Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
As long as the Sun continues to radiate day after day, it will be the greatest
source for the building and destroying of natural resources. The energy received
from it that enters the atmosphere is huge, 1,353 J=m 2 s. Of this amount, 23% is
the driving force of the hydrological cycle and less than 1% creates winds, ocean
currents, waves, etc (Tarbuck and Lutgens, 1984). Just 0.023% is used for photo-
synthesis, a value greater than the energy originating from the Earth's interior at
0.013%, which is responsible for the seemingly powerful tectonic activity: the vol-
canic eruptions and earthquakes etc (see for instance Skinner et al. (1999)). Yet it
is this tiny fraction which continues to provide the entire biological endowment on
Earth. Thus in short, as long as the Sun remains (according to various estimates,
it will last thousands of millions of years more), and as long as heat emanates from
the planet, equilibrium or thermodynamic death on Earth will not and cannot come
about.
The greatest threat, far from being something from the cosmos, is something
much closer to home. It is mankind itself. For it is Man who is responsible for
accelerating the natural cycles and “he” who is permitted to live courtesy of the
energy and material budget available on Earth. After extracting mineral resources,
it is also Man who disperses them, provoking the oxidation of metals. Man who
consumes fossil fuel resources which have been stored in a metastable state for
millions of years, consuming the oxygen which formed at the same time as organic
matter. Finally it is Man who provokes the solution of materials in the sea and Man
who rips the heart out of the forests and blackens the very lungs of the Earth. This
is because “his” activity does not produce new minerals when mines are exploited,
whilst forests and jungles do not spring back immediately once cut. Fertile soils
once lost are very di cult to find. Such actions and their inevitable consequences
are of major concern to the Earth Systems Science Partnership 1 , as expressed in
the Amsterdam Declaration 2 :
Human activities are significantly influencing Earth's environment in many ways,
in addition to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Indeed anthropogenic
changes to Earth's land surface, oceans, coasts and atmosphere and to its biolog-
ical diversity, the water and biogeochemical cycles are clearly identifiable beyond
natural variability. They are equal to some of the great forces of nature in their
extent and impact. Many are accelerating.
In short, mankind converts the stored chemical exergy of the Earth into a de-
graded environment which is progressively less able to support economic activities
as they are currently understood and eventually will fail to sustain life itself. As long
as Man took small, seemingly negligible, quantities of energy and materials from the
environment, it seemed that Nature was inexhaustible. Conventional economics op-
1 Earth System Science places an emphasis on observing, understanding and predicting global
environmental changes involving interactions between land, atmosphere, water, ice, biosphere,
societies, technologies and economies.
2 http : ==www:essp:org=. Accessed Dec. 2013.
 
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