I am noticing a theme of the complicated connections and frameworks of all living and even nonliving things on earth.
Edit: On the very next page: The First Law of Ecology: Everything Is Connected to Everything Else
11 Matching Annotations
- Oct 2020
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via3.hypothes.is via3.hypothes.is
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isible energy enters through the glass, is absorbed by the soil in the greenhouse, and then is converted to heat, which is reradiated from the soil as infrared energy. But this infrared energy, reaching the greenhouse glass, is bounced back and held within the greenhouse as heat. This explains the warmth of an otherÂwise unheated greenhouse on a sunny winter day. Like glass, the carbon dioxide in the air that blankets the earth acts like a giant energy valve.
Greenhouse gases are now a common term, but at this time probably was a relatively new analogy.
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On a much longer time-scale, changes in the composi-tion of the air can have strong effects on the amount and kind of solar radiation that reach the earth's surface.
I remember the small changes with massive consequences about the weather and early development of life.
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These are only small examples of weather-
Such a long explanation for small, everyday changes shows the complexity of weather.
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A connective equivalent to humus for the environment could be methane, and both its role as fuel and detriment as gas released into the air.
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The existence of the environ-mental crisis warns us that this is an illusory hope.
We can ignore climate change no more than we can ignore every single time we get sick. At some point it must be addressed.
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Within every living thing on the earth, indeed within each of its individual cells, is contained another network-on its own scale, as complex as the environmental system-made up of numerous, intricate molecules, elaborately intercon-nected by chemical reactions, on which the life-properties of the whole organism depend.
When thought of like this, it would seem the least complicated thing is the people and organisms on the surface themselves.
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There is an important lesson here. In the form in which it first appeared, the earth's life system had an inherently fatal fault: the energy it required was derived from the consumption of a nonrenewabl,e resource,
Reminds me of our reliance on nonrenewable resources to this day.
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Some of the oxygen was converted to ozone, an avid absorber of ultraviolet radiation.
How did this happen? Was it due to some other gas or another force?
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Without the earth's natural environmental constituents-oxygen, water, fuel-the airplane, like man, could not exist.
I feel like the physical capital of the environment would not be worth anything if it weren't for the work people had put into it. I understand the point, and agree with the message, but this part I don't agree with as much.
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Yet, human society is designed to exploit the environment as a whole, to produce wealth. The paradoxical role we play in the natural environment-at once participant and exploiter-distorts our perception of it.
This is an interesting point about human exploitation of the environment. Some may argue that because humans figured it out, it's natural to use the planet in this way. This way of thinking eventually leads to the overuse of our resources and our detriment, but some are still stuck thinking the same way about our environment.
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