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Rubbish and Survival
This collection takes a look at rubbish and survival – or how
to avoid the tendency to "mess things up". "The Fifth Garbosphere" takes
you through the history of trash – from latrines to atmospheric pollution, while "The Bubble" likens
humanity to the physics of a bubble. The "Earth's Economic Balance" weighs
up the two main attitudes to economics – market capitalism versus sustainability – choose
your currency. And finally "Green Ice" is a short piece written about a wild
and important place which records our past and gives some vital clues for the future – Greenland.
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The Fifth Garbosphere
While the Romans
are best known for the first widespread utilisation of the latrine (examples can be found in ancient Egypt, from
around 2000 BC, and in China, from around 100BC, during the Han Dynasty), It was the British, during the industrial revolution who pioneered the fully flushing sewage
system for urban societies, from the water closet (1596) to the first London sewerage system (1865) thereby establishing
the first Garbosphere*. The second garbosphere,
stimulated by the first, comprises a system for maintaining clean water supplies free from bacteria, water-borne
diseases, toxic waste and chemicals, constituted in the U.S. as the Clean Water Act (1972; amended 1977, 1987), adapted
in various forms worldwide, and currently proposed as Article 31 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948). The third sphere is the quintessential garbosphere: a system
for handling discarded food and packaging. Gradually evolving from city dumps, landfill sites, disused mines, incinerators,
sorting-at-source collection systems, industrial recycling units, anaerobic digestion, composting units, and waste minimisation; also identified as a geological stratum – the Poubellian (Lower and Upper). Now the fourth garbosphere has only recently been appreciated: the atmosphere - the air
that we breathe – the layer in which we live. Limits to the contamination of the Earth's atmosphere
– by human expulsions of the gaseous kind, mainly carbon dioxide and
methane – have been reached. Advances in technology have led to management
of the first, second and third garbospheres, and now we have the fourth. It's dawn was marked by the appreciation of the CFC-ozone-layer link – Identified,
debated and acted upon, following the 1987 Montreal protocol#, but the main development phase of the fourth
garbosphere has just begun. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) mapped, tracked and modeled global
greenhouse warming, mainly caused by centuries of burning of fossil fuels, and plans are underway to control the human
sources of atmospheric CO2. Animal
waste, water quality, garbage control, and atmospheric chemistry make four – loosely associated with
earth, water, wind and fire – so what constitutes the fifth? It is, somewhat analogous to the
Greek's Aether – the sphere of knowledge. The world-wide-web, news and literary journals, and
international scientific bodies encapsulate the global sphere of human knowledge – but are sadly now
polluted by computer viruses, mis-information, propaganda and ignorance. So how do we clean up the fifth garbosphere? Well, like the first four, it needs some technology, but mainly it takes motivation and self control. Do you want to live with pollution and waste? Speak no trash,
see no trash, and hear no trash. And start cleaning up the fifth garbosphere.
*Garbosphere is defined as a domain
for the handling of human waste products. Trash refers to "any worthless material that is to be disposed of." The
word is of Scandinavian origin meaning "fallen leaves and twigs." Trash (Am. Eng.) is essentially synonymous with
rubbish (Br. Eng.). Garbage is a subset of trash comprising "food and packaging that is discarded." The word probably
came from Old French - jarbage "a bundle of sheaves, entrails," Garbage has the sense of being collected, managed
and, ideally, re-cycled. (Modified from answerbag.com, posting of Sep 27, 2005.)
#The 1987 Montreal Protocol, convened by the United
Nations Environment Program (UNEP), was a comprehensive, international agreement designed to slow and eventually reverse stratospheric
ozone depletion, and called for a 50% reduction of Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) emissions by the year 2000. Amendments to the
protocol were made in 1990 and 1992. As a result of these regulatory measures, CFC concentrations declined in lower atmosphere,
and remained constant in the upper atmosphere by 2000.
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The
Bubble Civilization is a thin, fragile membrane: one molecule thick, spreading infinitely, yet contained like a bubble with multiple
curves and topological twists, refracting the light into myriads of colours, a birefringent, prismatic shimmer, watchable forever. The flaws, knots and twists are healed by chemical spreading, remarkably, in spite of,
and because of, the tension. Complexity, elasticity and the unfathomable bonds of history provide its flexibility,
whilst the growth of homogeneous mono-molecularity brings new and dangerous fragility. Sustain and enjoy human and cultural diversity in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australasia, the Americas and islands of the seas. Resist
all the disjoining pressures, for the spread of uniformity only makes the bubble more likely to pop.
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Earth globe west (from NASA)
Earth's
Economic Balance e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e-business
has arrived - fast international commerce exchange of monies with a few clicks of a mouse entrepreneurs
of every kind are trading in e.e evaluate your desired goods and then make easy
decisions to purchase virtually free except for a minor tax or mark-up fee ecomomics
in this open web is the edge - the ultimate global trade enemy of the large corporate enterprise
- or just maybe end of our own diverse ecology - we choose either
to see value endure or leave Earth to die epitaph-e expire E Make everything on Earth cheaper D Declare everything on Earth has value.
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Green Ice
It was hunters who came here first For furs and fish at the edge, on the edges of ice: white ice, blue ice, green ice, brown. Then came the hunters for life at the edge: wild life, conflict life, borderline life. Cyanobacteria, Salix arctica, Sterna
paradisaea, Ovibos moschatus.
But now most valued by those who hunt For an edge on the tracks of Earth history: Cenozoic ice shows,
Mesozoic dramas, Paleozoic plays and Proterozoic operas. White ice, blue ice, green ice, brown; Greenland – Earth’s
thermometer.
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Greenland ice cap melt (photo by J.A. Dowdeswell)
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