanford, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, we know that the influence of trees on climate change occurs primarily through three mechanisms, two cooling, one heating. Temperatures drop due to absorption of carbon dioxide and transpiration (the mechanism that generates the clouds by water evaporation), and rise through the ownership of the leaves to catch the sunlight. Only the first of these mechanisms remains unchanged with the latitude, while the other two functions can also give opposite effects from one place to another of the planet. The negative effects of plants are found in a more evident way in boreal areas, but they would not appear at tropics, where the action by the luxuriant vegetation remains useful. So planting a tree in Canada or Russia is not advantageous as in Cuba.
If the ground wet of tropics allows plants to generate clouds that mitigate the heat of the sun's rays, a forest on a snowy field, however, fails to make the sky cloudy and thus balance the high absorption of light. What concerns us, however, is the role that plants have at all latitudes: absorption of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Then, in order, it would be useful a logging planned and cyclical (taking into account the preservation of biodiversity) of the existing forests. This is because old forests catch very little carbon dioxide and should be replaced with new vegetation that to grow will absorb a lot of carbon dioxide. If by the calculations that area is not sufficient we can program the increase of it through the transformation of desert areas in fertile areas, by irrigation facilities fed by thousands of desalinators.
We have seen previously that there are new equipments, that by using nanotechnology, it is possible to do this extremely cost-effective. We have also seen how it is possible, using their nature, and then across oceans and vegetation, enable the processes of absorption in excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But this would not help anything if we do not drastically reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.
Socio-political and technological solutions
The first thing is pick up and run the redesign of cities. Urban transport for human activities is the parameter that contributes most to emissions of carbon dioxide. Reducing the causes and reasons for urban mobility will allow a drastic reduction of greenhouse gases. People should have no more than 10 -15 minute walk to everything they need to live, work, education, recreation, care etc.
At the same time we must support those searches directed to transform carbon dioxide into useful fuel.
Therefore we have to exploit the carbon content in CO2, transforming this greenhouse gas from problem to resource. The conversion of CO2 in fuel is not a dream but a real possibility that requires further studies. The research could allow to not enter, into the atmosphere, additional quantities of carbon dioxide emitted, by transforming that human activities in fuel useful. One of the problematic aspects of this gas is that it is highly stable. The chemical bonds of CO2, once trained, are extremely difficult to separate. The new technique, in the course of the trial, allows special catalysts to get this division and to create long chain molecules of carbon that can be easily converted into fuels.
The energy needed to separate this type of chemical bonds, even with catalysts, is very high. Maybe proceeding in two phases, first using sunlight (concentration plants) with a titanium catalyst that helps to separate the water molecules with the consequent release of free protons (hydrogen ions), electrons and oxygen gas. Then, in a second phase, using the free electrons to reduce CO2, which allows, through the use of catalysts platinum and palladium based, in carbon nanotubes, to link between their carbon atoms. If that could work, especially if the energy needed to replace solar and for both phases is that emitted by a laser powered by solar or wind power, who knows! We need more research… Imagine what would happen if the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted from power plants fired by fossil fuels were treated with this or other similar technology…we could return to hope. And this hope could increase for example if we think to those devices on which scientists are working in different research centres, that quickly could be able to capture the infrared energy emitted from Earth and transforming it into electricity. The material that exploits nanotechnology would be the first solar cells capable of administering the invisible infrared radiation of the sun. The researchers combined specially designed nanoparticles (so-called quantum dot) with a polymer, resulting in a plastic able to capture the infrared energy. Achieving this goal leads to predict future development of solar panels five times more efficient than possible with current technology. The rays of the sun reaching the earth's surface carry 10,000 times more energy than we consume.
If we could cover the 0.1 percent of the surface of the Earth with solar panels very efficient, we could theoretically replace all existing power plants with a source of clean and renewable energy. Among other things, the construction of nanotech devices that convert into electricity the infrared radiation emitted from the bodies at the environmental temperature or slightly above, would significantly increase the performance of technological tools commonly used by humans, from car to hair dryer, the clothes we dress, the pots with which we prepare food, and large equipment, such as medical diagnostic radiology equipment (TAC), could be reduced in size by camera. Increasing the efficiency and reducing the size of equipment means consume less energy and therefore burn less fossil fuels and then placing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Finally, to the technical interventions described above, we must add another one of socio-political nature, namely we must change the economic organization of the neo-liberal society, head of possible environmental disaster coming the next years. We must change the rules of world trade, reversing order in this historical phase, and economic value of protagonism should be a revolution that is proactive in the economy. This revolution must start from the citizen, the consumer who must move from passive object to active subject of the economic system, claiming and taking a central role in social life and production of each country. The policy, the current policy also voiced by democracies can not change the rules of WTO. It has a strength, but the Multinational corporations have more. How do? What to do? Today, the citizen consumer is alone at the mercy of everything and everyone. Multinationals and corporations merge among themselves to have fewer costs and increasing revenues. To achieve the goal of increasingly earning they are using any means, no matter if it reduces the world to a cloaca, a gas chamber, an increasingly hot oven. Result: the citizen consumer, in any corner of the planet he live, he have to pay the consequences, also suffering the adverse effects of climate change. So the planet can only be saved by him, the consumer. Question: What would happen if consumers were in groups of purchase? What would happen if, for example, U.S., Canadian, Italian, German, French, British, Spanish consumers were organize in buying groups, in "international of consumption"? It’s simple, they would alter the rules governing the functioning of markets and it especially could impact on the lifestyle because the next planetary disaster.
If we make in every of these nations this kind of group of purchase, there would be about five million consumers organized by country, by quarter, by city, by province, region, for several regions, and it would become a compact force of twenty million individuals (one average of 4 per family) able to modify and break the economic equilibrium established. On the economic function of buying groups of consumers, how it would change the economic rules, behaviour etc, I could write a treatise separately. The changes of the economic system are necessary, but they could need too much time. The buying groups of citizens consumers may instead build and operate quickly, because it is mature the conscience of so many individuals who feel tired to be passive objects of the economic system, tired of delegating their role of citizen. In many people there is an increasingly need of reappropriating of the right to civil and economic citizenship ..
At the same time we must support those searches directed to transform carbon dioxide into useful fuel.
Therefore we have to exploit the carbon content in CO2, transforming this greenhouse gas from problem to resource. The conversion of CO2 in fuel is not a dream but a real possibility that requires further studies. The research could allow to not enter, into the atmosphere, additional quantities of carbon dioxide emitted, by transforming that human activities in fuel useful. One of the problematic aspects of this gas is that it is highly stable. The chemical bonds of CO2, once trained, are extremely difficult to separate. The new technique, in the course of the trial, allows special catalysts to get this division and to create long chain molecules of carbon that can be easily converted into fuels.
The energy needed to separate this type of chemical bonds, even with catalysts, is very high. Maybe proceeding in two phases, first using sunlight (concentration plants) with a titanium catalyst that helps to separate the water molecules with the consequent release of free protons (hydrogen ions), electrons and oxygen gas. Then, in a second phase, using the free electrons to reduce CO2, which allows, through the use of catalysts platinum and palladium based, in carbon nanotubes, to link between their carbon atoms. If that could work, especially if the energy needed to replace solar and for both phases is that emitted by a laser powered by solar or wind power, who knows! We need more research… Imagine what would happen if the billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide emitted from power plants fired by fossil fuels were treated with this or other similar technology…we could return to hope. And this hope could increase for example if we think to those devices on which scientists are working in different research centres, that quickly could be able to capture the infrared energy emitted from Earth and transforming it into electricity. The material that exploits nanotechnology would be the first solar cells capable of administering the invisible infrared radiation of the sun. The researchers combined specially designed nanoparticles (so-called quantum dot) with a polymer, resulting in a plastic able to capture the infrared energy. Achieving this goal leads to predict future development of solar panels five times more efficient than possible with current technology. The rays of the sun reaching the earth's surface carry 10,000 times more energy than we consume.
If we could cover the 0.1 percent of the surface of the Earth with solar panels very efficient, we could theoretically replace all existing power plants with a source of clean and renewable energy. Among other things, the construction of nanotech devices that convert into electricity the infrared radiation emitted from the bodies at the environmental temperature or slightly above, would significantly increase the performance of technological tools commonly used by humans, from car to hair dryer, the clothes we dress, the pots with which we prepare food, and large equipment, such as medical diagnostic radiology equipment (TAC), could be reduced in size by camera. Increasing the efficiency and reducing the size of equipment means consume less energy and therefore burn less fossil fuels and then placing less carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
Finally, to the technical interventions described above, we must add another one of socio-political nature, namely we must change the economic organization of the neo-liberal society, head of possible environmental disaster coming the next years. We must change the rules of world trade, reversing order in this historical phase, and economic value of protagonism should be a revolution that is proactive in the economy. This revolution must start from the citizen, the consumer who must move from passive object to active subject of the economic system, claiming and taking a central role in social life and production of each country. The policy, the current policy also voiced by democracies can not change the rules of WTO. It has a strength, but the Multinational corporations have more. How do? What to do? Today, the citizen consumer is alone at the mercy of everything and everyone. Multinationals and corporations merge among themselves to have fewer costs and increasing revenues. To achieve the goal of increasingly earning they are using any means, no matter if it reduces the world to a cloaca, a gas chamber, an increasingly hot oven. Result: the citizen consumer, in any corner of the planet he live, he have to pay the consequences, also suffering the adverse effects of climate change. So the planet can only be saved by him, the consumer. Question: What would happen if consumers were in groups of purchase? What would happen if, for example, U.S., Canadian, Italian, German, French, British, Spanish consumers were organize in buying groups, in "international of consumption"? It’s simple, they would alter the rules governing the functioning of markets and it especially could impact on the lifestyle because the next planetary disaster.
If we make in every of these nations this kind of group of purchase, there would be about five million consumers organized by country, by quarter, by city, by province, region, for several regions, and it would become a compact force of twenty million individuals (one average of 4 per family) able to modify and break the economic equilibrium established. On the economic function of buying groups of consumers, how it would change the economic rules, behaviour etc, I could write a treatise separately. The changes of the economic system are necessary, but they could need too much time. The buying groups of citizens consumers may instead build and operate quickly, because it is mature the conscience of so many individuals who feel tired to be passive objects of the economic system, tired of delegating their role of citizen. In many people there is an increasingly need of reappropriating of the right to civil and economic citizenship ..
Universal Ethics
The solutions can be found, but we have to overcome the global divisions that exist between the peoples of the world. And this can occur only giving rules or better an universal and secular ethics, not a religious one, without God, where individual autonomy, the uniqueness and freedom of every person is the basis of moral responsibility in our common humanity . An ethic entirely rooted in human nature and so rooted in the same living around us, and able to promote the universality of certain rules that we can accept, following our human feelings and, above all, our right. Here the speech would be too long. It’s worth only remember the sometimes negative role played by religion in the history of humanity. You may be believer or not-believer, but even if there were religions "inspired" by a God, when men manage this "inspiration", the structure of earthly power that is derived was always oriented to the oppression of the weakest . And this is something absolute, not relative. And among the weak there is also the nature, sacked, vilified and mutilated by another dogmatic absolutism, id est the real socialism. In countries formerly communist the damage to the environment are the worst that the human mind could conceive. Fortunately that "religious policy" has been wiped out by the rationality of history. But this was possible because there was a religion which promised a better material well-being, different. And when this was not the case for women and men fooled by that chimera, they were able to bury it in the chasms of history. Religions "inspired" by God instead promises a "virtual welfare", in retrospect, not verifiable, intangible… .. and are supported and supplied by the irrationality of history. Moreover, an ethic that should apply universally to all peoples of the Earth can only be an ethics without God, avoiding so the conflicts between "different God" to which the peoples of the world believe nawadays. And even when God is the same as in the case of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, the revelation, the message is understood and lived differently, both within the same religions that as opposed to each other, because there are several human structures of power that are derived by them. But it needs to be done soon, the Earth boat approaches dangerously the cascade of time beyond which the time is no longer…
Scientific Research
While we discuss and adopt universal ethical rules we need to not stand still but to act, beginning to massively fund scientific research and technology. The nations in the coming years should allocate financial resources for research for not less than 5% of its GDP. And the companies on an individual basis or combined, depending on their size, should do the same, allocating not less than 5% of their revenues to projects of coordinated technological research. And to this effort should be forced to take part especially the "finance companies" that should give seeking not less than 10% of their revenues.
Today about 90% of the financial resources of the planet are used for speculative purposes. Just 10% is intended for production activities and work. We need people to understand that it is better to leave to their children a house less and a stock portfolio less, swollen in a healthy and liveable environment rather than castles, palaces and portfolios swollen in an “hell environment”.
Today about 90% of the financial resources of the planet are used for speculative purposes. Just 10% is intended for production activities and work. We need people to understand that it is better to leave to their children a house less and a stock portfolio less, swollen in a healthy and liveable environment rather than castles, palaces and portfolios swollen in an “hell environment”.
A personal memory, friar Joseph Lazzaro
When I was a boy I asked my teacher of religion for what was the free will.
The late lamented friar Joseph Lazzaro of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who was a physicist, thought a bit and then he gave me the following explanation. "Raffaele" - told me-"imagines you to be on the top of a mountain from which you domains with your eyes the entire valley below. On that same valley, there is a river in which a boat is carrying your friends during trips. You, who are on the top of the mountain, you can see with your eyes the past and the future of the people navigating the boat. You could see, for example, that a few kilometers from the point where at that moment the boat is, there is a large waterfall. You would like to warn your friends, you arm, you scream, do everything possible to warn them but you are too far, you can not succeed. What will happen to the boat? It will bang with all its load on the rocks below or save? It will depend on the occupiers of the boat. If these people, your friends and its crew, will carouse, they will not read any premonitory signal that reveals the possible danger signals such as increased speed of surface water and hence the current of the river, the formation of reels etc., the boat in this case will continue navigating bringing to destruction its load. Conversely, if your friends who are on the boat interpret correctly and on time signals announcing an imminent danger, they will be able to do "all machines back" and they will be saved. Like you can see, Raffaele, said friar Joseph Lazarus, everything will depend on the behaviour of the boat occupants, from them and only them. The free will mean “ to decide through awareness and knowledge of its own destiny. "
Today the boat is called Earth, its passengers are all living species and the entire humanity. The helmsmen of this boat are "chosen few". The warning signs of a possible imminent disaster are clear and known. Will the boat Earth to do "all machines back" and trace the current of the river of time? I have my doubts…
The late lamented friar Joseph Lazzaro of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who was a physicist, thought a bit and then he gave me the following explanation. "Raffaele" - told me-"imagines you to be on the top of a mountain from which you domains with your eyes the entire valley below. On that same valley, there is a river in which a boat is carrying your friends during trips. You, who are on the top of the mountain, you can see with your eyes the past and the future of the people navigating the boat. You could see, for example, that a few kilometers from the point where at that moment the boat is, there is a large waterfall. You would like to warn your friends, you arm, you scream, do everything possible to warn them but you are too far, you can not succeed. What will happen to the boat? It will bang with all its load on the rocks below or save? It will depend on the occupiers of the boat. If these people, your friends and its crew, will carouse, they will not read any premonitory signal that reveals the possible danger signals such as increased speed of surface water and hence the current of the river, the formation of reels etc., the boat in this case will continue navigating bringing to destruction its load. Conversely, if your friends who are on the boat interpret correctly and on time signals announcing an imminent danger, they will be able to do "all machines back" and they will be saved. Like you can see, Raffaele, said friar Joseph Lazarus, everything will depend on the behaviour of the boat occupants, from them and only them. The free will mean “ to decide through awareness and knowledge of its own destiny. "
Today the boat is called Earth, its passengers are all living species and the entire humanity. The helmsmen of this boat are "chosen few". The warning signs of a possible imminent disaster are clear and known. Will the boat Earth to do "all machines back" and trace the current of the river of time? I have my doubts…
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