Technology For Solutions v. Technology For Profit

The Technological-Environmental Problem

It’s Monday and my environmental post for the week.

The issue is not whether or not technology can aid in solving the environmental problem, because of course it can. There are great examples where it has been used and has accomplished a great deal towards using technology to supply needed resources to people. 

One great example is the L’Horta  de Valencia Canal system.  Yes, recently it has suffered shortages.. But so has the American southwestern irrigation system.  Neither can “create” a supply of water.  But canals do not impede (for the most part) the natural flow of water but extend into other channels without attempting to divert it through human controls.  A canal does not make any more water available than is available and if the water source that flows into the canal becomes less voluminous, of course the water volume that flows into the canal.  Canals, like the Erie, the Suez, and the Panama are some of the most masterful feats of human ingenuity ever exhibited.  Venice could never have existed if human ingenuity had not been utilized not to drain the marsh upon which it was built but design a city allowing the marsh to continue and people to live around and above the marsh. One of the great feats of technology was the design of the New York City aqueducts from the Catskills, and in so doing also created some of the most pristine (unpolluted) freshwater lakes that still exist.  They did it by not just taking water from the Catskill lakes, but by creating a purification system that returned nearly all of the water taken from the lakes back into the lakes so that the lakes themselves maintained their own natural volume.of water.  By natural we are still are referring  to the conditions of nature, the amount of rainfall and the natural windflow that carries the water.  Las Vegas , in planning for the future growth, also designed a system that controls both the use and returns a great deal to the dam that supplies its waters.  Because of that Las Vegas has not seriously lessened the water at its source (this time the Hoover Dam) and so now, in the attempt to reallocate the water from the dam, Las Vegas has suffered less consequential suffering because they had preplanned water conservation into their own design.

To my way of thinking, these feats are ingenious because they contain all of the remarkable ingenuity that allows mankind to live as much as  possible within the confinements of the environment and at the same give back as much as possible to the environment to prevent as possible the erosion of the environment that creates a more catastrophic consequence of environmental transformation

What is not very ingenious is not attempting to preplan the input necessary to do this.  Dams and irrigation are examples of little foresight about maintaining the desired environment people choose to live in and sustain themselves within.  The problems with dams is they impede the natural flow of water to concentrate it into reservoirs and then irrigate it through small water channels of lessened volume—but unlike canals–the reservoirs that collect the water also lessen the volume of water  that flows and so there is less water available from the river itself that has its water collected into the reservoir, less volume means not only less volume extending into its outlets but also warmer water.  That’s quite obvious if you boil a small pot of water it takes less time to heat than a large pot of water.  

Now to comprehend all of this I think we need to dispel a few misconceptions.  The first is to understand the difference between heat and temperature.  I am aware that at least one of my readers, Miss Fay Reid understands this a lot better than me, but I’ll do my best. Scientists define thermal energy as “a measure of the total amount of kinetic energy of all molecules (and atoms) in a given volume of a substance.” Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of molecules in a substance. Heat is the energy that flows into or out of a system because of a temperature difference. The average molecule in a cup of warm water moves faster than the average molecule in a bathtub of cool water, but the bathtub water has more thermal energy because it has more molecules. So the cup of warm water has a higher temperature, but the bathtub of cool water has more thermal energy. Therefore, heating a substance can have two effects: (1) If a substance is heated, the thermal energy transferred to it increases the kinetic energy (and motion) of its molecules, and the substance’s temperature increases (it warms up); and (2) If a substance is heated enough (to melting- or boiling-point temperatures), the thermal energy transferred actually causes changes in the arrangement of molecules with respect to each other (it changes state).

From this perspective we can begin to see that water (vapor) in its gaseous state does not just go directly up into clouds and then fall back down to earth in a one to one relationship.  All of the molecules of vapored water don’t, some remain in the troposphere, the atmospheric level that most of us (roughly unless you live above 7.5 miles or 12 kilometers from the service) spend the bulk of our lives.  I live at just under miles from the surface of the earth but the only time I’ve entered into the stratosphere is on an airplane.   The molecules of vapor do not just find a jolly cloud and move in with neighboring molecules.  Gaseous water represents a small but environmentally significant constituent of the atmosphere. The percentage of water vapor in surface air varies from 0.01% at -42 °C (-44 °F) to 4.24% when the dew point is 30 °C (86 °F).Over 99% of atmospheric water is in the form of vapor, rather than liquid water or ice,and approximately 99.13% of the water vapor is contained in the troposphere. The condensation of water vapor to the liquid or ice phase is responsible for clouds, rain, snow, and other precipitation, all of which count among the most significant elements of what we experience as weather. Less obviously, the latent heat, which is released to the atmosphere whenever condensation occurs, is one of the most important terms in the atmospheric energy budget on both local and global scales. For example, latent heat release in atmospheric convection is directly responsible for powering destructive storms such as tropical cyclones and severe thunderstorms However, water vapor, owing to the presence of the hydroxyl bond which strongly absorbs in the infra-red.  Water in Earth's atmosphere is not merely below its boiling point (100 °C), but at altitude it goes below its freezing point (0 °C), due to water's highly polar attraction. When combined with its quantity, water vapor then has a relevant dew point and frost point, unlike e. g., carbon dioxide and methane. Water vapor thus has a scale height a fraction of that of the bulk atmosphere, as the water condenses primarily in the troposphere. 

Carbon dioxide and methane, being well-mixed in the atmosphere, tend to rise above water vapor. The absorption and emission of both compounds contribute to Earth's emission to space, and thus the planetary greenhouse effect. Water vapor is the "working medium" of the atmospheric thermodynamic engine which transforms heat energy from sun irradiation into mechanical energy in the form of winds. Transforming thermal energy into mechanical energy requires an upper and a lower temperature level, as well as a working medium which shuttles forth and back between both. The upper temperature level is given by the soil or water surface of the earth, which absorbs the incoming sun radiation and warms up, evaporating water. The moist and warm air at the ground is lighter than its surroundings and rises up to the upper limit of the troposphere. There the water molecules radiate their thermal energy into outer space, cooling down the surrounding air. The upper atmosphere constitutes the lower temperature level of the atmospheric thermodynamic engine. The water vapor in the now cold air condenses out and falls down to the ground in the form of rain or snow. The now heavier cold and dry air sinks down to ground as well; the atmospheric thermodynamic engine thus establishes a vertical convection, which transports heat from the ground into the upper atmosphere, where the water molecules can radiate it to outer space. Due to the earth's rotation and the resulting Coriolis forces, this vertical atmospheric convection is also converted into a horizontal convection, in the form of cyclones and anticyclones, which transport the water evaporated over the oceans into the interior of the continents, enabling vegetation to grow.

Water vapor is lighter or less dense than air. At equivalent temperatures it is buoyant with respect to dry air, whereby the density of dry air at standard temperature and pressure (273.15 K, 101.325 kPa) is 1.27 g/L and water vapor at standard temperature has a pressure of 0.6 kPa and the much lower density of 0.0048 g/L.

At the same temperature, a column of dry air will be denser or heavier than a column of air containing any water vapor, the molar mass of diatomic nitrogen and diatomic oxygen both being greater than the molar mass of water. Thus, any volume of dry air will sink if placed in a larger volume of moist air. Also, a volume of moist air will rise or be buoyant  if placed in a larger region of dry air. As the temperature rises the proportion of water vapor in the air increases, and its buoyancy will increase. The increase in buoyancy can have a significant atmospheric impact, giving rise to powerful, moisture rich, upward air currents when the air temperature and sea temperature reaches 25 °C or above. This phenomenon provides a significant driving force for cyclonic and anticyclonic weather systems. 

Clouds however do not merely form because of condensed water vapor but are collected and cooled by the presence of molecular dust particles.  

But water vapor is also one of the five. key greenhouse gasses, along with carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and chlorofluorocarbons. While making up around 0.05% of Earth’s total atmosphere, they play major roles in trapping Earth’s radiant heat from the Sun and keeping it from escaping into space.  Without the greenhouse gasses most of the sun’s energy would simply reflect back into space.  Planets, when observed, are not shining their own “light” into space, but reflecting the light of the sun back into space and when we observe a planet in our solar system it is the observation of the reflected light of the sun.  So actually we never observe directly the planet but only the light that it reflects.  But of the five major gasses they are non-condensable in the air and only water vapor is condensable in the air and can return to a liquid or gaseous state.  This makes water vapor the only greenhouse gas whose concentration increases because the atmosphere is warming, and causes it to warm even more. If non-condensable gasses weren’t increasing, the amount of atmospheric water vapor would be unchanged from its pre-industrial revolution levels.  But it is not just that there are more non-condensable gasses being put into the atmosphere that increases the heating effect, it is because water vapor, being less dense and condensable increases in the presence, that is less of the vapors of the evaporated water molecules are unable  to condense and that of course traps more heat in the troposphere which heats the temperature of the water on the surface. That creates greater turbulence in the cyclonic (low pressure) cycles.  The turbulence itself then creates more storms and hotter temperatures on the surface.  The increased presence of the storms and the thinned water volume due to irrigation, dammed rivers, polluted water sources (that not only are present in the water but that force many of the water molecules to be absorbed into the pollutants themselves) and the plowing of many fields in rows of one crop decrease both the natural plant absorption-condensation cycle and in doing so also decreases the amount of water absorbed beneath the surface of the earth which creates a need to have more irrigated lands or use more water to maintain the crop growth.

A point in example is the damming of the great Colorado river in the American southwest.  It is not at all true that farming could not be done there without irrigation.  The Colorado river was dammed because its natural cycle was fueled by seasonal rains that poured water into the river which made the river itself a natural powerhouse by expanding its volume to even greater that created a massive rush towards its emptying into the Gulf of Mexico.  As it descended from the mountains into the more arid southwest it would overflow its banks and flood the surrounding areas.  As the floods subsided much of the water would be absorbed into the ground and the natives who resided there created a flourishing agricultural culture.

But without too much foresight we created dams to prevent the flood and then channeled the water into irrigational offshoots to create rowed crops of our liking to produce agricultural windfalls for many great landowners who needed to “hire” people to produce the crops.

This is not a very sound use of technology.  The landscape we have created makes much of the water from the rains and floods simply destructive and not useful.  Most of the floods we had here this spring sat on the surface and evaporated.  The aquifers filled only minimally.

The expulsion of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is not well thought out because eliminating the emissions will do nothing to alter the imbalance already present.  Some are proposing methods to remove but I am aware of any plans or any meaningful knowledge about how much of it to remove without that in itself possibly having dire consequences and creating a different countereaction.  But we already have a lot of knowledge and useful; knowledge on how to remove much of it if we have the will to redesign much of our communities. Technology can be used to solve much of our environmental-climate change issues, but it takes willingness to alter many of our expectations with methods that might be profitable to sum but will continue to overtax the environment.  If we use our “ingenuity” to attempt to live within and replenish as much as possible the resources we need to survive we can begin to let the environment restore itself.  

But we have to abolish the concept that somehow fourteen billion years ago the universe began to evolve and was just waiting (or some other man somewhere else) to be the apex and now was so smart he could create a planet or a universe.  There is not much difference in saying god created the universe and man in the image of god and saying man has the capacity to create universes.  The whole notion of gods, in the modern sense, is the notion that man, in the image of god, could refashion however the hell he chooses,  the earth, and now the universe, he wants to live on.  That is not atheism, that is mantheism.  It is still theism but just openly admitting that gods were created to empower man he had some dominion powers of delegation.

So we have the ingenuity to technologically advance and the environmental exacerbation problem can be enhanced not by determining how to further control the problem but using our technology to understand how to maintain the environment and replenish it while taking what we need from it without transforming it.  Because it might not transform the way we want it to.

So if you look at the examples at the top, they were attempting to design a way for the common good to survive within the environment.  But when technology is used to profit a few, well no matter what they might try to tell you, it is rarely for the common good.