Our Blue Spaceship is in Maintenance Mode At the Moment and Needs it.
This maintenance was not scheduled, but now when it is a fact we can transform our lifestyle and make the journey last until we’re out of fuel. Don’t forget that traveling is not a human right. It is devastating for the tiny layer of atmosphere above us we need to be staying here on Tellus.
This picture shows our Earth’s protection layer on our voyage through space, and the useful layer is only about 120 km thick in total. The troposphere layer where we live is only 10 km thick, and is our “daily” protection layer. Above the Tropopause the oxygen content is to low for human activity.
The next layer is the Stratosphere where most of us has been traveling protected by the shell and the pressure cabin inside an airplane. In the Mesosphere we can see the Meteors burning and trough this layer the temperature drops from zero to minus 90 C.
The Aurora or Northern Light occur in the Thermosphere where solar storms hit the magnetic fields of our planet and lighten up the night sky in the polar areas.
Temperature varies as the altitude rise and explain why there is still snow on some mountain tops. The oxygen content in the air decrease with altitude and altitude sickness set in at a level around 2500 meters. This makes it hard to live above 3000 meters altitude, but a few people do in Bolivia and Nepal.
This illustration show that at the altitude of around 20 km is the ozone layer. This protect us against the deadly UV radiation from the sun and outer space.
Most of the weather occur in the humid troposphere. The upper illustration has a temperature curve at the right side. It is to notice that 90 km above us the temperature is constantly minus 90 Celsius, and is the reason the temperature falls at night.
These illustrations show the fragile protection that surrond our planet. If you let a 2 liter car engine run one day then a column of 1 square meter about 27 km high is the volume of air that’s contaminated from the exhaust. I don’t want to know how many hours I’ve been behind the steering wheel. But I know very well when you drive the car the contamination doubles quickly and triples as you approach the speed limit and even more if you drive faster.
This time I don’t want to remind you about the size of the Earth and how many cars that’s running every day… Wait… The engine in a SUV has normally a double size of the one I mentioned and also doubled emissions.
Germany sold 16 million luxury(big engine) cars all over the world last year. I guess most of them are out there on the streets running in between.
I just want to remind you about that the aviation contribution to air pollution is about 7 % on top of the total global air pollution that is the base for the UN Climate Protocol Agreement.
Now the aviation business has a golden moment to start logging their pollution if they start flying again and hopefully then less than before.
We really had to rethink our behavior, especially in the use of combustion engines in our cars, in airplanes and shipping. The use of fossil fuel had to be reversed, and we all know what happens if we don’t.
Through the years we have managed to get most people out of poverty, but the cost is overuse of all resources on this planet. This behavior has taken us close to the point of no return.
The break we have at the moment in air pollution could be the way we rescue our world from overheating. The air traffic that is close to zero at the moment could be the reduction we need to reverse the global warming. And we need to continue a permanent reduction so the global warming reverse.
Traveling by airplane or on a cruse ship is not a human right. The footprint from tourism is severe. All over the world local habitants suffer as the crowds of tourists march into their gardens and interupts the daily life.
Air traffic is a kind of extra pollution which is not regulated in the global consensus in the climate protocol. Totally this is about 7 % of the emissions to air on a global basis.
Why should rich people have a right to share their pollution with the rest of the world. It is a shame, just like farting in your friends birthday party.
NASA has already measured the impact the closed factories and activity in China has on the NOX gases emissions to the atmosphere. These gases are the most toxic and devastating on the human health, and transforms to acid and ozone in aerosols and the outcome is the toxic smog.
The Chinese people’s lungs has recovered a little lately, and are more resistant to handle the next virus due to the absent of smog.
When people breathe the smog small holes puncture on the surface of the lungs. These holes makes the absorption of bacterias and viruses go faster into the blodstream since the natural barrier is broken. Can we hope some dozes of cleaner air could make some of us more resistant to the next virus?
Hopefully our planet will wake up again after this pandemic. I also hope the leaders who survive and are still in charge will take a look at our spaceship with different eyes.
Remember that our blue spaceship will always need the very best care to survive on the never-ending? journey.
Further reading:
The Fragile Voyage On The Blue Balloon Spaceship Continues Until…
The next decade needs a new weekday, an 8th day to start refurbish our planet.
