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The Atmosphere Today

July 27th, 2016

This weeks Blog was supposed to be titled the “The Ozone Today”. I thought it’d be a page full of doom and gloom so imagine my surprise when I found out that the ozone’s on the mend. As matter of fact it should be totally restored by 2050. I’ll be 82 by then if I can quit smoking and not die of lung cancer I’ll be here to witness it. The ozone is thinnest where the blue and purple are and thicker where there is orange and red.

A little more on the ozone: The name comes from the Greek- ozein- to smell. Passing electricity through oxygen produced a slightly pungent smell thus it’s name. I thought it was ozone because there was a zone above the Earth where O3 collected. It is that too. Approximately 12 to 18 miles above the Earth where it absorbs ultra violet light. Other sources state that the ozone is between 6 and 30 miles above the Earth.  At ground level (the Troposphere) O3 is an irritant to the respiratory tract. Good ozone takes its place in the Stratosphere; the layer above the Troposphere. Above that is the Mesosphere, then the Thermosphere, and the outermost layer is the Exosphere. These 5 layers make up the Atmosphere. Ozone in the Troposphere is created from the interaction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs). This creation comes from automobiles, factories, paint, hairspray, etc; even some plants. Ozone is created in the Stratosphere when sunlight brakes apart O2 molecules leaving two individual oxygen atoms which recombine with other O2 molecules to form O3. O3 is destroyed by the reactive gases, hydrogen, nitrogen oxide, and those containing chlorine and bromine.

Another problem with our atmosphere is climate change. Global warming is said, by some, to be balderdash. I for one believe in the phenomenon. Could it be that all the carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), and methane (CH4) that we’ve dumped into the atmosphere for 150 years has no effect or consequence? These and water (H2O) are greenhouse gases. The greenhouse effect is a good thing. It keeps us from freezing but you know what they say about too much of good thing. These molecules do absorb heat and we are producing way too many of them. My climate here in New England doesn’t seem to be getting any warmer but the winters are starting later and ending later than they used to. That is climate change. “But global warming isn’t about the orbit of the planet.” These types of things could be effected by climate change rather than the orbit of the planet. Global means that some places may get colder as cooler air and currents are forced from one place and into another with the bigger picture being a warmer planet. A little out there in in left field is “The Rule of Governing Energy” on “The Human Element” page. Not only does it mean that the fully aware and awake human element can control the elemental make of our atmosphere it also means that we could colonize and control the atmospheres of every planet in the Solar System. For now we should focus on reducing our carbon footprint and other pollutants. Of these sinners I am chief (gross polluter) but it takes education and money to live green. Other than that it would change the face of our economy which isn’t bad thing but there’s many a powerful person rich by fossil fuel consumption. My bid for the economy is Occupational Parenting. There isn’t a better focused everlasting economy. A certainty is that it would focus on our children’s environment and  their children’s children domain.

Space Junk: To the right is a picture of all the debris around our planet in our atmosphere. Among the 2,271 (in 2013) satellites there is more than 170 million debris smaller than 1 cm (0.4 in), about 670,000 debris 1–10 cm, and around 29,000 larger debris are in orbit. As of 2009, 19,000 debris over 5 cm (2 in) are tracked (Wikipedia). As the planet dies will the wealthiest people turn to space to live; the same people who contributed most to it’s death. In the future will there more to fear from the sky than ever before? Will satellites be armed with lasers or Direct Energy Weapons (DEWs). It would be as close to Zeus hurling a deadly lighting bolt from Olympus as one would care to imagine. This isn’t as paranoid as may sound. Direct Energy Weapons are expected to come online in the mid 2020s. To me that means they already exist. In keeping this about our atmosphere what would you think about a planet floating around in all that trash if you were a neighbor? There goes the Galaxy right? Headlong into the space age and we don’t even know how to clean up after ourselves. We definitely would have benefited from some better parenting.

What else is happening out (up) there? Contamination of the atmosphere with dust and particles is a serious problem, both locally and internationally. Industrial processes and explosions may release harmful particulate matter into the atmosphere, depositing the dust over wide areas and then spreading it around the world when it reaches the upper atmosphere. This is of special concern when winds spread pesticides, radioactivity or other dangerous material. Contamination from pesticides has been found in the arctic and radioactivity from nuclear accidents, such as Chernobyl and Fukushima, spread over large areas. This whole paragraph while plagiarized “Problems That the Earth’s Atmosphere Faces” has some important information about things we do here on Earth that effect our protector, our atmosphere.

It’s a short Blog this week and it wound up being doom and gloom but as long as there is HomeKeeperU.com there’s hope for any issue you can think of. There’s never a time to give up and ample time for change. Until next time, keep your homes well.

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