An Opinion on Global Warming: Part 1

This blog entry will be Part 1 of my opinions on global warming, and what we can and should do about the problem. I decided on multiple posts in order to break up what I'm writing into more manageable portions.

Why write at all on this issue other than to interact with some of my liberal and conservative brothers and sisters? Because writing helps me shape and inform my opinions. I hold with Socrates: The unexamined life is not worth living, and (for me) informed opinions constitute part of living an examined and worthwhile life.

Earth and its atmosphere constitute a closed system. Some finite but vanishingly small amounts of atmospheric gases may escape Earth's gravitational field. Material of various types from asteroids, comets, meteorites, etc. may enter the atmosphere and sometimes reach the Earth's surface. Nevertheless, for all practical purposes we live in a closed system so that what's generated on Earth stays on Earth in one form or another.

In a profound sense, we necessarily violate a major dictum of good ol' boy and gal culture: We defecate in our own nest.

Yes, we can send probes and satellites beyond the Earth's gravitational field; however, we don't yet have the technology to ship great amounts of waste products off-world.

I think this closed system concept accounts for the concern many rational persons have over global warming issues. Perhaps, some of these individuals remember or have read about a classical experiment, often repeated in Bacteriology 101 labs:

1. The student prepares a medium with all of the nutrients required to support metabolism and reproduction of a bacterium such as E.col. (Actually, almost any bacterium or other type of microbe will suffice.) This growth medium is placed in a sterilized flask.

2. A small amount of the E.coli is introduced into the flask, which is then sealed off to the outside atmosphere. There is, however, a valve in the flask through which samples of the medium can be removed. The size of the flask and amount of medium are excessively large in comparison to the amount of bacteria in the inoculate.

3. For the next several days, samples of the medium are removed and the microbial content counted. When the numbers of microbes are plotted on the Y-axis and time on the X-axis, the results show:

(a) An initial lag phase in which the number of bacteria falls below the number inoculated into the flask.

(b) A slow growth phase.

(c) A subsequent growth spurt in which the number of bacteria increases logarithmically (i.e., stupendous growth).

(d) A plateau phase in which reproduction of the bacteria levels off.

(e) An accelerating decrease in the number of bacteria.

(f) Death of all bacteria. (OK, some of the bacteria may go into a spore phase and can be resurrected but, if nothing is done to or for the culture medium, no life forms will ultimately exist.

Why do the bacteria go through the plateau and death phases? Initially the resources in the flak (medium, gases) greatly exceed the requirements for bacterial metabolism and reproduction. As the supply of nutrients decreases and concentration of toxins (excretory materials) increase because of the normal metabolic activities of the bacteria, the closed system poisons the microbes.

Now, if some mechanism can be employed to continually remove the toxins in the flask and add more nutrients to the system, the microbes can continue to grow quite well.

I'll admit that the above analogy, like most analogies may not be perfect, but the message remains: At some point, human activity may produce sufficient "toxins" to wipe out human life. Why? Because human population may be in the accelerating growth phase and there's no obvious mechanism to remove toxins. For global warming enthusiasts CO2 would be prominent among the toxins.

Throughout much of our history, human population and its toxin-producing activities remained low, and did not pose a treat to human survival or the ability of Earth to regenerate itself. Thus, one might legitimately ask: Have we now reached the plateau point and, unless something can be done to regenerate our closed system, will we will soon enter the decline/death phase?

One problem with answering this question relates to the fact that our closed system is quite large, and an argument can be made that human toxins amount to only a small proportion of the overall system. For instance, cogent postulates or hypotheses can be made that, with respect to the ostensible or proposed (take your pick) increasing production of atmospheric CO2, the amounts are too small in comparison to amounts of non-human produced CO2. Thus, the entire issue may be massively overblown.

The bottom line, however, remains: We live in a closed system in which we necessarily reduce the concentration of resources and increase the concentration of materials with a deleterious impact on life. At some point, therefore, human population may indeed mimic the results of the bacterial closed flask experiment. When? I don't know but I think When is a better question than If.

I am a technological optimist and advocate; therefore, I believe (but cannot prove) that we can manage and even reverse the situation, if we're smart and apply ourselves productively as opposed to rushing headlong into a panicked irrational response. Such an irrational response might not be simply non-productive but could well be deleterious and exacerbate the situation.

More to come.