atmosphere

leslie dean brown · October 1, 2017

“It is very disturbing when the amorality of scientists unites the immorality of politicians.” — Jurandyr Arone Maues

“amorality of scientists”? You’ve got to be joking! Now you’ve done it.

Do you think scientists want global warming to be true? No, I can assure you that we don’t want it to be true. I personally would rather carry on regardless with my affinity for fossil-fuel powered sports motorbikes, BUT I can’t simply ‘forget’ my science education. Can I?

First of all, we’ve already told you. Many times over. But apparently non-scientists are not as ‘logical’ as scientists. Other things seem to get in the way of your reasoning. Things like lifestyle and belief systems. Social inertia. Conspiracy theories. Conservatives. Religion.

We could come up with the most irrefutable evidence you could imagine and still there would be loads of people that would think “it’s all a giant conspiracy”. Because they’re hooked on vehicles, consumer goods and international air travel. Right?

Most people are almost born with this ideology that “work is good” and “work can’t be bad”. It’s indoctrinated into us all through our schooling and beyond. We’re all taught to “do something of benefit”. People who are brought up with religion automatically think “man can do no harm”. Wrong! We invented the thermonuclear bomb. I think everyone agrees that they’re very destructive man-made things.

And the thing is, nuclear bombs are essentially atomic-scale devices. We invented all sorts of poisons that can kill off entire ecosystems. Guess what? Poisons are molecular scale devices also.

Almost every single change or consequence in this universe is brought about by the small scale influencing the big scale. For example, my expertise is in materials (that’s how I know about IR spectroscopy); every single material you can touch is influenced by the arrangement of its atoms. Every single one. It’s the difference between charcoal and diamond. They’re both carbon-based materials. The only difference is the atomic stacking. That’s it. That’s why superman can squeeze a lump of coal and turn it into diamond.

I think deniers need to just stop already and take a much-needed reality check. And fast. Just leave your preconceived ideas at the door. Is it so hard to believe that what we do affects our environment? Is it?! If we keep on making changes at the *local* scale, and we keep on doing this *all over the planet*, that means we are *already* doing things on a global scale. Just because you can’t SEE all of those exhaust pipes in front of you, doesn’t mean they’re not contributing.

Likewise, just because you can’t comprehend how a tiny thing like a molecule can influence a whole planet, doesn’t mean it’s not happening either. We already know that changes in one scale can and do influence another. There are storms all over the planet Venus for example. Do you know why? Well according to planetary scientists, it’s because of its atmosphere.

Do me a favour, read this. That’s the link between CO2 and absorption of radiation. That’s the mechanism right there. There is no doubt about the IR spectra of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

But it’s not a question of one lone molecule, is it? Do you know how much volume of gas one tonne of CO2 represents? Do you? 1 tonne of CO2 gas occupies 557 thousand litres.

Now try to imagine the NUMBER of molecules. It’s right up there. Forget tonnes. Forget litres. Let’s talk about the actual number of molecules for a change. The USA emits emits approximately 71,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of these molecules every single year. Do you see how many zeroes that is? That is no exaggeration. That is a real number estimate that I have personally calculated. We are talking “duodecillions” of molecules here, all over the world.

Now granted there are a lot of molecules in a teacup (a lot less than this, I can assure you). But I hope that at least *some* people who read this can now begin to see how this goes from being a molecular-scale problem to a planetary-scale problem.

And not only that. We know there are tipping points. We know about chaos theory. We know about “sensitive dependence on initial conditions”. What the hell am I on about now? Well for example if Hitler had have got into art school, instead of being rejected, then there WW2 probably wouldn’t have happened. Would it?

And the thing is, we can see the carbon dioxide concentration is increasing all over the world. So that is measurable. And the electromagnetic spectrum of greenhouse gases are also measurable (and let me tell you, their repeatability is undeniable).

Next deniers will tell you that plants love CO2. And so does phytoplankton. Not according to this study.

Well sorry to alarm you, but forests and oceans can’t seem to keep up. Because if they could, the CO2 concentration would stabilise. But it doesn’t. It keeps rising. And the more forests we cut down, the higher it goes. Indeed, it should already be obvious. Because if they loved the extra CO2, they would already be making use of it.

Do you know what those little serrations are on this graph? I read somewhere that each one of those jumps represents and entire growing season for deciduous plants (because there are more in one hemisphere than in the other). And judging by that graph, you can even see that the leaves fall from the trees faster than they grow. That’s what that is.

Those little zig-zag jumps you can see are the effectiveness of the planet’s lungs. Each year they take a breath. And each year, it looks like they are suffocating ever so slightly more. You might say the concentration of CO2 might not matter to them. It probably doesn’t. But the fact is, global warming would still occur even without any trees, as it does on the planet Venus, the “greenhouse capital” of the solar system.

And this problem we are facing is no different to another anthropogenic global problem: ozone hole problem. Remember? Nobody denied that! And I’ll tell you why nobody denied that. Because it was EASIER to give up CFCs and swap over to a different aerosol propellant, wasn’t it? Simple. Done.

Try to realise that if the Earth’s atmosphere doesn’t actually go on forever. It’s less than 10km thick. People commute more than that on a daily basis. Ethiopians walk more than that on a daily basis just to get enough water. It’s actually very thin when you think of it like that (as all astronauts and cosmonauts will tell you).

And that was what Carl Sagan was trying to say with his book “Pale blue dot”. Carl Sagan was truly brilliant at making ordinary people appreciate big and small numbers. Well I’m going to go one further than Carl. And I’m going to bring it right down to human-scale proportions. If the Earth’s atmosphere was condensed into a solid, it would be only 12.2 metres thick. That’s it. That’s all we’re playing with.

Now try to recall every single time you filled up your fuel tank. Can you remember? That’s 50kg or more at a time. If you had to carry that 50kg every time you filled up your car, you’d probably be more aware of the amount of carbon you’re burning. But it just flows up into the petrol bowser, down through the hose and out the nozzle without you even lifting a finger.

Now try to remember every single time you turned on a light switch or plugged something in. All that electricity had to come from somewhere too (like when coal and gas were scooped up by the truckload at all the mining sites dotted around this planet and burned in power stations that you can’t even see).

And now try to remember every single thing you have ever bought. Tonnes of invisible (invisible to you) carbon dioxide went into making all the stuff we buy. Tonnes. Incidentally, that is why the manufacturing industry doesn’t want to talk about climate change either (because they’re too involved in it).

Now. All that CO2. Have you planted that much carbon in the mean time? Has your garden grown and gained tonnes and tonnes of weight? Or has it been urbanised instead– chopped down and flattened? Has your soil got that much richer? No. The answer is “no it hasn’t”. All of that carbon has been taken from underground mines and dispersed into the atmosphere.

Try to think of all of that carbon being sprinkled onto the 12.2 metre frozen sea of air. Try to think of it that way. Try to think of all those duodecillions of molecules “doing their thing”. Try to think of it that way.

QED.

leslie dean brown · September 10, 2017

Yes we certainly do become a bit fanatical. Why? Why is that? Let’s take a look:

Because the basic hypothesis here is is that our actions directly affect our environment. It really is that simple. It’s no different than pouring a tonne of cyanide into a lake. What do you think is going to happen? Fish will die is what will happen. Likewise, modern technology can and does have the potential to affect the atmosphere. You can either accept it or you can bury your head in the sand like an ostrich.

I think a lot of people don’t get the connection between the vibration of countless tiny molecules and temperature. That’s why I like to share this information.

When you study science, you soon learn that scientists must be open minded. A closed-minded scientist is all but useless. What good would it do a scientist if their own personal belief systems got in the way of their research? Can you imagine if I “didn’t believe” that fluorine gas reacts violently with potassium? So I go to the chemical laboratory and proceed to mix 4kg of potassium with 100 moles of fluorine gas, “just for fun”, because I “believe” nothing is going to happen. That would be a very dangerous personal belief. Right?

A scientist can take a look at new data and go “oh okay, that’s news to me.” You’ve now changed his outlook and it has only taken a few minutes/hours. But it has taken the rest of the world THREE DECADES to catch up. THREE DECADES! And still you have people who don’t believe there is a correlation.

It truly baffles me. I think the denial has NOTHING to do with carbon dioxide vs temperature and it has EVERYTHING to do with people’s lifestyles and careers.

Why don’t you deny atomic charges? Or electromagnetism theory? Or molecular bonding? No. You cherry pick the parts of science you want to agree with and to hell with the rest of it (most likely because you drive a car and you want to *continue* driving it).

Did you know that it actually takes more time to become a science doctor than a medical doctor? It took me nine years of full time study. Where is the respect? For many people, there isn’t any. And it probably takes close to two whole decades to become a professor… these are *very* knowledgeable people.

So, yes. Yes we do become a bit fanatical. We become fanatical because the fossil fuel industry even knows it to be true, but they don’t do anything! We become fanatical because you have people like googly-eyed “Lord Monckton” claiming they know what they are talking about when in reality they are totally scamming people.

leslie dean brown · August 18, 2017

Here’s the kind of thing you see when you hang out on LinkedIn for a while:

RECAP FOR THOSE I LALA LAND THE MARKET HAS BEEN ON FIRE BECAUSE OF TRUMP UP 2500 POINTS IN 6 MONTHS MOST IN THE FIRST 60DAYS NOW OMG DOWN 200 BECAUSE OF THE SPIN OF WORDS BY THE MEDIA…THE TRUE AMERICAN ENEMY IS BLM OBAMA CLINTONS AND THIS F… UP MEDIA GIVE TRUMP A BREAK AND SUPPORT HIM STOP WASTING HIS TIME DEALING WITH THE STUPIDEST PEOPLE ON THE PLANET AND THERE BS STOP THE HATE NOW WE ARE ONE AMERICAN — Mike Pienciak

And here is my response to that:

Did you see the stock price for NAT shares though, since Trump got in? NAT shares are down. Way down. And when I say NAT, I don’t mean “Nordic American Tanker Ltd” on the NYSE. I mean NAT, on the global stock exchange, the GSE.

ENV shares are down too! Once again, I don’t mean “Envestnet Inc”. I mean ENV, on the global stock exchange, the GSE.

And isn’t it telling of business today that NYSE:ENV and NYSE:NAT do not represent nature or the environment? Quite the opposite. In actual fact they represent gas pipelines and supermax oil tankers, respectively.

Every time the Nasdaq, the S&P, the Dow jones go up, GSE:NAT and GSE:ENV invariably go down¹. Way down. I think it’s because we don’t know any other way.

Maybe the only reason the stock market “is on fire” is because Mr. Trumpet wants to abolish the EPA? Maybe it’s very telling of business today. That while stock markets are, as you say, “on fire”, the Earth is figuratively burning up also.

The trouble is this: when GSE:NAT and GSE:ENV go down, all other stocks will soon follow. This should be like a law already.

It’s not all about the stock market. Do you know WHY there is not stock market on planet Mars or planet Venus? Because there is no breathable atmosphere. So maybe “business at all cost” types should consider that before their next next trade? You know, invest in something other than money?

If you could measure the worth, the market capital of GSE:NAT and GSE:ENV, it would put the rest of the worlds’ stock exchanges to shame. If we had to pay for these services, humanity would be bankrupt. Bankrupt I tell you! Bankrupt!

Traditional economic stock markets are all but a meaningless evaluation. All of them incorrectly report the true value of the Earth’s assets. If our environment cannot even be maintained, then one must ask the next logical question: just how ‘sustainable’ are “sustainable business models”?

By the way, I’m not here to make friends. I’m not here to get more connections. Or leads. Or clients. I’m here to make people think. Clients will always be there, biodiversity won’t. 2c

Oh and it is ‘their’. The word you are looking for is their, not there.

leslie dean brown · January 10, 2017

🙂

Going to Mars is harder than getting to the top of Mt. Everest. And I don’t see anyone living way up there on the summit.

Dear Mr. Musk, I think a better way of doing it is to genetically engineer bacteria to produce an atmosphere first, over successive generations. Generations as in plural, i.e. more than one.

One simple reason we’re where we’re at today is because nature has provided us with abundant raw materials. It started with the use of solar powered materials (by that I mean twine and timber). There are no solar powered materials on Mars. No trees. No forests. The most efficient materials (in terms of energy required to produce them) are natural materials, because they convert sunlight directly into… materials. No heat required. All other synthetic materials require lots of energy to produce.

If I were hired to do a materials feasibility study, I would have to rule that it is “not yet feasible”. Even with the invention of “Martian concrete”. How are are you going to make hermetically sealed living quarters out of that slop? Are they going to be shoveling Martian concrete… wearing gas masks? Builders can’t even get that right here on Earth with abundant food, water and a 21% oxygen level. None of that over there. Is there?

My point is that nature is still subsidising all of humanity’s activities, even today. So we would be going backward centuries, millennia even. You can’t even light a fire on the planet Mars. What good is that? People today would be bored out of their minds.

IMHO, trying to colonise Mars now is going to be 10x slower, 10x more expensive and 10x more boring than expected. Besides, if we were all living on the planet Mars now under domed little roofs, I’m sure we’d all want to live here –on the interesting planet– not there.

And the way production and manufacturing has worked up until now is this: several tens of thousands of years ago, wood and other natural, local materials were first used to to usher in the ceramic/pottery era … which was then used to usher in the bronze era … which was then used to usher in the iron era … which was used to usher in the modern information & nanotechnology era. We have always had to work our way up the material chain. And all the while, well, nature herself has been subsidising us all along. With the really important things like food and oxygen.

My point is, we didn’t just jump straight into making gigahertz computers, we had to work up to it. Slooowly.

So it would be a bit like taking our current technology back in time, to the ancient Egyptians. Now to the big question: How much technology would we need to take to them to advance the rest of that civilisation in one big, massive jump forwards?

So right along those lines, here’s a quick thought experiment: say you take a smartphone back in time to the ancient Egyptians. Does anyone truly think that that would be ‘enough’ to start making mass-produced batches of smartphones right next to the pyramids o Giza? Well in case it isn’t clear already, it’s not.

Because first of all, there are no microscopes to even see what is going on inside that phone to even reverse-engineer that technology. And in order to get the microscopes, one has to first invent glass. And to do that, one needs polishing machines. Which requires motors. Axles. Bearings. Magnets. Copper wire. Electrical insulation. Ok. Now that we have that, on to making the components. Capacitors require tantalum. Touch screens require indium. Tin. Oxygen.

What are resistors made of? Carbon. Nichrome wire. Plenty of that here on Earth… not so much on Mars. Okay, not to be the pessimistic one, what are circuit boards made of? Fibreglass. What is the matrix made of? Plastic. What are plastic buttons and the casing made of? Plastic. No oil wells on Mars yet. Shit. Where is the nearest fibreglass factory? Where is the nearest plastic factory? Yellow pages? Hmmm. This is going to be more difficult than we first thought, isn’t it?

Never mind, we will continue, however.

What about the semiconductors used in all those tiny transistors? Germanium. Germanium is hard enough to get our hands on here, let alone there (with no atmosphere). Do you see my point? And there are many other elements required too. Where is the nearest gadolinium mine? Earth, that’s where.

Where are the silicon mines and purifying factories located on Mars? Nowhere. Don’t we need vacuum rooms for that as well? Well, yes. Why? Because the ‘vacuum’ that is the Mars’ atmosphere… is simply not ‘vacuumy’ enough. We need an ultra-high vacuum to achieve high-grade 99.999% purity silicon. So we are going to take vacuum pumps with us now are we? They’re pretty heavy. And every scientist already knows— you can never ever get down to an ultra-high vacuum with only one type of vacuum pump. Better make that rocket booster a bit bigger for the takeoff. Still more rocket fuel than expected.

Ahh yes, there is this one new technique to manufacture 99.999% silicon from 84% ferrosilicon. Except that it requires a sol-gel lab. Glassware at the very least. Liquids. Centrifuges. Magnets. Neodymium. Oh well.

So what you space futurists are basically telling me is that you would have to bring all of these starting materials… from Earth first… simply in order to “get going”.

I can’t even yet buy a fucking Mars bar on the planet Mars. And we are already talking about colonising that motherfucker?

“For a better world?”
Which world exactly?

Timely reminder: there is a whole freakin’ industry required to produce computers and everything else from their raw materials. A whole level of industry. Everything from mining equipment to extraction facilities, to manufacturing centres and clean rooms. The only way a Mars colony could ever be truly self-sustaining, is to take several different types of factories –yes I said entire factories– with us.

And everyone already knows small factories are not as efficient as larger factories, right? So in case the purpose of this post isn’t clear yet, what is the fucking point of this new Mars mission?

And now to my second big question: if we already know that the efficiency of production there is going to be WORSE than what it is here. If getting there fuck’s up this planet further, why even go?

Why go? Because we can? Does that mean we should? This goes without saying, but just because we can do something does not mean that we should. Simply being able to do something does not make it ‘better’.

And is that what we have been planning to do all along? How much jet fuel would that require I wonder? Eh?

So I think we better not bite off more than we can chew. I think the space mission to Mars, this whole redent “we need to colonise Mars” thing, is a bit like the 1960s space race, but this time between billionaires/trillionaires not just superpower states. Albeit with comparable 1950s era-like naïvety. That’s what I think of it. Those futuristic images depicted by artificial intelligence are just about as stupid and naïve as some 1950s era visions of space stations and shit. And here we are in the year 2025 (which really does feel like “the future” in many respects, at least to some of us older people) and there are no space stations or . Except today we really should know better.

Now, I am not saying that we are not ‘clever’. I am not saying that we are not ‘advanced’. I am not saying that it can’t ever be done. And I’m not saying that it won’t ever be done.

But what I am saying is that it is definitely going to be harder than we think. Not to mention less efficient. And ultimately worse for planet Earth.

We are not yet even fully self sustaining here on Earth, with water that falls freely from the sky, with oxygen that is freely available and with food that grows all by itself.

And people still want to start an entire manufacturing operation on another planet, with absolutely none of that already over there?

UPDATE:
Just today, Elon, rather foolishly said this:

“We need to transport about a million tons of cargo in order to make it sustainable and about a million people or more. Civilization will branch off when Mars can self sustain even if shipments from Earth stop coming. I think there might be a case where the future Mars citizens come and help Earth one day when we’ll need it. Once we have a Mars civilization we can expand to the rest of the solar system. Then we go from being a multi planetary civilization to a multi stellar civilization and start learning more about if we’re the only life out here.” — Elon Musk

Firstly, not even Elon Musk could afford to transport a million tonnes of cargo to the planet Mars any time soon. And I’d be willing to bet that not even the top 1% rich people couldn’t afford it either, even if they pooled together all of their wealth, combined and accumulated it. It’s just… not happening okay. So forget it Elon.

And here’s a scary few final thoughts. The only way it would work, I think, is if ‘people’ are genetically modified and specifically adapted to live there. If they can breathe thinner air, if they have different shaped noses to filter out the Martian dust (well that’s assuming they won’t need a space helmet), thicker UV-protected skin (also prevents or lessens dehydration), different digestive tract to cope with different food sources perhaps, lesser water requirements than humans.

Would these beings then resemble humans at all then? Would we even want to go in that direction? It opens all sorts of ethical questions and moral dilemmas.

And sooner than “future Mars citizens come and help Earth one day”, I think much more likely to happen, if you look at past historical events and squabbles over mineral and material resources, food sources and land, is that the new Martian colony, once it starts to get established that is, becomes very different from our own, generates its own [different] cultures, priorities, values and traditions. Because it is more isolated and segregated and this is always what happens with any new colonies. They diverge. And then it, they, whatever they is, starts to see us –all of humanity back here on Earth– as a threat to its own survival, a direct threat to its very own existence, and goes on to attack us. To declare war on Earth. Or vice versa, and we go to war with them. It would be like creating Frankenstein’s monster. Why go there? Why do it? We may live to regret it one day.

I certainly don’t think it’s right. We need to fix our home and make our way of life more sustainable first before galavanting halfway off across the Solar System and spoiling other planets with our man-made synthetic junk.

Elon mentioned something about dinosaurs not having spaceships. Well dinosaurs were some of the most successful organisms to roam the Earth. They were around for hundreds and hundreds of millions of years. We really shouldn’t insult that longevity.

Just a reminder that those big extinction-event level asteroids are very few and far between, happening every few hundred million years or so. If Elon is so worried about apocalyptic asteroids striking the Earth one day and completely wiping us all out so to speak, why doesn’t he choose to focus on that actual threat –the asteroids– instead of this whole Mars colony thing? Wouldn’t it be smarter to concentrate on asteroid detection and elmination device instead? Wouldn’t that be a lot simpler and, well, cheaper? It would. Well I’ll answer my own question, yes it would. That would be a much cheaper insurance approach to human civilisation than striving for some ridiculously costly non-practical and non-workable “planet B” option.

leslie dean brown · December 23, 2016

As far as I’m concerned, anyone who thinks that our way of life doesn’t affect the environment (climate included) is an idiot.

Anthropogenic global warming – truth or fraud?

“amorality of scientists”? You’ve got to be joking! Now you’ve done it.

Why are scientists fanatical about climate change?

Yes we certainly do become a bit fanatical. Why? Why is that? Let’s take a look:

The value of NAT and ENV shares on the the global stock exchange.

Here’s the kind of thing you see when you hang out on LinkedIn for a while:

Is humanity ready for Elon Musk’s Mars mission?

Going to Mars is harder than getting to the top of Mt. Everest. And I don’t see anyone living way up there on the summit.

When is donald trump going to be president?

CORRECT ANSWER: well, assuming he hasn’t been assassinated yet, January, 20th, 2017.