This article was first published on June 1st., 2007 in Al Ahdath, a bilingual newspaper published in Toronto, Canada.
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There is the probability that planet Earth is entering a warming phase, something that would require our attention. And there is no doubt that polluting the environment is a problem that needs to be addressed on many fronts. But the two notions are not connected and we need to understand a few things before we map out a way forward and let a potential irritant get out of hand.
Defining the greenhouse effect
The first thing we must do is understand what the greenhouse effect is. The greenhouse is a human invention that nature has not duplicated. Because vegetation needs a warm climate in order to grow, people in the cold places of Europe invented the greenhouse to capture and maintain the warmth provided by the sun especially during the winter months. To this end, they built houses made of transparent materials such as glass and plastics inside of which they grew vegetables, flowers and other plants. This is where the name greenhouse comes from.
The scientific principle exploited here is that the sun rays which are as hot in winter as they are in summer, penetrate the transparent walls of the house and deliver energy not only to the plants inside but to everything else including the stands, the pots, the soil, the benches, the tools and more importantly for the purpose of this discussion, to the gases and particles that make up the atmosphere inside the house. The question now is this: what is the difference between the conditions under which the plants grow inside the greenhouse and the conditions under which they grow outside of it?
The answer is that the plants outside the house are at the mercy of the weather. No matter how hot the sun rays may be, the heat they deliver to the plants is offset by the ambient air which is part of a system that extends to the polar regions of the planet. When it is winter and the ambient air is cold, the plants transfer to it the heat they receive from the sun as fast as they receive it by contact and by convection.
By contrast, most of the heat that is captured inside the greenhouse stays inside because the transparent walls that let in the sunshine act as a barrier that shields the inside from the outside. Some warmth does escape by infrared radiation but what remains inside is enough to let the plants grow as they would in summer.
We see here that a greenhouse is defined by the transparent wall which acts as a one directional barrier to solar energy. We now ask: is there a gas that plays the role of the greenhouse wall? And the answer is no there is not, there is no such thing as a greenhouse gas. What there is, however, which may confuse some people, are layers of gas and particles around the planet but these layers play a different role. Ironically, what they do is the opposite of what the non-existent gases are reputed to do, they help to cool the planet. A few examples are discussed below.
The ozone layer, clouds and dust
A layer of gas called ozone envelops the Earth and serves to absorb and to reflect back into space high energy radiation that can harm living things. Since radiation is a form of energy that would eventually turn into heat, reflecting it back contributes to the cooling of the planet however small the effect may be compared to the amount of heat that is brought to Earth by the visible light.
Also, when volcanoes erupt, they send dust particles high into the atmosphere which reflect radiation back into space and help to cool the planet. It is thought that a nuclear war on Earth would have a similar result, and the possibility was given the name nuclear winter.
Ordinary clouds also reflect the sunshine back out but clouds are made of water vapour which is a substance that merits a separate and more comprehensive discussion as it is done in the paragraphs that follow.
Gases, fluids and those in-between
Whether matter comes in the form of a gas or a fluid, it is made of particles called atoms and molecules. When these particles are exposed to the energy of the sun, they reflect some of it as visible light and convert the rest into vibration they transfer to another body by contact. Failing this, they convert the energy into heat they gradually lose as infrared radiation.
Because fluids are more dense than gases, they contain more molecules thus they store more energy. Also, because the particles in fluids are packed closer together, they transfer heat in and out of their molecules faster than they do in a gas. The consequence is that water molecules absorb and deliver more heat than air, and they do it at a faster rate. This is true even when water comes in the form of vapour floating in the air. And it is something we experience and feel in two ways.
When the weather is damp and cool, we feel it as nippy because the water molecules of the moisture absorb more heat from the skin than would air alone, and they do it at a faster rate. And when the weather is damp and warm, we feel it as warmer than the thermometer would indicate because the water molecules deliver more heat to the skin, and they do it at a faster rate than air. This is why the weather people invented the humidex system by which they communicate the degree of discomfort we feel on a hot and humid day.
The atmosphere of planet Earth
In its most pristine state, the atmosphere of the Earth is made of nitrogen at about 78%, oxygen at 21% and argon at nearly 1%. Because plants exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide back and forth with the atmosphere and because the oceans have the ability to absorb and to release gases including carbon dioxide, we find traces of the latter in the atmosphere at 0.033% or thereabout depending on where and when the reading is taken. Thus, the atmosphere is made of nitrogen, oxygen and argon at about 99.967% and a whiff of carbon dioxide. This is a ratio of 1 in 3,000.
All of the gases are held near the surface of the Earth by the force of gravity and there are no transparent walls to separate them from the void of outer space. As the sun shines on the half of planet Earth that faces it, light delivers a fraction of its energy to the gases and water vapour in the atmosphere. Light then goes on to deliver the rest of the energy to everything below the atmosphere like the oceans, the polar ice caps, the deserts, the plants and so on. Given that everyone of these has an index of reflectivity, each absorbs some energy and reflects the rest back out in the form of visible light.
The question is this: what happens to the energy that is absorbed by the oceans, the plants, the soil and so on? Well, photosynthesis and the chemical processes that use light make life possible. Also, the physical processes that use other forms of energy make the weather such as rain, lightening, wind, waves and other phenomena possible.
There is also this: the second law of thermodynamics is called Entropy, and it says that all those processes will eventually turn into heat which is infrared radiation. Some of this radiation is reflected back into space and the rest is absorbed by the gases and the water vapour that linger within a kilometre or two above the ground. And it is this energy that determines the average temperature of the planet.
This energy represents a small fraction of what is delivered to Earth in the first place. And given that water vapour absorbs and delivers more energy than gases, the latter do little to warm the planet. And since carbon dioxide is only 1 part in 3,000 of the atmospheric gases, carbon dioxide does not contribute to the warming of the planet one appreciable iota. The real culprit could be the water vapour but how so and why now?
Energy from below
If it turns out that planet Earth is indeed warming up, we should look at all possible sources for the phenomenon and get serious about it. To this end let us look at the core of the planet. We know that the decay of radioactive material heats up the interior of the Earth. Another source of heat can be a gravitational tide that would act in a periodical manner. In fact, there is evidence that other celestial bodies such as Venus and some moons circling Jupiter add to their warmth by the friction taking place at their core due to the uneven distribution of matter in their interior. And there is evidence that matter inside the Earth is beginning to rotate and reverse the polarity of the magnetic field, something that Earth has done periodically throughout its history.
An indication that our planet is adding to its heat in the interior is the phenomenon we call El Nino. This is when a sizeable portion of the Pacific Ocean warms up and causes the change in weather patterns all around the globe. When robotic cameras are sent to the bottom of the ocean, they send back pictures of boiling water coming out of the Earth’s belly. The hot water rises to the surface in accordance with the laws of physics and warms the rest of the ocean. This reality stands in contrast with the notion that the oceans warm up at the surface then transfer the warmth to the lower levels by a mechanism that so contradicts the laws of physics, it was never explained. An example that belies this latter notion can be seen in Toronto, Canada where water is pumped out of lake Ontario and sent to cool the buildings of the city because the water stays cool only a few meters below the surface no matter how hot the weather gets in summer.
And there are two other questions to be answered here: given that the sun shines evenly on all the oceans at the same latitude, why does El Nino happen to the Pacific Ocean with such force and not the other oceans or seas? And why does it happen randomly, not every year?
Also, a warmth that is coming from below would explain why glaciers crack and sheer close to the base before they crumble rather than melt at the top which would be the case if they were warmed by the heat in the atmosphere. In fact, the evidence suggests that this method of destroying glaciers has happened periodically in the past, and what remains to be shown is that such events have coincided with the reversal of the Earth’s magnetic polarity.
In conclusion, we must not relent in our effort to keep cleaning the planet of the harmful chemicals such as methane, nitrous oxide and the other substances we dump in the environment but we must also devote more attention and resources to finding ways to cope with a planet that will warm up despite our efforts to alleviate the problem. And if this is going to be a periodic occurrence, we need to find out how long the cycle will last.
Testing the theory
A laboratory costing a few thousands of dollars, one physics professor, a lab technician and a handful of college students should be able to conduct the required experiments to answer definitively how much the so called greenhouse gases trap heat from the sun and contribute to the warming of the planet. These people will need a room with a retractable roof or a window that opens to the sun. They will need inside the room a chamber made of glass or plastics, a few measuring instruments and a supply of the gases to be tested. Within a few days they will come up with answers that will be as accurate and definitive as science can ever get.
But why have such experiments not taken place by now? The chances are they have and the answers are hidden in a thousand nondescript laboratories. The trouble is that these are not "sexy" experiments and they do not come close to the glamour of receiving millions of dollars to conduct spectacular experiments at the poles and other exotic places in full view of the television cameras. And so, the latter goes on and is reported to the public which wholeheartedly approves of grants to be given out of the public purse. Not surprisingly therefore, the conclusion is always that the answer is inconclusive and that more experiments need to be conducted for which more grants are allocated because life on Earth is at stake and no one would skimp on that.
But surely the energy companies that are demonised day in and day out for contributing to the death of the planet would be interested in the result of such experiments. Of course they would be and they have the answer to every question that may be asked in this regard. But the companies will do little to explain the science involved in terms that lay people can understand because they prefer to keep the controversy going and cash in on subsidies that warm up their hearts more than the products they sell warm up the planet.
It must be understood that the companies and their shareholders can stand the heat and will not get out of the kitchen because what is cooked on their behalf is a delicious plate full of greens. In fact, loads of green dollars in the form of subsidies are handed to them on a silver platter in order to develop alternative sources of energy, and the companies will not cut off their noses to slap their faces. To be sure, they earnestly work to develop alternative sources but they do so as they continue to develop the traditional sources because there is no escaping our dependence on these.
The Y2K scare and the carbon scare
With some exception, this situation resembles that of the Y2K scare which took place near the end of the Twentieth Century. This is when it was claimed that planes will fall from the sky, hospitals will see the power cut off in the middle of critical operations and so on. This was to happen at midnight December 31, 1999 because computers were not programmed to handle the year 2000. The scare that raged for a couple of years resulted in billions of dollars being made by those who traded in the shares of software and other "high tech" companies as they rose to dizzying heights on the stock markets then crashed when the scare proved to be a quackery.
The difference between that scare and what I call the carbon scare of the present is that the first was dreamed up and promoted by those who benefited from it whereas the second came as a windfall to the oil companies. Windfall is not new to the oil companies whose success has always been determined by opportunities instigated not by themselves but by the political wind of those who caused the profits to materialise and to come down in their lap like manna from the sky.
Here is how that mechanism works. To go with the flow in this era of Jaws and Towering Inferno, the media have developed a form of jolly demagoguery where they scare people as they entertain them. First, the media are mobilised by a scare, be it a real one or something concocted by someone hungry to make easy money. In turn, the media mobilise the politicians who earmark billions of dollars to line the pockets of those who look like they may have the wherewithal to make the scare go away. In this case, they would be the oil companies and everyone who can spell the word energy. Those who imagined the scare in the first place get into the act and develop a myriad of ways to ride on the coattails of the oil companies and everyone who can spell energy. One way to make easy money is to trade in the stock of such companies, and this is where many go to participate in the feeding frenzy that ensues.
If lucky, the scare gets a boost from a character of the glamorous kind who would jump on the bandwagon and acts like a concerned citizen. The boost is amplified when the character is misinformed because he or she will then rely on entertainment to hold the attention of the audience and thus compensate for the lack of substance and the abundance of misinformation.
And when the scare is exposed as quackery, everything comes crashing down only to make way for someone else who would come up with a new scheme to attract the attention of the media. And the circus goes on as life struggles to stay focused while trying to avoid the antics of the glamourous, the quacks and the scare mongers.
A way forward
Suggestions are advanced all the time showing the way to reduce pollution, to be frugal in the use of resources and to address the warming of the planet. These are commendable efforts but what is regrettable is that the three issues were tied together because the quackery with regards to one diminishes the validity of all and paves the way for the quacks to move in and take advantage of the situation.
We must therefore reduce the influence of the quacks as we debate the warming of the planet by recognising that even though the energy we receive from the sun exceeds what is generated at the core of the Earth, our immediate problem may well be caused by the little that comes from below.
One way to alleviate this problem is to offset the energy we receive from below by reflecting into space some of what comes from the sun. Ideas like the placing of mirrors into orbit and the halting of forestation in the polar regions where trees reflect less light than do the ice sheets are good ideas. We must explore them and encourage people to come forward with more ideas.
Here is one idea. Using solar energy instead of the other resources may be a good thing if we do not lose sight of the fact that in so doing, we run headlong against Entropy. So, if the problem we want to solve is the scarcity of energy, then using solar energy rather than reflecting it makes sense. But if the other forms of energy are plentiful and the problem is only the warming of the planet, then using solar energy to cool the planet makes no sense because the best way to trap solar energy and turn it into heat is through a technology that is specifically designed to do that. And the solar panel is a most efficient way to doing that.
The alternatives
Instead of converting the sun’s light and heat into electricity, we should convert the naturally occurring kinetic energies such as the wind, the waves and the tides that are the byproducts of the sun’s energy. If it is determined that the twin problem of scarcity of energy and a warming planet have reached a serious level, we may have no alternative but to undertake engineering projects on a planetary scale that are both audacious and colossal. Here are two ideas:
In the same way that we exploit the geothermal sources of energy by tapping into the heat reservoirs which are close to the surface of the Earth, we should tap into the heat reservoirs which are deeper under the surface. We find these reservoirs under the volcanoes and near the continental fault lines at the bottom of the oceans.
With regard to the heat reservoirs under the volcanoes, we have the machinery and the know how to dig a tunnel at the appropriate distance around them. Water fed into the tunnel will turn into steam and run the turbines that produce electricity. As for the hot water that rises from of the seabed, it is packed with thermal and kinetic energies that can be harnessed to spin giant turbines.
Finally, if it turns out that the Earth is entering a warming phase that will last hundreds or thousands of years, there will be nothing better for all of humanity to do as a family than to work on projects of this scale.