Biosphere: The biosphere is part of the earth in which life exists. It is 20 kilometers thick from the bottom of the ocean to the lower atmosphere. It consists of three layers: the lithosphere, which is the land on the surface of the earth; the hydrosphere, which comprises of the water on the earth as well as water vapor in the air; and the atmosphere, which is made up of the air that surrounds the earth. The living organisms in the biosphere interact and affect each other in many ways. This is
Acid Rain and Its Effects on the Biosphere Introduction: Acid Rain: whenever I conjure up images of acid rain I always allude to huge, boiling-red raindrops falling from mean purple clouds on a path destined for destruction. I can see them spiraling down uncontrollably in fireballs of rage to the earth; it becomes very apparent. Perhaps my imagination has gotten the better of me here, but acid rain is definitely no sweetheart. Actually, acid rain looks like any other rain. Believe it
Life Outside Our Biosphere The fragile balance of the Earth's ecosystem is constantly being disrupted. Overpopulation is placing heavy strain on the world's resources. We are burning all our fossil fuels to create the energy we need, and clearing our rainforests to make enough farmland to feed everyone. The ozone layer is slowly eroding, exposing us to harmful UV light. The room we have on this planet is just enough to provide for our population now! As the population grows, we will find ourselves
the 20th century. Sozology is defined as the science of the systematic protection of the biosphere from the destructive effects on it from the anthroposphere. On the other hand, ecophilosophy is understood as the science whose object of study is the essence and nature of the socio-natural environment, its quantitative and qualitative properties and the causal dependence between the anthroposphere and biosphere. I hope that both these sciences will enter permanently into the world’s educational systems
the various organisms and nature are connected by a negative feedback loop, so as to maintain the stability of the Earth’s ecological state; Fourth, consider the atmosphere can be maintained at a steady depends not only on the biosphere, and in a ceratin sense, to the biosphere; Finally is considered a variety of biological regulation of its physical environment in order to create various types of biological optimization of living conditions. The first two layers are called weak Gaia theory, after three
Introduction Whenever one hears the word Gaia, he or she will also hear life, goddess, purpose, ecology, and undoubtedly controversy. Not many topics have provoked more controversy among the scientific community than the idea that the atmosphere, biosphere, and its living organisms behave as a single system, striving to maintain a stability that is conducive to the existence of life—the so-called Gaia theory or Gaia hypothesis. The main controversy lies in the fact that the name Gaia comes from
Until the recent demise of the Soviet Union, we lived under the daily threat of nuclear holocaust extinguishing human life and the entire biosphere. Now it looks more likely that total destruction will be averted, and that widespread, but not universally fatal, damage will continue to occur from radiation accidents from power plants, aging nuclear submarines, and perhaps the limited use of tactical nuclear weapons by governments or terrorists. What has gone largely unnoticed is the unprecedented
Mexico around the start of the Christian era. The mammoth structure commands nearly thirty million cubic feet of space. In contrast, however, is the Durham Road Landfill, outside San Francisco, which occupies over seventy million cubic feet of the biosphere. It is a sad monument, indeed, to the excesses of modern society [Gore 151]. One might assume such a monstrous mound of garbage is the largest thing ever produced by human hands. Unhappily, this is not the case. The Fresh Kills Landfill, located
Ecology, or in Greek translation "study home", is the study of the interactions of organisms between it's enviornment. While biosphere means the whole worlds ecosystem. Why are these terms so important? The reason why they are important to everything on Earth because they hold and shape all organisms that live within them. Without organisms animals, plants, and everything that we know would never be able to survive. If ecology wasn't organized and delicate, the system wouldn't be the same to the
Unsure? Well read the following and decide. If you're not motivated to do so, consider that if ozone weren't part of the Earth, neither would we be, and, more immediately, if ozone levels aren't kept within certain narrow ranges in the future, the biosphere will suffer greatly. What is ozone? Ozone is the gas in our atmosphere which has the chemical formula, O3, meaning that each of its molecules consists of three oxygen atoms. Although seemingly similar to the much more common diatomic oxygen, O2
“The Anthropocene Biosphere” is an insightful and informative article on the modern era and portrays why understanding the present impact of humans on the planet is crucial for future survival of Earth as a whole. The article by Mark Williams et al illustrates key aspects and contributions, as well as the positive and negative impacts of the current era known as the Anthropocene. The authors argue that this Anthropocene age is substantially different in comparison to any preceding metazoan and microbial
More and the Utopian Dream To some, it can be paradise, to someone else a heaven on earth, and still to others it can mean the Garden of Eden, the New Jerusalem, or even Biosphere 2. What we have come to know as "Utopia," or, "Any idealized place, state, or situation of perfection; any visionary scheme or system for an ideally perfect society" (Neufeldt 1470), is just a name that was coined for us by Sir Thomas More for an eternal idea. There were centuries of utopian ideas before More came
The Gaia Hypothesis The Gaia Hypothesis is a hypothesis that was developed by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the late 1970's. James Lovelock is a British scientist, an atmospheric chemist, and also an inventor with an education in human physiology. Lynn Margulis was a microbiologist during the 1970's at Boston University. She also originated the theory of the eukaryotic cell arising as a result of endosymbiotic cell capture. This theory is the one that gave her the credibility to advance
planet. We are destroying the ozone layer, which allows life to exist on the Earth's surface, clearing the majority of the earth’s forests, and disrupting countless ecosystems. The result has been an unfavorable alteration of the composition of the biosphere and the Earth's heat balance. If we do not slow down our use of fossil fuels and stop destroying the forests, the world will become hotter than it has been in the past million years. This warming will rearrange entire biological communities and cause
Our idea of the body as a machine can be traced to the point of historical systems of classical thinkers. It was natural for humanity to be curious about its surrounding and try to formulate ways on how to explain everyday phenomenon. For example, the Greeks attempted to unlock the secrets of nature and schools of philosophy which began to form a systematic way of finding answers. The first of these was Anaximandu's theory of change which relied heavily on mythology as a means to explain the
Deciduous Forest Biome The deciduous forest is one of the three major biomes in Wisconsin. The Deciduous forest, also named the temperate deciduous forest, is jam packed with many different types of diverse plants and animals. These biotic factors are adapted to flourish and survive in the temperature changes of the biome. In the Deciduous, the temperatures can drop down to around 40℉ and get as high as 82℉. This climate also includes 30-40 inches of rainfall per year. A biome is a large area
ecosystem you have studied, explain the biophysical interactions which lead to diverse ecosystems and their functioning. Ecosystems rely on the interactions between the four spheres of the biophysical environment, the lithosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere and atmosphere for its unique character and functioning. These biophysical interactions and their processes have significant dictated the coastal sand dunes. Coastal sand dunes are large accumulations of sand located immediately behind the active
"chain" could collapse if one link was broken. In 1991, an experiment was created to test and observe the links between organisms and how they interact called Biosphere 2. Soon, I will explain the background/overview of the Biosphere 2 experiment, photosynthesis and cellular respiration, and why Biosphere 2 failed. To begin with, Biosphere 2 was a scientific experiment created to test and observe the
millions of years, evolution has shaped the society we reside in today. From the oxygen we breathe in, to the plants that grow from the ground, this is all evolution in front of the naked eye going unnoticed, but to what extent have we humans taken the biosphere for granted? Within the past 500 years, humans alone had caused the extinction of approximately 1000 species, but this was not by hunting the organisms (IUCN, 2009). Since the burning of fossil fuels about 200 years ago, scientists had recorded that
The theory of Ecology is the study of relationships between organisms and the environment within an ecosystem. Ecology is everything to the human population. It covers a broad field including speciation and population dynamics. It is the study of biotic (living) and abiotic (nonliving) that depend and interact with each in the environment. Meaning it focuses on plants, animals, bacteria, rivers, mountains and even humans. With both abiotic and biotic factors in the same area ecologist call that an