Global warming, oxygen deprivation, and autism.
Global warming is a fact that scientists and most other educated people have come to accept. We hear people all the time talking about increases in the levels of greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere, however there is an interesting side effect of increased levels of CO2 and other gasses in our atmosphere and that is a relative decrease in the amount of atmospheric Oxygen. I've always wondered why nobody talks about this. It seems so obvious to me that I'm surprised I couldn't find anything on this topic when I did a Google search. Any time you have a mixture of something, then add a bunch of something else, you end up diluting the overall concentration of whatever was in the mixture to begin with. This is true for liquids and gasses and anything else that is subject to brownian motion and/or fluid dynamics. So I've been wondering when I would start hearing people talking about the decreasing levels of Oxygen in our atmosphere, relative to CO2. I've also long suspected that this decrease in atmospheric Oxygen will begin to manifest itself as a variety of human health problems. Well, here's my first stab a finding a link between a human disease and lower Oxygen levels. I recently stumbled upon this article, which describes a potential link between Oxygen deprivation and Autism. I also found some articles on using Hyperbaric Oxygen therapy to treat autism, with much anecdotal evidence to support its efficacy. So, if there is a link between oxygen deficiency and Autism, could it have something to do with a decrease in the concentration of atmospheric oxygen? I don't know, but I suspect that we will begin to hear more about the link between oxygen levels and human behavior. Autism is just one of many potential symptoms of oxygen deprivation. Many previously unknown illnesses have been springing up over the last century, notable for their idiopathic qualities. It is becoming increasingly common for large numbers of people to report constant feelings of fatigue and other symptoms that could be attributed to Oxygen deficiency. Doctors have no clue what is causing most of these problems despite decades of searching for viruses, bacteria or other pollutants that could be causing them. Of course nobody has even bothered to see if the actual composition of the atmosphere could be causing these things. Changes in Oxygen availability have long been known to have direct effect on metabolism. So why isn't anyone talking about this? Probably because it's just too damned scary for most people to deal with. I've always been against child birth due to the massive overpopulation problem facing current and future generations. I think Bill Hicks said it best when he said, "Can you calm down on your rutting just for a couple of seconds until we can figure out this food, air deal?" Apparently not. Even my supposedly well educated friends insist on perpetuating this global catastrophe that is "the miracle" of childbirth. I guess it's only fitting that their children will be the ones to suffer the most as we run out of food, water and air. Okay, we probably won't run out of water...hell, practically all of Greenland is covered in potable water, but the whole food/air issue is definitely in everyone's future, that is, eveyone who plans to be alive in 20 years. I think it's about time we started talking about it and doing something about it. I'm all for doing what the Chinese did when they couldn't feed the ridiculous number of children they used to produce. As far as I'm concerned, anyone with more than one child is an outright environmental terrorist. When the sheer number of your babies starts affecting my ability to breath air, that's where I draw the fucking line. But first we need proof, so atmospheric scientists of the world, I call on you to figure out what the hell is going on with our Oxygen levels and to start sounding the alarm if my suspicions are correct. I would also love it if someone could disprove my theory, because this shit keeps me up a night and I'm starting to feel a bit short of breath.
posted by minorgod @ 3:24 PM
2 Comments:
From our own FSU...
"PRESENT COMPOSITION OF THE ATMOSPHERE:
The atmosphere is comprised of gases which are considered to be permanent (gases which remain essentially constant by percent) and gases considered to be variable (gases which have changing concentrations over a finite period of time).
PERMANENT gases in the atmosphere by percent are:
Nitrogen 78.1%
Oxygen 20.9%
(Note that these two permanent gases together comprise 99% of the atmosphere)
Other permanent gases:
Argon 0.9%
Neon 0.002%
Helium 0.0005%
Krypton 0.0001%
Hydrogen 0.00005%
VARIABLE gases in the atmosphere and typical percentage values are:
Water vapor 0 to 4%
Carbon Dioxide 0.035%
Methane 0.0002%
Ozone 0.000004%"
This next one covered oxygen levels over geologic time and I thought it was going to come into the 20th century, but it veered off into CO2 concentrations instead. What it had to say on that was interesting though...
"About 3.5 billion years ago, lightening caused oxygen to disassociate [separate] from water [H2O] to become free atmospheric oxygen. By 0.5 billion years later [3 billion years before present], oxygen was relatively plentiful, but not enough for humans to be able to breathe. It was only during the Carboniferous period, with its extensive coal-forming swamp forests, about 360 million years ago, that photosynthesis released sufficient oxygen that its concentration became closer to today’s. At that time, much carbon-containing plant matter fell to the ground, was buried and became coal.
Thus, by 100 to 200 million years ago, when the dinosaurs lived, atmospheric oxygen concentration was about 35 percent. This oxygen level continued probably until 65 million years ago when it is generally thought that an enormous meteorite collided with the earth, with consequent fires removing most of the forests. Nowadays, with lower rates of photosynthesis, the oxygen content of the atmosphere is about 21 percent.
...
It is known that the carbon dioxide level before 1850, and the advent of the industrial revolution in the West, was about 27 percent lower than today, that is about 260 parts per million [ppm]. It is also known that the CO2 level was about 18 percent lower in the 1970s, or about 295 ppm. Notice how the ppm of CO2 is rising at an increasing rate.
At the end of the 19th century, there was approximately 280 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. At the end of the 20th century, this is approximately 360 ppm—an increase of 25%. Estimates using current trends suggest that CO2 will be anything between 450 and 950 (!) ppm by the end of the 21st century.
“ Carbon dioxide is a non-toxic gas. It has beneficial uses and is the "fizz" in carbonated beverages. When frozen, it is "dry ice". At concentrations of from 2,500 ppm to 5,000 ppm carbon dioxide can cause headaches. At extremely high levels of 100,000 ppm (10 percent) people lose consciousness in ten minutes, and at 200,000 ppm (20 percent) CO2 causes partial or complete closure of the glottis.”"
The whole subject reminds me of a great story from Three Fisted Tales of Bob called The Oxygen Wars, if I remember correctly...
I read a bunch of info on historical levels of Oxygen and C02 while I was writing this blog post and realized that the overall concentration of CO2 relative to O2 was just too small to seriously dilute the oxygen content. However, it is also a known fact that certain geological events which release high concentrations of CO2 can kill if they are not quickly diluted by atmospheric turbulence. This has happened near lakes that form in craters of volcanoes, where C02 built up to very high concentrations and then spilled into low-lying villages killing anyone who happened to be low enough to breath the CO2 enriched air. It would not surprise me if similar situations could arise in highly congested metropolitan areas that suffer from atmospheric temperature inversions such as Los Angeles, where warm air traps smog and other pollutants in the valley for many days at a time. Could CO2 or other emmissions build up to the point that it could cause O2 deprivation? I don't know, but other health effects due to smog have already been clearly demonstrated.
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