2 Man and the Biosphere

2   Man and the Biosphere

3.1Man and the Biosphere

3.2 The volume of air, water and soil surrounding the earth within which the physio-chemical conditions are supportive of life has been variously termed the bio, or ecosphere, the bio-film or envelope. Extending vertically upwards into the air to a height of approximately 6.25 miles, downwards to the greatest known depths of the oceans, 35,800 feet, and to a few thousand feet below the earth’s surface.

3.3 This ’life space’ is a unitary system of processes contained within the three layers of the atmosphere, the hydrosphere and the lithosphere; characterised by various parameters of temperature, pressure, humidity; electrical potentials; interface exchanges of liquid-solid, solid-gas, gas-liquid, etc. All of these are, in turn, conditioned by the energy radiations providing motive power for the system. The latter energy derives from one major source, solar radiation, but there may be added to this the kinetic and potential energy of the earth from the gravitational system, and the geothermal energies from the interior of the earth mass.

3.4 Other major ’systems’ constants governing optimal sizes, physical configuration, life cycle and metabolic rate of living forms would be:

3.5 a) Gravity – the physical and structural effects relating to this; pressures of gases, material strengths and stabilities. The ways in which such relationships are stable in various ’phase states’ – liquid, gaseous, solid – between temperature ranges, permit a variety of physiological systems and organic forms within the different earth and water environs.

3.6 b) Temperature – the medium frequency of heat and radiation excitation on the earth’s surface allows low temperature energy and materials exchange.

3.7 The atmospheric filtering of radiation, the gravitational, pressure and temperature constants above, provide a median environment for organic life, of a sufficiently steady state for long evolutionary change, and of sufficient range to allow great species variety.

3.8 The systems or ’process’ variables related to the above would be:

3.9 a) those frequencies of exposure to solar radiation governed by rotation of the planetary mass, giving climatic variation together with the distribution of water and land – the geographic factors.

3.10 b) in turn, these may be related to the distribution of energy and material resources of various kinds in the various sectors of the biosphere.

3.11 Other variables in the system could be multiplied by the cross-relation of the above, and by further introduction of altitude, continental mass relations, soil, vegetation distributions, marine environ conditions, etc.

3.12 The extent to which living organisms are also viably affected by the vast electro-

3.13 15 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.14 THE EARTH’S BIOSPHERE

3.15 Upper Atmospheric Levels

3.16 Troposphere

3.17 Biosphere

3.18 7-10 miles

3.19 Lithosphere

3.20 Continental Crust

3.21 Oceans

3.22 Hydrosphere

3.23 Upper Mantle

3.24 Lower Mantle

3.25 1,800 miles

3.26 Core

3.27 3,960 miles

3.28 Crust

3.29 Outer Core

3.30 Lower Mantle

3.31 Upper Mantle

3.32 Troposphere

3.33 Mesosphere

3.34 Ionosphere

3.35 Thermosphere

3.36 Exposphere

3.37 The biosphere is that thin film of air, earth and water around the globe within which most living organisms are found. Within this ’life space’ are all the energy patterns and processes of interaction which sustain our major activities. Though extending vertically about seven miles into the air and for thousands of feet below the earth and oceans its most densely populated region is just above and below sea level.

3.38 Man and the Biosphere 16

3.39 magnetic systems surrounding, and external to, the earth, is little known at present.

3.40 The planetary surface is relatively ’meager’ – approximately 197 million square miles, of which 57 million square miles is land and 140 million square miles is water. In human terms, we live on a small island at the bottom of an ocean of air, surrounded by an ocean of water. Within this life zone, most living forms are held close to the surface of the earth, but the organic evolutionary process has been specifically characterised by the enlargement of occupancy of the vertical and horizontal ranges of the biosphere. Our own most singular and recent mark of life space extension has been to broach it’s limits – by orbiting both animals, plants and men, outside of the earth’s atmosphere.

3.41 Despite the close dimensions of the life zone, and the relatively narrow physio-chemical tolerances endurable by living organisms, there are a countless variety of habitats within which forms of life pursue their cycles of individual growth and decay.

3.42 Man, of middle ’size’ in range, and one of the least specialized of complex living forms, has almost evolved beyond the stage where he is constrained within any specific habitat or ’ecological niche’ parameters. These may be distinctly characterized for most other organisms – by differences in medium, of earth, air and water; in physio-chemical factors of salinity, acidity, etc.; temperature, pressure and light availability. At the gross end of the scale, we may distinguish such ecological habitats as climatic zones, ranging through the tropical, subtropical, temperate, subarctic and arctic, etc. At the micro end, however, we have bacterial spores at the limits of the bio-atmosphere, organisms under several atmospheric pressures in the ocean depths, and those whose ’niche’ is on, or within, the tissues of another life form.

3.43 The fundamental relation between all organisms and their environ (as including other organisms) is the maintenance of life through various types of energy exchanges. The basic life materials are the chemical elements, e.g., the human organism is 99 per cent composed of hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus with various other trace elements in fractional amounts; its mass is 60 per cent water. Such materials are, of course, energy – at varying levels of relatively temporal organization. We could, therefore, refer to all materials as energy whose ’mass’ and structural characteristics have given stable configurations in the particular material state.

3.44 Energy and materials are in constant and complexly regenerative flows between, and within, organisms and the environ. One such major flow in the biosphere is, for example, the process of photosynthesis, through which plant life utilizes solar energy through its enzyme systems to convert, or ’build’, carbon dioxide and water into the more complex carbohydrates. These, in turn, provide food energy for other organisms which, in the reverse of the photosynthesis process, ’break down’ such complex materials – on the one hand, into growth/maintenance elements, e.g., the internal metabolism of digestion, conversion, storage, etc., and, on the other, into further external exchanges, e.g., in respiration, in the mobility necessary to obtain more food energies, etc. Photosynthesis is the first step in the overall energy flow, within the biosphere, which sustains all the complexly interdependent systems of living organisms. In the simple food chain, used as an example – which might go from plant to herbivorous animal to man. As no energy conversion is 100 per cent efficient, so much is ’lost’ at each link in the chain. Theoretically the end point occurs when all the energy has been dissipated and the organism’s decay converts the initially ’built up’ elements back into their original state. However, even at this simple level of consideration, the growth/decay cycles are such that the process is in part regenerative, e.g., decay is in itself a further microbial reduction which produces nutrients for the plant, so ’closing’ the cycle. Also, when we consider the role of man in the process, this again alters it significantly.

3.45 PHOTOSYNTHESIS

3.46 THE PHOTOSYNTHESIS PROCESS and the HYDROGEN/OXYGEN CYCLES

3.47 respiration and decomposition produces HO ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR & GASES respiration and decomposition produces CO

3.48 photosynthesis

3.49 HYDROGEN is then transferred to CARBON DIOXIDE by agents of light and chlorophyll

3.50 water gives up hydrogen, thus releasing oxygen

3.51 hydrogen cycle

3.52 oxygen cycle

3.53 carbohydrates, plant proteins, and oils (CHO)

3.54 O oxygen released to animals, etc.

3.55 light energy (carbon) + (water) + (in presence of dioxide) (enzyme systems associated with chlorophyll) = (glucose) + (oxygen)

3.56 "Chemically the photosynthetic process involves the storage of a part of the sunlight energy as potential or "bound" energy of food...is much more complicated than indicated in the above word formula....The photosynthetic process of food manufacture is...the synthesis of amino acids, proteins, and other vital materials ...this occurs simultaneously with the synthesis of carbohydrates (glucose), some of the basic steps involved being the same. The reverse of photosynthesis, or respiration, results in the oxidation of foods with the release of energy....A part of the synthesized food is used, by the producers themselves. The excess as well as the producer protoplasm is then utilized by the consumers and decomposers, or part of it is stored or transported into other systems." –E. P. Odum.

3.57 "...thirty-five percent yield in energy conversion by plants is very respectable – considering that we do not know of any reaction produced by visible light outside the plant cell which would convert as much as 10 percent of absorbed light into chemical energy. If some economical means could be found to capture and convert even 10 percent of light energy, the discovery conceivably could produce a greater revolution in our power economy than can be expected at present from the much-publicized discovery of atomic energy." –E. I. Rabinowitch.

3.58 Sources: (1) Fundamentals of Ecology, E. P. Odum, (New York: Holt, Reinhart, Winston), 1959. p. 18. (2) "Photosynthesis," E. I. Rabinowitch, Scientific American, Vol. 179, 1948. pp. 30-31.

3.59 Man and the Biosphere

3.60 SUN Solar Energy Co2+H2O+N2+ PHOTOSYNTHESIS produces 150,000 million tons of Organic Matter (Vegetation) per year on world land surfaces. 11% CULTIVATED CROPS AND GRAZING LANDS provide 16,000 million tons of potential food material 89% vegetation presently unused by man 75% waste cuttings etc. Higher food extraction processes may provide increased food supply. Approximately 13,50 million tons WASTED per year. 25% LOST IN insects, and

3.61 Percentage of Solar Light Striking a Leaf reflected 20% transmitted 10% transferred 20% to heat used in transpiration 48% & evaporation 2% used in photosynthesis Distribution of Photosynthetic Ma 20% respiration 25% usable crops leaves and 43% stalks 12% roots Plants of ava in pho in tu mater from t 75% Was

3.62 The amount of solar energy received on one acre of land during a 90 day growing season is equivalent to the energy derived from 243 tons of Anthracite Coal. CONVERTED Energy obtained from 25 bushels of corn is equivalent to 0.33 tons of Anthracite Coal CONVERTED The amount of energy obt 25 bushels of corn when c alcohol by fermentation i to 0.20 tons of Anthracit The amount of energy obt bushels of corn when conv by feeding steers is equi 0.033 tons of Anthracite

3.63 Sources: (1) "Food for the World," Howard W. Mattson, Inter- national Science and Technology, December 1965. p.34. (2) "Photos Com. In

3.64 Man and the Biosphere

3.65 SUN Solar Energy Co2+H2O+N2+ PHOTOSYNTHESIS produces 150,000 million tons of Organic Matter (Vegetation) per year on world land surfaces. 11% CULTIVATED CROPS AND GRAZING LANDS provide 16,000 million tons of potential food material 89% vegetation presently unused by man 75% waste cutti etc Higher food extraction processes may provide increased food supply. Approximately 13 million tons WAST per year. 25% LOST insects,

3.66 Percentage of Solar Light Striking a Leaf reflected 20% transmitted 10% transferred 20% to heat used in transpiration 48% & evaporation 100% 2% used in photosynthesis Distribution of Photosynthetic 20% respiration 25% usable crops leaves and 43% stalks 12% roots Pla of in in mat fro 75%

3.67 The amount of solar energy received on one acre of land during a 90 day growing season is equivalent to the energy derived from 243 tons of Anthracite Coal. CONVERTED Energy obtained from 25 bushels of corn is equivalent to 0.33 tons of Anthracite Coal CONVERTED The amount of energy o 25 bushels of corn whe alcohol by fermentatio to 0.20 tons of Anthra The amount of energy o bushels of corn when c by feeding steers is e 0.033 tons of Anthraci

3.68 Sources: (1) "Food for the World," Howard W. Mattson, Inter- national Science and Technology, December 1965. p.34. (2) "Pho Com.

3.69 PHOTOSYNTHETIC ENERGY CONVERSION

3.70 97% animal metabolic processes GRAINS etc. fed to livestock with 3% net efficiency 60 mil. tons ANIMAL PRODUCTS 360 million tons food per year HUMAN CONSUMPTION 4,000 mil. tons of USABLE FOOD MATERIALS taken from the land. MECHANIZED FOOD PROCESSING about 2,000 million tons per year. 80% waste from processing 20% 400 million tons of FOOD IN STORAGE AND TRANSIT 75% (300 million tons) plant food

3.71 Material in Plants

3.72 Plants use only about 2% of available light energy in photosynthesis. Man in turn uses only 25% of materials manufactured in this process.

3.73 Waste cuttings, etc.

3.74 Obtained from converted to is equivalent ite Coal.

3.75 Obtained from 25 nverted to meat uivalent to es Coal.

3.76 "....The natural chemical storage of solar energy by photosynthe- sis in agriculture is inefficient. Ordinarily, only about one-fifth of one percent of the annual supply of solar radiation falling on agricul- tural land is utilized in plant growth. But in devices, with the di- rect use of the solar radiation, higher efficiencies are possible – perhaps 40 percent for the distillation of water, 25 percent for solar refrigeration, and 10 percent for conversion into electricity with silicon photovoltaic cells. We can use the sun effectively for cook- ing, for heating water and heating houses, for cooling and refrigera- tion, for distilling water, and for producing mechanical and electri- cal power with heat engines, thermoelectric converters, and photovol- taic cells.

3.77 "...Solar energy cannot now compete economically with cheap fuel and electricity as we have it in industrialized countries. But there are 2 billion people in the world who do not now have any electricity; and most of these people live in the sun belt near the equator. In many of these areas there are few deposits of fossil fuel and no op- portunities for hydroelectric power. Solar radiation is often the most important, potentially available, natural ressource." – F. Daniels.

3.78 Photosynthesis," H. A. Spoehr, (Chemical Catalog (3) "Direct Use of the Sun’s Energy," Farrington Daniels, Inc.), 1926. pp. 31-40. American Scientist, Vol. 55, January 1967. p. 16.

3.79 Man and the Biosphere

3.80 The overall energy flux into and out of the biosphere and its larger containing earth system, by radiation received from the sun and that radiated outwardly from the earth, is roughly in balance. This allows us to consider the biosphere, theoretically, as a locally ’closed’ system – within which no energy may be lost or gained overall. The energy flow within the biosphere, as a closed local system, should ultimately be reduced through its various exchange losses to an evenly dissipated end state – of entropy or minimal energy flux. This state of minimal order, of the final running down of the system, may be characterised, partially, by the process of organic decay. In this stage, the arrest of material growth and the slowing down of external and internal energy flows is finally resolved in the disintegration of the complex organic structure into its elementary constituents.

3.81 Entropy is also used, in terms of information, as a measure of uncertainty, or disorder, of knowledge. To the extent that it increases order and predictability in the system, and reverses the tendency towards ’running down’, information is anti-entropic. As the agency or principle of complex ordering in the environ, its role has not yet been fully or clearly defined in relation to energy and material organization. It is significant, however, that whilst the amount of available energy and material elements in the eco-system remains relatively constant, the amount of order increases. The bio-evolutionary direction is towards increased complexity of order – information increases and accumulates.

3.82 The information extracted from the environment by one organism does not in equal measure reduce the amount of information available to any other organism, nor does what is learned by one diminish the amount that can be learned by another. A genetic population in expanding its numbers increases, if anything, its per capita information supply, even if per capita supplies of materials and energy be reduced . . . Evolution viewed as a "learning process" entails the incorporation of more information into population systems: ’In the long view there has been an increase in the complexity of genetic instructions (Medawar, 1961)’. . . Social organisms in sharing information increase the amount by increasing the distribution rather than inversely.ź

3.83 Man’s function in the ecosystem may then be viewed as:

3.84 a) Entropic – in using energies to reduce complex material resources to simpler structures, i.e., where he acts as an ’unconscious’ biological agency as in food processing, reducing and extinguishing other organic populations, disordering towards malfunction of ’natural’ systems, in air, water, earth, pollution, etc.

3.85 ź"Social Organization and the Ecosystem", O. T. Duncan, Chapter 2, p. 44, Handbook of Modern Sociology, edited by R. L. Faris, (pub. Rand McNally & Co., U.S., 1964).

3.86 b) Anti-entropic – where he uses energies more consciously to modify and transform his environ toward higher levels of com- plexity. Through the application of organized information/ knowledge in his ’artificial’ systems, he increasingly re- processes, re-orders and re-distributes energy and materials in more, rather than less, complex forms.

3.87 The balance between his entropic (disordering) propensities, and his anti-entropic (ordering) propensities is, in this sense, a central point of our present discussions.š We can only surmise, in terms of our brief historical record, that this balance is already tip- ped, through evolutionary development, towards the anti-entropic as more favourable to the survival of the species.

3.88 The concept may also be extended beyond life on earth, toward the imminent engagement of man with extra-terrestrial systems. Some of these, such as the moon, are of a different and apparently less complex order and lower energy level. What may be the ’evolutionary’ effect of introducing anti-entropic bias into such entropically oriented systems? The question enlarges philosophically to the consideration of all life forms, in- cluding the non-human, as an anti-entropic process or principle.

3.89 Our more immediately pressing consideration is, however, human life and society within the present confines of the biosphere.

3.90 The basic biological functions which we share with other organisms only furnish some of the parameters of our overall ecosystem requirements. Our further needs are complicated by the high degree of social development of the human species. Social patterns are more determinant of biological events than we generally concede. We may schematize our ecosystem relations by labelling certain areas of the environ system and the ’human systems’ through which we relate to these. This should be treated as an extremely limited conceptual convenience. Such schematic models, in which division or ’boxes’ are set out in linearly connected fashion, can, in no way, approximate the dynamic complexity of our simplest relationships in which every aspect of every activity is interconnected.

3.91 šThe hinge of this proposition rests, of course, with a specifically anthropocentric view of ’order’!

3.92 Man and the Biosphere 21

3.93 READINGS LIST MAN AND BIOSPHERE

3.94 Advances in the Astronautical Sciences. American Astronautical Society. Plenum Press, 1961

3.95 Animal Ecology. S. Charles Kendeigh. Prentice-Hall, 1961.

3.96 Bioastronautics Data Book. National Aeronautics and Space Admin. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1962.

3.97 Biology and Human Environment. Ekistics, Vol.21, No. 123, February 1966.

3.98 Biotechnology: Concepts and Applications. Lawrence J. Fogel. Prentice-Hall,1963.

3.99 Cybernetics and Management, Stafford Beer, English Univ. Press, Ltd., London 1959.

3.100 Ecology. Eugene P. Odum. Modern Biology Series, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc. 1963.

3.101 Energy Exchange in the Biosphere. David M. Gates. Harper & Row, New York, 1962.

3.102 Fundamentals of Ecology. E.P. Odum. W.B. Saunders Co. London, 1959.

3.103 The Geography of Hunger. Josue de Castro. Little, Brown & Co. Boston, 1952.

3.104 Geography of World Affairs. J.P. Cole. Pelican Books, 1963.

3.105 Global Geography. G.T. Renner and Associates. Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1944.

3.106 Human Ecology. A.H. Hawley. Ronald Press Co., New York 1950.

3.107 The Human Species. Fredrick S. Hurse. Random House. New York, 1965.

3.108 Human Species. Anthony Barnett. Pelican Books, Ltd. 1957.

3.109 Human Use of the Earth. Philip L. Wagner. The Free Press. New York.

3.110 Land Requirements for the Production of Human Food. J. Wyllie. Univ. of London Press, 1954.

3.111 A Life Support System for a Near Earth or Circumlunar Space Vehicle. Garland B. Whisenhunt, Jr. Plenum Press, 1961.

3.112 Mankind Evolving. Th. Dobzhansky. Yale University Press. New Haven, 1962.

3.113 Manned Space Cabin Systems. Eugene B. Konecci. Advances in Space Science, Academic Press, 1959.

3.114 The Meaning of the Twentieth Century. K. Boulding. Harper & Row, 1964.

3.115 New Views of the Nature of Man. J.R. Platt (ed.) University of Chicago, Press, 1965.

3.116 The Population Crisis: Implications and Peace for Action. L.K.Y. Ng (ed.) Stuart Mudd co-editor, Indiana University Press, 1965.

3.117 A Regenerative Life-Support System for Long-Term Space Flight. J.J. Konikoff. Advances in the Astronautical Sciences, Vol. VIII, Plenum Press, 1963.

3.118 Science and Survival. B. Commoner. The Viking Press, 1966.

3.119 Space Biology. James S. Hanrahan and David Bushnell. Basic Books Inc., 1960.

3.120 Spacecraft Life Support Systems. Dan C. Popma. National Aeronautics and Space Admin. Langley Research Center, Paper No. CP 63-693, April 1963.

3.121 Waste - Recovery Processes for a Closed Ecological System. Wesley O. Pipes. National Academy of Sciences- National Research Council Publication 898, 1961/

3.122 Weather and Climate Modification. Problems and Prospects. Vol. I and II. National Academy of Sciences. Washington D.C., 1966.

3.123 World Without Want. Paul G. Hoffman. Harper and Row. New York, 1962.

3.124 Man and the Biosphere 23

3.125 ENVIRON SYSTEM(S)

3.126 Atmospheric —- Terrestrial —- Marine

3.127 Atmospheric

3.128 Though the shell of ’atmospheres’ surrounding the earth extends thousands of miles above the surface, the sector most immediately concerned in the human biosphere is the tropospheric layer. This constitutes about 70 per cent of the air mass confined in a narrow layer about 6 miles in depth. Within this layer move the global and local wind systems which ’ventilate’ the ecosystem, carrying water vapor and other gaseous and solid exchanges around the earth’s surface, and playing a major role in the climatic system. This shifting air mass is a vast cycling reservoir which modifies, redistributes and reorganizes the various energies and materials which are taken up into its systematic flows. The passage of an ’air parcel’ around the earth in mid latitudes requires about one month – a complete interchange of all circulating air masses between latitudes and hemispheres is calculated to take about two years.

3.129 The composition of the atmosphere close to the earth’s surface is mainly nitrogen, oxygen and argon in approximately 75, 23 and 1 per cent by volume. Other constituents amounting to less than a tenth of 1 per cent are hydrogen, neon, helium, krypton, xenon, radon, tritium, etc. We are generally not aware of the extent to which the atmospheric environ is freely ’mined’ of its elements in our various agricultural and industrial technologies. They are, of course, ’replaced’ by other parts of the organic and inorganic cycle. But we have, as yet, no accurate monitoring of the vastly enlarged scale at which this or that key constituent may be in the process of extraction in excess of renewal by the eco-system.

3.130 All available waters in the biosphere come from condensation of water vapor circulated in the atmospheric system – as rain, snow, hail, dew, etc. The distribution of this evaporation/precipitation/exchange cycle is global and links the terrestrial, atmospheric and marine environs in a massive interchange, not only of water, but of various other material elements injected into the different sectors of the cycle.

3.131 In addition to gases and water vapor, the atmospheric air masses carry around the earth quantities of dust, bacterial spores, decomposition and combustion particles and soil removed by wind erosion and evaporation. Where we referred to the pollution of the atmosphere and water as a global, not local, problem – we may note here that dust particle masses and other materials noted above may be carried almost 3000 miles by a wind of only 10 miles per hour before they are deposited on the earth surface. Dust and sand storms are a common enough phenomenon – during the United States’ dust bowl storms of 1934, it was calculated that about 700 million tons of topsoil materials were eventually blown out to sea.

3.132 The ’greenhouse’ effect of the atmospheric layers is so-called from the way in which these layers admit the major portion of incoming short wave solar radiation, but trap the outgoing long wave radiation moving upward from the earth surface – thus retarding the dissipation of energies from the biosphere and stabilizing the temperature at the earth’s surface. Particular attention has been given, in recent years, to the way in which the increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide, due to the use of fossil fuels, may further accentuate this heat trapping ’greenhouse’ effect. Suggestions have been made that this direct, but originally unwitting interference with one of the largest of the ecosystem’s maintenance patterns could, eventually, raise average temperatures to a sufficient degree

3.133 24 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.134 THE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM

3.135 ENVIRON SYSTEMS Atmosphere Air, water, radiant energy and gas cycles. Airborne spores, pollen, dust. Terrestrial (LITHOSPHERE) Rock, mineral deposits and cycles. Plant and animal organic populations. Oceans (HYDROSPHERE) Water, mineral deposits and cycles. Plant and animal organic populations.

3.136 Biophysical Physiological and metabolic processes: the organic life cycles-birth, aging, death-individuals, generations, and populations, etc.

3.137 HUMAN SYSTEMS Psychosocial Interpersonal (and interenviron) relation expressed in individual and collective patterns of behavior: social institutions-kinship, religious, political, economic, productive, recreative, etc.: symbolic and ideological systems-arts, science, philosophy, etc.

3.138 Technological Material, mechanical, physical and chemical tools, tech- niques: organized systems of tools and processes. Extrac- tion, Production, Transportation, Communication, etc.

3.139 EXTERNAL HUMAN METABOLISM INTERNAL HUMAN METABOLISM

3.140 We need to extend the physical and biological concepts of ecology to include the social behaviors of man–as critical factors in the maintenance of his dynamic ecological balance. Nature is not only modified by human action as manifested in science and technology–through physical transfor- mations of the earth to economic purpose–but also by those factors, less amenable to direct perception and measure, which are political-ethical systems, education, needs for social contiguity and communication, art, religion, etc. Such ’socio-cultural’ factors have played and will in- creasingly continue to play a considerable role in man’s forward evolu- tionary trending and its effects on the overall ecology of the earth.

3.141 Source: Document 4, The Ten Year Program, John McHale, (Illinois: World Resources Inventory), 1965. p. 23

3.142 Man and the Biosphere

3.143 WORLD HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE approximate volumes of water moved in cubic miles daily (C.M.D.)

3.144 PRECIPITATION EVAPORATION from falling streams & lakes soil & vegetation SURFACE RUNOFF INFILTRATION WATER GROUND to lakes & streams TABLE WATER to soil & vegetation to oceans storage seeps to ground water supply some GROUND WATER seeps into oceans (submarine springs) SOIL MOISTURE OCEAN FALLS back over ocean

3.145 SOIL MOISTURE = 16,000 GROUND WATER above mile = 1,000,000 GROUND WATER below mile = 1,000,000 SUBSURFACE WATER = 2,016,000 cubic miles

3.146 FRESH WATER LAKES = 30,00 SALINE LAKES & INLAND SEAS = 25,00 RIVERS & STREAMS = 30 SURFACE WATER = 55,30 ATMOSPHERE = 3,10

3.147 SUBSURFACE WATER ICE CAPS and GLACIERS = 7,000,000 cubic miles of water of which 90% is located on Antarctica

3.148 all other available water not in the oceans (EXPANDED)

3.149 The total WORLD WATER supply = 326,071,300 cubic miles

3.150 one cubic mile of water contains 1,101,117,143,000 gallons

3.151 2.8% WORLD OCEANS = 317,000,000 cubic miles of water 97.2% of total WORLD WATER

3.152 tribu ocean susta circu over major of si

3.153 Data: (1)

3.154 Man and the Biosphere

3.155 WORLD HYDROLOGICAL CYCLE approximate volumes of water moved in cubic miles daily (C.M.D.)

3.156 PRECIPITATION EVAPORATION from falling streams & lakes soil & vegetation SURFACE RUNOFF INFILTRATION WATER GROUND TABLE WATER to lakes & streams to soil & vegetation to oceans storage seeps to ground water supply some GROUND WATER seeps into oceans (submarine springs) SOIL MOISTURE OCEAN FALLS back over ocean 210 C.M.D. 230 C.M.D. 20 C.M.D. 70 C.M.D. 50 C.M.D. 20 C.M.D.

3.157 SOIL MOISTURE = 16,000 GROUND WATER above mile = 1,000,000 GROUND WATER below mile = 1,000,000 SUBSURFACE WATER = 2,016,000 cubic miles

3.158 FRESH WATER LAKES = 30 SALINE LAKES & INLAND SEAS = 25 RIVERS & STREAMS = SURFACE WATER = 55 ATMOSPHERE = 3

3.159 SUBSURFACE WATER ICE CAPS and GLACIERS = 7,000,000 cubic miles of water of which 90% is located on Antarctica

3.160 all other available water not in the oceans (EXPANDED)

3.161 The total WORLD WATER supply = 326,071,300 cubic miles

3.162 one cubic mile of water contains 1,101,117,143,000 gallons

3.163 2.8% WORLD OCEANS = 317,000,000 cubic miles of water 97.2% of total WORLD WATER

3.164 Data:

3.165 25 WORLD HYDROLOGIC CYCLE

3.166 SUN SOLAR ENERGY FROM OCEANS OCEAN 0000 0000 300 300 cubic miles 1100 cubic miles SURFACE WATER

3.167 PRECIPITATED WATER rain, snow, etc.

3.168 ATMOSPHERIC WATER VAPOR free and in clouds = .001% of total world water

3.169 VAPORIZED WATER

3.170 INTERCEPTED by trees, shrubs, etc.

3.171 TEMPORARY STORAGE in glaciers and ice caps = 2.15% world water

3.172 SUBLIMATION

3.173 MELT WATER

3.174 OVERLAND RUNOFF

3.175 INfiltrATION

3.176 PLANT TRANSPIRATION

3.177 EVAPORATION

3.178 SOIL MOISTURE = .005% of world water

3.179 SURFACE WATER = .017% of world water

3.180 OCEANS = 97.2% of world water

3.181 CAPILLARY REPLENISHMENT

3.182 EXCESS SOIL, WATER & SEEPAGE

3.183 SPRING FLOW

3.184 CONSUMPTIVE WASTE by crop plants

3.185 GROUND WATER = .62% of world water

3.186 SEWAGE and WASTE POLLUTION

3.187 STREAM diversion & RESERVOIR storage

3.188 HUMAN, AGRICULTURAL, and INDUSTRIAL consumptive utalization

3.189 GROUND WATER withdrawal (wells)

3.190 "Within this mechanism the amount of water remains essentially constant. But the way water is distributed – in the ocean, in the atmosphere, on and under the land – varies from minute to minute. The ocean, which covers about three-fourths of the globe, is the principal reservoir of water.... "The sun, which synthesizes man’s food and keeps him from freezing, also brings him the water that sustains life. From the undrinkable ocean brine, solar energy distills pure water vapor. As the winds circulate in the troposphere – the turbulent lower layer of the atmosphere – they carry these vapors far over the great continental land masses.... "The earth’s rotation, solar heating, and the prevailing winds and ocean currents determine these major weather paths.... As rainwater runs over and through the ground, it carries with it dissolved minerals and particles of silt. The rivers and underground water courses carry this into the ocean." –"Water-A Special Report".

3.191 (1) "World Water Cycle," TIME Magazine, October 1, 1965 (2) "Water," LIFE Science Library, LIFE. p. 38. Source: (1) "Water – A Special Report," POWER, June 1966. pp. S8, S10.

3.192 Man and the Biosphere 26

3.193 WORLD CARBON CYCLE

3.194 WORLD CARBON CYCLE in tons per year (T.P.Y.)

3.195 Exchanged in earth, ocean and biosphere reservoirs.

3.196 SPHERIC CARBON

3.197 Returned to atmosphere through plant & animal respiration and decay.

3.198 Returned through other processes.

3.199 160 x 10 T.P. 60x10 T.P.Y. 100 x 10 T.P.Y. TERRESTRIAL PHOTOSYNTHESIS

3.200 Chalk and limestone deposits formed with carbon by marine organisms.

3.201 Plant acids decompose limestone particles in soil.

3.202 EXCRETA and CELLULAR CARBON in HUMUS

3.203 MICROBIAL ACTIVITY and further DECAY

3.204 OCEAN PHOTOSYNTHESIS

3.205 NEW F .1 x

3.206 FOSSIL FUEL BEDS created through time under influence of heat and pressure

3.207 industrial combustion for processing, heating and transportation.

3.208 cultivation aerates soil and increases the release of carbon.

3.209 "...The atmosphere and the oceans c etc. rocks and with living organisms. They activity that releases gases from the e and decay of organisms; they lose carbo the photosynthesis of plants. As these carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also c earth combine about 150 billion tons of and raising or lowering the earth’s temrogen, and set free 400 billion tons of oxy- ....The geological record indicate as much as 90 percent of this giant chemi- sphere to store and turn over carbon di he surface of the ocean by microscopic al- matic change. We know that plants borr ducted on land by our familiar green plants. yearly for photosynthesis. Under pres eanic material synthesized by plants is nearly all of this debt each year via r A much larger amount is used in the res- new fossil fuel deposits withholds at m of the plants themselves. The greatest xide, or less than .2 percent of the an water, carbon dioxide and mineral salts by ....The earth’s hot springs and vol s on land and in the sea. carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere in the biosphere are distinguished from approximately the same amount each year o characteristics: chemical complexity ....Quite accurate records of the ang, however, all the multi-various organic world each year show that in the past le all combustible, i.e., they have an af- tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere they release an average of about 100 kilo- tration has increased by about 13 perce of carbon they contain. Thus all organic ....If fuel consumption continues t unt of "free" energy, available for conver- have sent more than a trillion tons of electricity or light by gradual or sudden 2000. This should raise the earth’s av dations are the mainspring of life..." –G. N. Plass.

3.210 The Realm of Carbon, Horace G. Deming, (New York: John Wiley & Sons), 1930, pp. 259-261.

3.211 Man and the Biosphere

3.212 WORLD CARBON CYCLE in tons per year (T.P.Y.)

3.213 Exchanged in earth, ocean and biosphere reservoirs.

3.214 730,000 T.P.Y. of STAR-DUST enters earth’s atmosphere and adds some carbon

3.215 FREE ATMOSPHERIC CARBON 2,300 x 10 tons and increasing

3.216 160 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.217 60x10 T.P.Y.

3.218 100 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.219 TERRESTRIAL PHOTOSYNTHESIS

3.220 released from PLANT and ANIMAL RESPIRATION 60 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.221 from TILLED SOIL 2 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.222 from HOMES & INDUSTRIAL COMBUSTION 6 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.223 from HOT SPR VOLCANO 1 x 10

3.224 ROCK WEATHERING .1 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.225 DECAY

3.226 NEW FOSSIL BEDS .1 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.227 FOSSIL FUELS 40,000 x 10 T.P.Y.

3.228 GEOTHERMAL ACTIVITY

3.229 World Ocean CARBON in SOLU = 130,000 x 10 tons

3.230 Returned earth, o man’s pr

3.231 "...The atmosphere and the oceans continuously exchange carbon dioxide with rocks and with living organisms. They gain carbon dioxide from the volcanic activity that releases gases from the earth’s interior and from the respiration and decay of organisms; they lose carbon dioxide to the weathering of rock and the photosynthesis of plants. As these processes change pace, the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere also changes, shifting the radiation balance and raising or lowering the earth’s temperature.... ....The geological record indicates that the huge capacity of the bio- sphere to store and turn over carbon dioxide has also had its effect upon cli- matic change. We know that plants borrow 60 billion tons of carbon dioxide yearly for photosynthesis. Under present conditions the organic world repays nearly all of this debt each year via respiration and decay. The formation of new fossil fuel deposits withholds at most only 100 million tons of carbon dio- xide, or less than .2 percent of the annual amount used for photosynthesis.... ...The earth’s hot springs and volcanoes pour about 100 million tons of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere per year. The earth in turn recaptures approximately the same amount each year by the weathering of the rocks.... ...Quite accurate records of the amount of fossil fuel consumed in the world each year show that in the past 100 years man has added about 360 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. As a result the atmospheric concen- tration has increased by about 13 percent... ...If fuel consumption continues to increase at the present rate, we will have sent more than a trillion tons of carbon dioxide into the air by the year 2000. This should raise the earth’s average temperature 3.6 degrees...." –G. N. Plass.

3.232 Sources: (1) "Carbon Dioxide and Climate," American, Vol. 216, 1967, pp.

3.233 WORLD CARBON CYCLE

3.234 STAR-DUST SOLAR ENERGY OXYGEN ATMOSPHERIC FREE CARBON Elaborated into living plant materials through photosynthetic process. Returned to atmosphere through plant & animal respiration and decay. Returned through other processes. OCEAN FOOD CHAINS Approximately 90% of world photosynthesis is carried out in sea by algae. Chalk and limestone deposits formed with carbon by marine organisms. Plant acids decompose limestone particles in soil. TERRESTRIAL FOOD CHAINS Plants take in carbon animals exhale carbon. EXCRETA and CELLULAR CARBON in HUMUS MICROBIAL ACTIVITY and further DECAY wood, grasses, animal oils and dung burned as fuel. FOSSIL FUEL BEDS created through time under influence of heat and pressure household heating etc. industrial processing that decompose limestone etc. industrial combustion for processing, heating and transportation. cultivation aerates soil and increases the release of carbon.

3.235 "Each year the plants of the earth combine about 150 billion tons of carbon with 25 billion tons of hydrogen, and set free 400 billion tons of oxy- gen. Few are aware, that perhaps as much as 90 percent of this giant chemi- cal industry is carried on under the surface of the ocean by microscopic al- gae. Only 10 percent of it is conducted on land by our familiar green plants. ...A tiny fraction of the organic material synthesized by plants is later utilized as food by animals. A much larger amount is used in the res- piration and other life activities of the plants themselves. The greatest part, however, is decomposed into water, carbon dioxide and mineral salts by the decay of leaves and dead plants on land and in the sea. ...The organization of atoms in the biosphere are distinguished from those of the inorganic world by two characteristics: chemical complexity and high energy content....One thing, however, all the multi-various organic molecules have in common: they are all combustible, i.e., they have an af- finity for oxygen. When oxidized, they release an average of about 100 kilo- calories of heat for each 10 grams of carbon they contain. Thus all organic matter contains a considerable amount of "free" energy, available for conver- sion into mechanical motion, heat, electricity or light by gradual or sudden combination with oxygen. Such oxidations are the mainspring of life..." –E. I. Rabinowitch.

3.236 (2) "Photosynthesis," Scientific American, (3) The Realm of Carbon, Horace G. Deming, (New Vol. 79, August 1948, p. 25. York: John Wiley & Sons), 1930, pp. 259-261.

3.237 Man and the Biosphere

3.238 GLOBAL ENERGY BALANCE

3.239 SOLAR RADIATION entering atmosphere 440 BTU/hr./sq.ft. radiant energy received from the sun

3.240 100% 27% reflected by clouds.

3.241 190 BTU/hr./sq.ft. reflected by atmosphere and earth surface to outer space

3.242 reflection diffused radiation 17%

3.243 radiation absorbed by atmosphere 0.04 BTU/hr./sq.ft. used in: 1) carbon fixation via photosynthesis 2) lifting water 3) activating winds Ocean

3.244 34%

3.245 51% absorbed by earth

3.246 180 BTU/hr./sq.ft. absorbed and reradiated by all water surfaces

3.247 70 BTU/hr./sq.ft. a reradiated by all l

3.248 GENERALIZED BIO-ENERGY FLOW IN THE BIOMASS FOOD CHAIN

3.249 SUN SOLAR RADIANT ENERGY

3.250 "...One-way flow of energy and the circulation of materials are the great principles or "laws" of general ecology, since these principl equally to all environments and all organisms including man." –E.P

3.251 reflected photosynthesis

3.252 GREEN PLANTS (primary producers) 1st Trophic Level (absorbed energy)

3.253 heat respiration transferred

3.254 HERBIVORES (consum- ers and secondary producers) 2nd Trophic Level

3.255 CARNIVORES (pr ary and second 3rd Trophic Le

3.256 PARASITES

3.257 non-living min- eral nutrients to plants

3.258 SAPROPHYTES (decomposers/trans- formers, chiefly bacteria and fungi)

3.259 The nearer the consuming organism is to the beginning of the food chain the grea food energy. In human terms, the fewer intervening ’converters’ used the greater

3.260 Sources: (1) "Solar Radiation Power," POWER, (2) Fund September 1957. p. 24. W. B

3.261 440 BTU/hr./sq.ft. reflected and radiated to outer space

3.262 100% 35% 65% Reflected back to space radiated from earth 48% radiated from atmosphere 17% radiated directly to space transferred from earth to atmosphere 34% Ocean absorbed and land surfaces

3.263 lost to space from biomass

3.264 two s apply Odum

3.265 loses from each transfer level

3.266 TERTIARY consumers 4th Trophic Level

3.267 er the available he food potential.

3.268 THE EARTH’S ENERGY BALANCE

3.269 EARTH ENERGIES

3.270 "Of the solar energy received by our globe, practically all of it is re-radiated to outer space within a few hours. Only a minute percentage of solar energy goes to vegetation, lifts water from the oceans or stirs up the winds. Solar radiations that arrive in the form we normally think of as light, have the highest intensity; but the wide range of heat or infrared radiations reaching the earth comprise the largest quantity.

3.271 "Photosynthesis holds the biological key to life. Through the catalytic action of chlorophyll, solar energy sparks the chemical combination of carbon from the air with hydrogen from ground water, to form the carbohydrates of plant fibers. This provides the fuel for all forms of animal life – food. Without food all animal life would perish. But carbohydrates also combine to yield a cellulose fuel that can release heat energy by the process of combustion." –"Solar Radiation Power."

3.272 "The transfer of food energy from the source in plants through a series of organisms with repeated eating and being eaten is referred to as the food chain. At each transfer a large proportion of the potential energy is lost as heat. The number of steps or "links" in a sequence is limited, usually to four or five. The shorter the food chain (or the nearer the organism to the beginning of the chain) the greater the available energy which can be converted into biomass (=living weight, including stored food) and/or dissipated by respiration. Food chains are of three types: the predator chain, which, starting from a plant base, goes from smaller to larger animals; the parasite chain, which goes from larger to small organisms; and the saprophytic chain, which goes from dead matter into microorganisms. Food chains are not isolated sequences, but are interconnected with one another. The interlocking pattern is often spoken of as the food web. In complex natural communities, organisms whose food is obtained from plants by the same number of steps are said to belong to the same trophic level. Thus, green plants occupy the first trophic level, plant-eaters, the second level, carnivores which eat the herbivores the third level, etc... A given species population may occupy one, or more than one, trophic level according to the energy actually assimilated. The energy flow through a trophic level equals the total assimilation at the level which, in turn, equals the production of biomass plus respiration." –E. P. Odum.

3.273 Fundamentals of Ecology, Eugene P. Odum, (Pennsylvania: (3) "Energy Resources," M. K. Hubbert, National Academy of Sciences, Saunders Co.), Second Edition, 1962. pp. 46-47.

3.274 Man and the Biosphere 28

3.275 to cause gross climatic changes – even reduce the polar and other ice cap areas. Whether accurate or not, such calculations do enable us to pose more precisely oriented questions regarding the long range consequences of our technological directions. They underline, also, the interrelated aspect of all environ design considerations at every level.

3.276 Where certain of our past and present practices may misuse the atmospheric patterns, more consciously applied knowledge and design initiative can enable us to make more gainful use of the tremendous, and constantly renewed, circulatory patterns. In the atmospheric environ, which we contaminate through extraction of energies at relatively low conversion rates from fossil fuels, great wind energies are available for ’tapping into’. For centuries windpower was the principal energy source for ocean traffic, and on land, prior to the introduction of other mechanical energy converters, windmills were the prime motive power for many basic operations.

3.277 Terrestrial

3.278 Treated here as land environ, this occupies only about a quarter of the earth surface and is the primary ecological habitat of man – from which he extracts most of his food and other energies and upon which, until recently, he conducted most of his environ transactions.

3.279 Most of the material resources contained within the land surface have been built up over long periods of geological time. The great metal and mineral deposits upon which human society is dependent for its extended technological systems, have taken millions of years to accumulate in the earth surface. As a side glance at our present use rate of these non-renewable resources, the following rough figures are instructive.ź

3.280 Geological time Required to produce 1 ton (millions of years) Man’s Removal Rate (Millions of tons per year)

3.281 Petroleum 250 600 Coal 1,000 2,000 Iron 2,000 200 Lead 4,000 4

3.282 Of course, in the case of the metals, these, though not renewable in the strictest sense, are cycled through successive use/scrap processes. The fossil fuel extractions are of a more seriously depletive nature.

3.283 The dry land usable by man, which also sustains large animal populations, is less than a quarter of the available land space – the rest is desert, jungle, ice cap or mountain peaks, etc. The usable agricultural area provides food through direct use of edible crops or through other animal food converters. In terms of traditional food yield uses, this is confined to a thin depth of topsoil where most of the plant nutrients are present in a relatively critical distribution balance. This is a renewable resource base dependent on the various geochemical and climatic cycles; in recent historical time, however, the rapid growth of population, its aggregation in great densities and the pressure upon the food soils has lead to misuse and relatively permanent loss of great areas of this vital soil base.

3.284 źWorld Balance Sheet, R. Doane, New York, p. 27, (Harper 1957).

3.285 One of our most critical present limitations remains biological and terrestrial, in this sense, as human society is still almost wholly dependent on the plant/animal food yield from a relatively ’fixed’ area of arable land.

3.286 Recent calculationsš suggest that the present maintenance of three billion humans in the biosphere requires a plant yield sufficient to accommodate 14.5 billion other consumers. These others, the animal populations, are an essential element in maintaining the humans by acting as intermediate processors for many plant products indigestible by man. Pigs, for example, consume as much as 1,600 million people, when measured on a global scale; the world horse population has a protein intake corresponding to that of 650 million humans – the population of China.

3.287 Marine

3.288 Covering more than 70 per cent of the planetary surface, this is, in terms of planetary space, food, and other material resources, like having several more environs at human disposal. The comparatively shallow areas of the continental shelves alone, are about half the area of the earth lowlands where most of humanity lives.

3.289 Our knowledge of the oceans is rudimentary. As man’s locally, most hostile environ for centuries, only the surface has been travelled upon and the depths not at all investigated until quite recently. Barely one per cent of all sea organisms have been studied and the cyclic migrations of its larger creatures have been little charted.

3.290 Also pertinent is the fact that about four fifths of the planet’s animal life and the bulk of its vegetation are underwater – yet, comparatively little of these are used as food. In this regard, the ecological recycling of such resources in the oceans is much more frequent than on land. Fish and other organic populations have higher growth rates; ocean crops have less variable ’weather’ problems for possible cultivation and harvesting than the land.

3.291 The other material resource potentials of the oceans have hardly been tapped. Vast deposits of pure metal ores have recently been located on the ocean bed and the waters themselves are a rich source of extractable materials.

3.292 The ocean is the ultimate depository of everything eroded from the continents. Over 40,000 million tons of materials are washed into the oceans every year by rivers. The winds also transport millions of tons of materials per year.ş

3.293 The use of ocean waters for direct irrigation of the land has also been considerably pioneered in recent years. As specifically applicable to the sandy ’desert’ soils, such

3.294 š"The Human Biosphere and Its Biological and Chemical Limitations", G. Borgstrom, Global Impacts of Applied Microbiology, ed. Mortimer P. Starr, (John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, 1964).

3.295 ş"Mineral Wealth from the Ocean Deeps", J. L. Mero, Discovery, July, 1964.

3.296 Man and the Biosphere

3.297 FOOD CHAIN: FISH & FISH PRODUCTS

3.298 SUN SOLAR ENERGY ATTACHED PLANTS, kelp, algae, etc., along shore (littoral) PRIM float ligh (phy diat late 100 35% 10% 10% 17% 28% EDIBLE WEIGHT consumed 4,200,000 Asia & Far East 2,400,000 Western Europe 2,000,000 Mainland China 2,000,000 Russia 1,200,000 Africa 1,000,000 U.S.A.& Canada 600,000 Latin America 150,000 Near East 40,000 Australia & New Zeland 14,000,000 Metric Tons

3.299 per national trade absorbs about a third of the in terms of value. The fact that actual of fish exported more than doubled over the -64 while their export value rose consider- is largely the result of a rapid growth in of low value fish meal, used principally feed and fertilisers. Peru has been the butor to this sector of trade."– Barclays

3.300 The major fishing waters of the wo "...are usually on continental shelves near to them. Either the water must be low enough that the local food chain ca on food and light at the bottom, or the ’plowing up’ or nourishment from the bo up-wellings."

3.301 "...Marine plants, such as kelp, portant parts of the biomass. Microsc the phytoplankton, depends upon the no the water and on sunlight. They are r 300 or 400 feet of depth. They form t small floating animals. The zooplankt used by any but the smallest fish, whi of larger fish. Thus there is formed largest links are those caught by man. plex interconnections within the chain on zooplankton, as can herring and sar rule, the larger the fish and the more higher it is in the chain.

3.302 Just as man makes relatively ’ine he eats it through the agency of meat chain is more and more ’wasteful’ of t the phytoplankton. With some knowledge with some idea of the number of links attempted to estimate what the potenti

3.303 "...It is not certain to what ex leased by the decomposition of dead fi a more complete utilization of the bic which the food chain now depends. The ilization of the seas would not signif upon which the chain depends."– A. D.

3.304 50.8 mil. long tons -50 17.1 SOLD FRESH 31.0 mil. long tons -40 15.2 FISH MEAL and OIL 13.5 -30 4.9 FROZEN 3.9 -20 4.3 CANNED 2.4 3.0 -10 8.3 CURED 7.2 0 1.0 BAIT & GLUE 1.0 60 62 1964 1964 1957 G TONS MARINE END PRODUCTS

3.305 Sources: 1) "Biology and Human Environmen Scott, Natural Resources and International Ekistics, Vol. 21, No. 123, Fon D. C.: Johns Hopkins Press), 1963.pp 134-37.

3.306 Man and the Biosphere

3.307 SUN SOLAR ENERGY ATTACHED PLANTS, kelp, algae, etc., along shore (littoral) PRIMARY PRODUCERS floating plants in lighted zone only (phytoplankton, diatoms, dinoflagellates, etc.) yields 100 billion tons per year. CONSUMERS AND SECONDARY PRODUCERS (zooplankton, small crustacea, etc. which live in lighted zone) yield 100 billion tons per year. PRIMARY CARNIVORES predatory species, fish etc. which feed upon plankton (whales and nektonic animals) yield 10 billion tons per year. mid-depth plankton CO, HO and plant nutrients etc. MID-DEPTH PRIMARY and SECONDARY carnivores, parasites and scavengers. BACTERIAL ACTIVITY and DECOMPOSITION of sinking food. abyssal zooplankton ABYSSAL FISH and BENTHIC ANIMALS which feed on detritus or are parasitic. BACTERIAL ACTIVITY and DECOMPOSITION of sinking and detritus food.

3.308 The major fishing waters of the world "...are usually on continental shelves or near to them. Either the water must be shallow enough that the local food chain can be based on food and light at the bottom, or there must be a ’plowing up’ or nourishment from the bottom by means of up-wellings."

3.309 "...Marine plants, such as kelp, are relatively unimportant parts of the biomass. Microscopic floating plants, the phytoplankton, depends upon the nourishing elements in the water and on sunlight. They are rarely found much below 300 or 400 feet of depth. They form the food of zooplankton, small floating animals. The zooplankton are too small to be used by any but the smallest fish, which in turn are the food of larger fish. Thus there is formed a food chain, in which the largest links are those caught by man. There are of course complex interconnections within the chain: whales actually can feed on zooplankton, as can herring and sardines. But as a general rule, the larger the fish and the more valuable it is to man, the higher it is in the chain.

3.310 Just as man makes relatively ’inefficient’ use of grass when he eats it through the agency of meat or poultry, so the fish food chain is more and more ’wasteful’ of the basic nutrients available to the phytoplankton. With some knowledge of the loss at each stage, and with some idea of the number of links in an average chain, experts have attempted to estimate what the potential harvest of the biomass might be."

3.311 "...It is not certain to what extent plankton feed on the nutrients released by the decomposition of dead fish. If their dependence were high, then a more complete utilization of the biomass might soon exhaust the nutrients on which the food chain now depends. The estimates assume that relatively full utilization of the seas would not significantly alter the store of basic nutrients upon which the chain depends." A. D. Scott.

3.312 Sources: 1) "Biology and Human Environment," C. H. Waddington, 2) "World Fishing," Barclays Bank, Ekistics, Vol. 21, No. 123, February 1966. Review, February 1967.

3.313 OCEAN FOOD CHAIN: FISH & FISH PRODUCTS

3.314 41 mil.tons (World Catch) of LIVE WEIGHT MARINE PRODUCTS IN 1961

3.315 sold fresh 35%

3.316 frozen 10%

3.317 canned 10%

3.318 cured 17%

3.319 EDIBLE WEIGHT consumed

3.320 4,200,000 Asia & Far East 2,400,000 Western Europe 2,000,000 Mainland China 2,000,000 Russia 1,200,000 Africa 1,000,000 U.S.A.& Canada 600,000 Latin America 150,000 Near East 40,000 Australia & New Zealand 14,000,000 Metric Tons

3.321 5-50%

3.322 28%

3.323 meal and oil,etc. 28%

3.324 DISCARDED at sea, import or by consumer

3.325 SECONDARY CARNIVORES (bony fish etc.)yield 1 billion tons per year.

3.326 DISCARDED WASTES sinking and detritus food etc.

3.327 "International trade absorbs about a third of the world catch in terms of value. The fact that actual quantities of fish exported more than doubled over the period 1957-64 while their export value rose consider- ably less, is largely the result of a rapid growth in world trade of low value fish meal, used principally for animal feed and fertilisers. Peru has been the main contributor to this sector of trade."– Barclays Bank Review.

3.328 WORLD MARINE FOOD CATCH

3.329 50.8 mil. long tons

3.330 17.1 SOLD FRESH

3.331 31.0 mil. long tons

3.332 13.5

3.333 15.2 FISH MEAL and OIL

3.334 4.9 FROZEN

3.335 3.9

3.336 4.3 CANNED

3.337 2.4

3.338 3.0

3.339 8.3 CURED

3.340 7.2

3.341 1.0 BAIT & GLUE 1.0

3.342 1964 1957

3.343 MARINE END PRODUCTS

3.344 WORLD CATCH OF MARINE LIFE IN MILLION LONG TONS

3.345 Barclays Bank 3) "Food and the World Fisheries", Anthony D. Scott, Natural Resources and International Development, ed. Marion Clawson, (Washington D. C.: Johns Hopkins Press), 1963.pp 134-37.

3.346 Man and the Biosphere 31

3.347 research is of extreme importance in the critical area of world food production.

3.348 Arid and semi-arid regions cover a third of the land’s surface . . .many of (these) sandy regions could be made productive with salt water irrigation . . .any advance in making sandy soils productive adds to the resources available for the pro- duction of food. And any such addition can be a factor in the effort to keep the production of food abreast of the growth of population.

3.349 Desalination, the production of fresh water from sea water, also forms part of the growing use of the oceans. The most promising developments are those combining nuclear power/fresh water generation plants in the same productive units. Such units in present use around the world have a desalting capacity of about 50 million gallons per day – an increase of 100 per cent over the past two years.

3.350 In view of these great potentials, it is hoped that planned use of the oceans may come about in time to reduce the spoilage which has already occurred in many areas, particularly of the key coastal shelves. Indiscriminate sewage and industrial wastes have already ruined future developments of considerable areas for some time to come. This process is further increased by the discharge of fuel oils from sea tankers which contami- nated beaches for years and wrecks heavy toll of sea birds and other ocean organisms. Old sea mine fields still render large areas of the coastal waters unsafe, and are now accompanied by the new hazard of radioactive waste disposal in offshore areas. Over- fishing and hunting has led, not only to greatly reduced catches in many previously well populated fishing zones, but also the near extinction of certain ocean species like the great sperm whale and the fur seal.

3.351 The ’ecologically’ designed use of the oceans could provide man with an enormous expansion of his environs, which would also solve many of his most pressing terrestrial problems of food, scarce and depletable land resources, and increasing water requirements of agriculture and industry. The recreational potential and challenge of exploring the oceans may also become a new and almost illimitable frontier.

3.352 THE MAJOR CYCLES

3.353 We have referred, in passing, to the complex interchange patterns of air, water and other constituents of the biosphere. Between the environ and the human system, it may be appropriate to introduce some brief notes on what are generally termed the bio- geochemical cycles. These, representing the basic material element exchanges in the ecosystem, may suggest paradigms for the conscious design of more ’naturally’ efficient cycling of energy and materials in our man-made systems.

3.354 Of the inventory of chemical elements in the universe, between thirty and forty are known to be essential to life forms. Some are required in large quantities – carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen – others in minute or trace quantities. All are in more or less constant circulation within the biosphere and, though local ’shortages’ may occur, as in the loss of critical soil components, all elements are potentially inexhaustible as re- circulating in the eco-cycles or ’in reserve’ in the great reservoirs of the ocean, air and earth crust.

3.355 "Salt Water Agriculture", H. Boyko, Scientific American, February 1967.

3.356 It has been suggested, in this regard, that man is unique in his use of the elements. He not only employs in his internal metabolism the range of approximately forty elements essential to biophysical maintenance, but, in his external metabolism of extractive, productive, and redistributive processes of agricultural and industrial activities, he employs all the other naturally occurring elements in the universal inventory, as well as their isotopes.

3.357 Man is, however, only one of the species of organic life in the biosphere, and like all life forms, exists only in interrelation with all others. The precise degree of interdependence may seem remote and tenuous between a briefly viable colony of microorganisms, in a large area of virgin jungle on one side of the globe, and a community of human beings on the other – but it is, nonetheless, real. Plants, animals, men and their environs are bound together in a complex web of relations. Animals depend on plants and other animals for food; man depends on both. The plants draw nutrient elements from the soil and these are, in part, returned from various stages in the food chain. The soil-plant-animal-soil cycle is only one aspect of the larger cycling of essential elements in the system. The soils themselves become exhausted of various elements, through repeated plant/animal populations, and it has long been man’s practice to fortify the natural cycling of essential soil elements with ’natural’ or ’chemical’ fertilizer elements. One of the greatest revolutions in human society, the agricultural revolution, comes through increased understanding of the fundamental growth patterns of plants and their relation to the natural cycles of energy and materials in the ecosystem. The second and more recent wave of industrial revolutions was also predicated on increased understanding and gainful advantage of the energy cycling principles.

3.358 The major cycles in the biosphere are, therefore, of key importance to our environ re-design considerations. Almost all of our major societal undertakings are affected by or, more importantly, affect the natural cycling of energies and materials in the system. In some cases the cycling patterns are so large and their ’reserves’ and compensating mechanisms of sufficient latitude to correct any maladjustment through human intervention. Others are naturally ’imperfect’ cycles, and require careful attention to avoid serious disequilibrium and, locally occurring, disparities in the essential elements with which they are concerned.

3.359 Apart from the hydrological, carbon and photosynthesis cycles already discussed or illustrated, it may be pertinent to give two other key examples.

3.360 The Nitrogen Cycle

3.361 Though one of the most abundant elements in the atmosphere, nitrogen requires chemical change to enter the soil and be utilized by plants in the food cycle. A further series of changes return nitrogen to the atmosphere and completes the circular process. We may view the pattern from any point in the cycle.

3.362 a) it is emitted into the air from nitrogenous compounds in organic materials which are broken down by a chain of specialized bacterial actions. Some of this reduced nitrogenous material is taken up by plants, e.g., as nitrate, some used in other forms by other organisms.

3.363 b) the above reduction of nitrogen bearing materials is complemented by the return cycle of nitrogen from the atmosphere and other sources by the action of nitrogen fixing bacteria, fungi and plant forms in the soil, pond

3.364 waters, etc. This aspect of the cycle is a relatively closed, self-regulating pattern.

3.365 c) further nitrogen exchanges occur, e.g., in the atmos- phere as ammonia and nitrates are formed by electrical discharges, in the earth from excretion/decay cycles, and in the marine environ.

3.366 We may note that the complex regenerative pattern of even this single element re- quires interaction from each level and every component of the ecosystem, including both living and non-living forms of matter.

3.367 The major importance of nitrogen for the food cycle of plants, hence, animals and man, cannot be exaggerated. The increase in agricultural plant yields through the applica- tion of ’artificial’ nitrogenous compounds to augment and increase the cycle locally is now marked. Adequate protein supplies for the present world population are thus no longer pre- dicated entirely on the natural cycle, but require over 13 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer produced by the chemical industry. This is a particularly clear-cut example of the ways in which the extended industrial metabolism of man is interlocked with the natural cycles to maintain his increased requirements.

3.368 Approximately one sixth of the world population is presently dependent on artificial nitrogen for its survival. It can safely be assumed that the world’s soils via residues and soil micro-organisms can hardly be expected to take care of more than half the additional 3000 million people expected before the end of the century. This would imply that in the year 2000, the world would need artificial support along the nitrogen front of no less than 50.5 million tons . . . The annual production of 1 million tons of nitrogen requires at least 1 million tons of steel and no less than 5 million tons of coal, calculated as energy equivalents. This is a most crucial factor for the energy-poor parts of the world.

3.369 It may be noted that in terms of solutions to the ’food problem’ such industrial components are not so closely gauged. Further, with the added amount of other agri- industrial support chemicals, in the year 2000, the amount required would be closer to 500 tons. Stating the problem in these terms, one can calculate more accurately the logis- tical parameters of the problem – the increase in fertilizer production, in energy/plant expenditures, transportation, distribution and the ancillary requirements of raw fertilizer materials, extraction processing, transport, etc.

3.370 Whereas, in the above cycle the element is returned to, and circulated within, the soil in large amounts by natural means, other elements have less locally regenerative cycles. They may be ’lost’ through leaching or erosion to the oceans or redistributed in unfavorable balances through human or other agencies in the system. One such critical case is given below.

3.371 Op cit., Borgstrom.

3.372 The Phosphorus Cycle

3.373 As there is no ’free’ elemental phosphorus occurring in nature, this element is only available to plants and animals in its compounds – mainly through the mineral phosphates. The movement of the element occurs in two main patterns – in the earth and marine cycles.

3.374 Soil phosphorus is taken up by plants and animals from that made available by phosphatising bacteria working on the organic compounds in the earth. In the absence of ’artificial’ phosphates, the main cycle source of such compounds is through plant and animal decomposition and excretion materials returned to the soil. High yield crops such as certain cereals extract up to 10% of the available phosphorus to the topsoil – hence, if regularly harvested without artificial phosphate or ’decay’ replacement, soils may become locally depleted. Animals also take up relatively large quantities and, again, if ’cropped’ off a given soil in repeatedly large numbers their bone phosphorus is lost to its original location. Some soils and vegetation tend to ’lock up’ phosphorus in temporally inaccessible forms, causing local shortages. The main reservoir of phosphorus is not in the atmosphere as is the case with nitrogen, but in geological deposits. These add phosphate compounds to the system, as they are eroded, but much is washed off into the rivers and eventually to the oceans in the process. The land cycle of phosphorus is, therefore, an ’imperfect’ one from our temporal viewpoint.

3.375 In the marine aspect of the cycle, the initial phosphorus intake is by algae and diatous, the plankton group, which utilize solar energy to convert this and other elements present in sea water to their nutrient requirements. This process is similar to the plant photosynthesis on land. Phosphorus is then ingested by the fish and other organisms in the other links in the ocean food chain. Fisheries return about 1% into the man/land pattern, but little to the actual cycling pattern. Guano birds are a source for fertilizer return to the soil via their excreted phosphorus, but this is locally restricted. The process of local decay, which on land returns phosphorus to the upper levels of the soil, in the oceans allows it to sink to the ocean floor where the photosynthetic process is not operable. Thus, much phosphorus, in this stage, is taken out of the cycle and accumulates where it is not available for other than limited use by ocean floor organisms. In some regions, inversion of upper and lower levels of the ocean waters return phosphorus and other elements to the surface cycle, but in others this is not of regular occurence – apart from geological uplift.

3.376 Present knowledge suggests that phosphorus availability, through its role as key plankton nutrient, ’controls’ the entire life cycle in the oceans – and is also of critical importance to man in the biosphere. Human extraction of phosphorus from food is relatively high but, again, in our period of high population concentration with the discharge of sewage directly into rivers and oceans the loss of phosphorus in this part of the food chain is very great. Large amounts are flushed away annually to the seas and rivers in sewage – e.g., equivalent to about 60 million tons of phosphate rock each year in the United States alone. Although the eleventh most abundant element in the earth’s crust, about 0.12 per cent, and combining readily with many metals, most of the ’available’ phosphorus is found in one group of mineral compounds, the apatite, phosphate rock. As the first artificial fertilizer introduced about the middle of the Nineteenth Century, phosphates have since expanded dramatically in production and world distribution. From a total world production of about 11,000,000 metric tons in 1964, the required increase by 1970 is estimated at almost double – 18,000,000 metric tons. When we consider the projected population increase for the next 100 years, we can view a phosphate requirement of well over 5 times this latter amount. The critical importance, one, of available phosphate rock reserves, two, of increasing the cyclic reuse of sewage phosphorus and other modes of phosphorus conservation, may be easily gauged.

3.377 Man and the Biosphere

3.378 THE NITROGEN BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLE

3.379 nitrogen gas energy barrier heat protoplasm amino-acids ammonia nitrites nitrates INDUSTRIAL NITROGEN FIXATION ELECTRIFI and PHOT DENITRIFYING BACTERIA PROTEIN SYNTHESIS protoplasm animals plants Nitrogen fixin bacteria & alg EXCRETION AREA, ETC. BACTERIA and fungi of decay amino-acids and ORGANIC RESIDUES aminifying BACTERIA ammonia NITRITE BACTERIA gain from Volcanic action nitrogen gas in th nitrates

3.380 Basic steps of nitrogen circulation in ascending-descending order, with the higher energy consuming forms on top wnd energy releasing forms below.

3.381 steps requiring energy from other sources ..... steps providing energy to the decomposer organisms

3.382 Ig

3.383 THE PHOSPHORUS BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLE

3.384 AGRICULTURAL FERTILIZERS PROTOPLASM SYNTHESIS animals plants excretion soil weathering and erosion PHOSPHATING BACTERIA fossil bone deposits GUANO DEPOSITS streams leaching dissolved phosphates phosphate rock exposed through geologic activity METAMORPHIC ROCKS IGNEOUS ROCKS APATITE (a complex from of calcium phosphate.) SEDIMENTARY ROCKS (Often highly phosphatic and enriched by replacement and concentration.)

3.385 PHOSPHORUS makes up about 0.1% of the earth’s crust.

3.386 Sources: (1) Minerals in Industry, W. R. Jones, (New York: Penguin Books), 1963.

3.387 Man and the Biosphere

3.388 THE NITROGEN BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLE

3.389 nitrogen gas energy barrier heat protoplasm amino-acids ammonia nitrites nitrates INDUSTRIAL NITROGEN FIXATION ELECTRI and PHOT DENITRIFYING BACTERIA PROTEIN SYNTHESIS protoplasm animals plants nitrates Nitrogen fixi bacteria & al EXCRETION AREA, ETC. BACTERIA and fungi of decay amino-acids and ORGANIC RESIDUES aminifying BACTERIA ammonia NITRITE BACTERIA nit gain from Volcanic action

3.390 Basic steps of nitrogen circulation in ascending-descending order, with the higher energy consuming forms on top wnd energy releasing forms below.

3.391 steps requiring energy from other sources .... steps providing energy to the decomposer organisms

3.392 THE PHOSPHORUS BIOGEOCHEMICAL CYCLE

3.393 AGRICULTURAL FERTILIZERS PROTOPLASM SYNTHESIS animals plants excretion soil weathering and erosion PHOSPHATING BACTERIA fossil bone deposits GUANO DEPOSITS streams leaching dissolved phosphates phosphate rock exposed through geologic activity METAMORPHIC ROCKS IGNEOUS ROCKS APATITE (a complex from of calcium phosphate.) SEDIMENTARY ROCKS (Often highly phosphatic and enriched by replacement and concentration.)

3.394 PHOSPHORUS makes up about 0.1% of the earth’s crust.

3.395 Sources: (1) Minerals in Industry, W. R. Jones, (New York Penguin Books), 1963.

3.396 NITROGEN AND PHOSPHORUS CYCLES

3.397 "It has been calculated that a ton of wheat extracts on the average from the soil about 47 lbs. of nitrogen, 18 lbs. of phosphoric acid and 12 lbs. of potash: and unless these losses are replaced the fertility of the soil is decreased." –W. R. Jones

3.398 "The self-regulating, feedback mechanisms, shown in a very simplified way by the arrows, make the nitrogen cycle a relatively perfect one, when large areas or the biosphere as a whole is considered. Thus, increased movement of materials along one path is quickly compensated for by adjustments along other paths. Some nitrogen from heavily populated regions of land, fresh water, and shallow seas in lost to the deep ocean sediments and thus gets out of circulation, at least for a while.... This loss is compensated for by nitrogen entering the air from volcanic gases....

3.399 "According to Hutchinson (1944a), the amount of nitrogen fixed from the air (non-cyclic nitrogen) is estimated to lie between 140 and 700 mg. per square meter, or between 1 and 6 pounds per acre per year for the biological; only a small portion (not more than 35 mg. per square meter per year in temperate regions) is non-biological (electrification or photochemical fixation). Biological fixation in fertile areas may be much greater than the biosphere average, up to 200 pounds per acre, according to Fogg (1955)." – E.P. Odum.

3.400 "A portion of the earth’s phosphorus is continually passing out of the mineral reserve into living substance, and similarly, phosphorus is continually passing out of living matter to re-enter the mineral reserve. This movement of the element has been pictured as taking place within two cycles, a land cycle and a marine cycle, or one general cycle with its complicated circulations of the element since the two cycles are definitely interrelated. Actually, the losses of the one cycle become the gains of the other. The cycle of matter is not completely reversible, that is to say, all matter is not restored completely to its original state, but it has a large measure of forward movement which permits a redistribution of chemical elements and states of matter."

3.401 "The cyclic phenomena of the life processes and the transport of phosphatic material by streams to the ocean waters give a broad picture of how biologically available phosphorus has been distributed over the face of the earth. The phosphorus content of sea water has been derived chiefly from soil erosion and the processes which dissolve fish bones, shells, and the vast amount of debris from dead tissues."

3.402 "Goldschmidt estimates that on an average, ocean water contains 6 x 10-5% phosphorus. Authorities recognize that phosphorus is the most important limiting factor for the growth of plankton, and therefore, that it controls almost entirely the production of life in ocean waters. The quantity of phosphorus is always very small owing to its continual utilization by sea life and it is said to vary between zero and 0.07 ppm." – Vincent Sanchelli.

3.403 (2) Phosphate in Agriculture, Vincent Sanchelli. (3) Fundamentals of Ecology, E. P. Odum, (New York: (New York: Reinhold Publication Cor.), 1965. Holt, Reinhart, Windston, Inc.), 1959.

3.404 Man and the Biosphere 36

3.405 At productivity levels five times greater than now, corresponding to the food demand in about 100 years, phosphorus removal would be in the order of 50 kgs. per hectare yearly. Full fertilization at this rate would exhaust the estimated reserves of phosphate rock in approximately 60 years, assuming no expansion of cultivated lands.

3.406 The extraction of phosphorus from the soil by living organisms and its retention/ fixation by certain soils and plants and its inequable return to the ’food chain’ system is also paralleled by the case of various other trace elements. Local exhaustion of such elements has occurred, for example, where large herds of livestock are ’harvested’ from the same pasture area over many years and shipped elsewhere for consumption. Without human intervention, the trace elements they have taken up would be returned to the local soil via the growth/decay cycle – these are now ’lost’ at their various other use/consump- tion destinations elsewhere on the earth surface.

3.407 Man speeds up the extraction and widens the circulation pattern of a great many materials so that in certain critical cases the local cycles are disturbed – the process becomes acyclic. As we have so far emphasised, we are fast acquiring capacities to disturb other major cycles in similar fashion. The prime function of designed and ecolo- gically oriented man-made systems would be that they make acyclic processes more cyclic.

3.408 Though we shall return more specifically to the problems of human population growth and food, one author, G. Borgstrom whom we have already quoted, makes the plea that research is, ’now needed on the scale of a space project . . .to broaden the potential of the biosphere’. Suggesting that we learn to operate with nature, not against it, he lists an ’action program’ whose emphasis on the systematic study and utilization of the organic cycles is of key relevance to large scale environmental planning in the comprehensive and ecologically oriented sense.

3.409 A. Foods a) Review the status of fermented foods to improve and broaden the use of present methods in order to find simple and cheap procedures. b) Institute a systematic search for methionine-rich fungi or, possibly, bacteria. c) Expand engineering studies for the transformation of sewage plants into food-producing centers (via algae, yeast, fungi, bacteria, fish, etc.). d) Determine the nutritive contribution by intestinal flora.

3.410 B. Soils a) Broaden the attack on improved microbial nitrogen-fixation in tropical and temperate climates with the specific aim of reducing artificial application of fertilizers or still better, making this superfluous. This is the greatest contribution microbiology could make to the developing world. b) Establish more precisely the role of microbes in the minerali- zation process and the release of bound mineral nutrient resources, (phosphorus, calcium, etc.).

3.411 "The Planetary Food Potential", W. R. Schmitt, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Vol. 118, Art. 17, p. 712.

3.412 C. Seas a) Detailed mapping of nitrogen and sulfur cycles of the oceans. b) Study of the role of nannoplankton. c) The microbial mobilization of the non-living organic matter of the oceans. d) The role of autotrophic microbes in the oceans.

3.413 D. Lakes a) The sulfur and nitrogen cycles (determine the role of microbes). b) The immunization mechanism of fish under the stress of the seasonal build-up of microbes in the surrounding waters.

3.414 In terms of our present focus on energy and material usage efficiencies, it may be interesting to note certain of the energy conversion efficiencies obtaining in the naturally occurring cycles.

3.415 Estimates vary considerably, but the generalized figure for plant fixation of solar energy is given as roughly 1 per cent in the overall photosynthetic process on the earth’s land surface. This seemingly low average is due, partially, to variation in plant cover – as limited by sunlight, rainfall and the availability of nutrient elements in the soil. Of this total converted solar energy, approximately 30 per cent is used in the plant’s own growth and maintenance, 10 per cent is transferred to herbivorous animals, and the re- mainder (60 per cent) is reduced in plant decay by bacterial composition. The overall efficiency for the oceans is estimated at 0.18 per cent of the solar energy reaching the ocean surface.

3.416 The seemingly low energy conversion efficiencies in such an overall view of the total ecosystem are not strictly comparable with those obtained in man-made energy con- verting mechanisms. There are great differences in physical and time scales between the two forms. The naturally occurring forms are self-renewing and self-perpetuating and achieve more ’production’ growth per unit and time interval than man-made forms – whose efficiency calculation does not include renewal, autonomous growth, repair and replace- ment.

3.417 Op cit., Borgstrom, p. 163.

3.418 Man and the Biosphere 38

3.419 READINGS LIST ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS

3.420 Abundance of Chemical Elements. V.V. Cherdyntsev. University of Chicago Press, 1961.

3.421 After the Seventh Day. Ritchie Calder. New American Library. New York, 1961.

3.422 Bioastronautics- Fundamentals & Practical Problems. Vol. 17, W.C. Kaufman (ed.) ( AAS/ AAAS Symposium, Cleveland Ohio, 1963.

3.423 Biochemical Evolution. E. Florkin and S. Morgulis. Academic Press. New York, 1949.

3.424 Carbon Dioxide and Climate. Gilbert N. Plass. Scientific American. July, 1959.

3.425 The Chemical Elements. Helen Miles Davis. Ballantine Books, 1959.

3.426 Climatic Change. Harlow Shapley (ed.) Harvard University Press. 1953.

3.427 Climatic Changes of the Past and Present. American Scientist. 48: 341-64, 1960.

3.428 Conquest of the Sea. Cord- Christian Troebst. Harper Brothers. New York, 1962.

3.429 Down to Earth. C. Croneis and W. C. Krumbein. Harper and Row. New York, 1951.

3.430 Draft of a General Scientific Framework for World Ocean Study. Intergovernmental Ocean- ographic Commission. UNESCO. Paris.

3.431 The Earth and Its Atmosphere. D.R. Bates (ed.) Basic Books, 1957.

3.432 Earth and Space Science. C.W. Wolfe (ed.) Heath and Co. Boston, 1956.

3.433 Environmental Hazards Coordination. ( Pesticides ) Committee on Govt. Operations. 89th U.S. Congress. U.S. Govt. Printing Office. 1966.

3.434 Environmental Pollution: A Challenge to Science and Technology. Committee on Science and Astronautics. 89th. U.S Congress. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1966.

3.435 The Fitness of the Environment. L.J. Henderson. MacMillian. New York, 1913.

3.436 The Forest and the Sea. Marston Bates. Random House, 1960.

3.437 Geography of Economic Activity. Richard S. Thoman. McGraw- Hill, 1962.

3.438 Global Impacts of Applied Microbiology. M.P. Starr. John Wiley and Sons, Inc. New York, 1964.

3.439 Impact of Space Exploration on Society. W.E. Frye (ed.) Symposium San Francisco, 1965.

3.440 Lands for Tomorrow. L. Dudley Stamp. Indiana University Press, 1952.

3.441 Man’s Physical World. J.E. VanRiper. McGraw= Hill Book Co. New York. 1962.

3.442 Migration and Environment. H.L. Shapiro. Oxford University Press. New York, 1939.

3.443 The Mineral Resources of the Sea. John L. Mero. Elsevier Publishing Co. New York, 1965.

3.444 The Nature of Natural History. M. Bates. Scribner’s. New York, 1950.

3.445 The Ocean of the Air. D.J. Blumenstock. Rutgers University Press. New Jersey, 1959.

3.446 The Planet Earth. Scientific American (ed.) Simon and Schuster Inc. New York, 1957.

3.447 Physical Geography. R.K. Gresswell. Hulton Educational Publ. Ltd. London, 1958.

3.448 Physiological and Performance Determinants in Manned Space Systems. P. Horowitz (ed.) Symposium, Northridge, California, 1965.

3.449 The Processes of Ongoing Human Evolution. Baker. Wayne State University Press, 1960.

3.450 The Soil That Supports Us. C.E. Kellog. MacMillan Co. New York, 1941.

3.451 Science and Economic Development: (New Patterns of Living) R.L. Meier, 2nd ed. M.I.T Press Mass., 1965.

3.452 A Special Report on Water Power, June 1966.

3.453 The World of Life. W.F. Pauli. Houghton Mifflin. Boston, 1949.

3.454 Man and the Biosphere 40

3.455 HUMAN SYSTEM(S) Biophysical-Psychosocial-Technological

3.456 N. B. The Global System diagram on the next page has been repeated for more convenient reference to the section which follows.

3.457 41 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.458 THE GLOBAL ECOSYSTEM

3.459 ENVIRON SYSTEMS

3.460 Atmosphere Air, water, radiant energy and gas cycles. Airborne spores, pollen, dust.

3.461 Terrestrial (LITHOSPHERE) Rock, mineral deposits and cycles. Plant and animal organic populations.

3.462 Oceans (HYDROSPHERE) Water, mineral deposits and cycles. Plant and animal organic populations.

3.463 Biophysical Physiological and metabolic processes: the organic life cycles-birth, aging, death-individuals, generations, and populations, etc.

3.464 HUMAN SYSTEMS

3.465 Psychosocial Interpersonal (and interenviron) relation expressed in individual and collective patterns of behavior: social institutions-kinship, religious, political, economic, productive, recreative, etc.: symbolic and ideological systems-arts, science, philosophy, etc.

3.466 Technological Material, mechanical, physical and chemical tools, tech- niques: organized systems of tools and processes. Extrac- tion, Production, Transportation, Communication, etc.

3.467 EXTERNAL HUMAN METABOLISM INTERNAL HUMAN METABOLISM

3.468 We need to extend the physical and biological concepts of ecology to include the social behaviors of man–as critical factors in the maintenance of his dynamic ecological balance. Nature is not only modified by human action as manifested in science and technology–through physical transfor- mations of the earth to economic purpose–but also by those factors, less amenable to direct perception and measure, which are political-ethical systems, education, needs for social contiguity and communication, art, religion, etc. Such ’socio-cultural’ factors have played and will in- creasingly continue to play a considerable role in man’s forward evolu- tionary trending and its effects on the overall ecology of the earth.

3.469 Source: Document 4, The Ten Year Program, John McHale, (Illinois: World Resources Inventory), 1965. p. 23

3.470 Man and the Biosphere 42

3.471 HUMAN SYSTEM(S)

3.472 Biophysical —- Psychosocial —- Technological

3.473 Man is a wholly integral process. As in dealing with the environ, we should emphasize the wholly denotative convenience of labelling different parts of what is an essentially integrated and dynamic whole. The use of the word ’system’ should also be qualified in this regard. We need, particularly, to avoid ’mechanical’ systems models here. When we deal with human activities, the complexity tends to force us back onto simplistic schema. Though these may function well as limited conceptual supports, and aid toward reducing the complexity into some neat disciplinary format, we usually end up with models like economic man, behavioral man, political man, technological man, etc. Such concepts abstracted for convenience tend to become ’reified’ – to assume an autonomous reality in themselves for which they are unfitted. This is particularly dangerous when we attempt to solve human problems in such reified terms. We often assume that many large scale problems may be solved wholly within the artificial divisions set up for intellectual convenience.

3.474 No social problem of small or large scale, and all human problems are axiomatically social, may be solved within the terms of any single field or discipline. A wholly technological solution, however logical and seemingly efficient, may fail by overlooking some elementary socio-cultural requirement. Solutions conceived solely in economic or even biological terms, e.g., in the case of population and food, may fail through lack of adequate technological considerations. The point seems an obviously simple one – but examples could be drawn out, at length, of our present failures to solve human problems through inadequately conceived solutions.

3.475 The divisions used here – biophysical, psychosocial, technological – are adopted for present convenience. They overlap considerably, and are in no way suggested as an exhaustive classification of the major aspects of human activities in the biosphere.

3.476 Biophysical

3.477 From the viewpoint of biological and physical apparatus, there are few characteristics which give man any uniqueness as a life form. We could elaborate here on the specific anatomical and physiological features which describe his species position, e.g., as a mammalian primate of medium size, with certain kinds of individual variability, brain size, psycho-physical capacities, temperature/pressure tolerance, etc. This type of information is now readily available to designers in human factors studies, in medicine, and, particularly, in the detailed and comprehensive reports emanating from space and underoceans research in human support systems.ź

3.478 Some discursive notes on basic human needs may be pertinent. The biophysical requirements for optimum maintenance of human life fall within a relatively narrow and specific range. The basic energy process, as with other organisms, is that of consuming food energies in combination with the oxidation process in respiration. Air, water, food within various degrees of temperature and pressure are the key requirements. Individuals daily needs vary with age, weight, health, activity, etc. (figures given below are for an average 140 pound male adult):

3.479 źFor example: Handbook of Bioastronautics, NASA Report No. SP-3006, 1964, Handbook of Environmental Engineering, (McGraw Hill Book Co., Inc., 1963).

3.480 43 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.481 HUMAN DAILY METABOLIC TURNOVER

3.482 Proteins = 80 Carbohydrates = 270 Fats = 150 Other solids & minerals = 23 Grams Oxygen 24.1% 862 gms. Food 14.6% 523 gms. Water (HO) 61.3% 2220 gms. 154 lb. MAN in closed environment system with respiration quotient of 0.82 Carbon Dioxide (CO) 27.4% 982 gms. Water (HO) 70.9 % 2542 gms. Solids: urea & minerals 1.7% 61 gms. Metabolic 9.5% INPUT = 100% 3585 gms. 2830 Calories OUTPUT = 100% 3585 gms.

3.483 Source: Apogee, Douglas Missile & Space Publication No. 4, 1961. p. 8.

3.484 ELEMENTS IN MODERN MAN

3.485 IMPORTANT ELEMENTS IN MODERN MAN WHICH REQUIRE INVESTIGATION

3.486 ELEMENTS Daily intake micrograms Amount retained micrograms Accumu- lation with age Systems or tissue affected

3.487 FLUORINE 1,000 ? Bone Bone SILICON 3,500 4 Lung (A) Integument VANADIUM 2,000 0-0.2 Lung (A) Lipids CHROMIUM 60 0-0.3 Lung (A) Glucose, lipids MANGANESE 5,000 0 No Brain, several IRON 15,000 0 Lung (A) Blood, storage COLBALT 75 0 No Blood COPPER 2,000 0 No Storage, liver, brain, blood ZINC 12,000 0 No Skin,many SELENIUM ? ? No Muscle STRONTIUM 2,000 1 Bone Bone MOLYBDENUM 1,000 0 No Purines IODINE 150 0 NO Goitre BARIUM 16,000 ? Bone Bone ? LANTHANUM ? 0 No ? Coagulation

3.488 (microgram = 0.001 milligram)

3.489 "There are 9 essential inorganic micro-nutrients for mammals; 7 are metals and 2 are non-metals. Four have been or are being considered as causing deficiency diseases, and only 3 as causing diseases of accumulation. There are 10 trace ele- ments with requisite capacities to act as essential micronutrients for mammals, but which have not been investigated as such, either because of ubiquity in foods or because of lack of interest; 7 are metals. There are 4 alkali metals or alka- line earths which may exert biological activities, either beneficial or antagonis- tic. There are 13 heavier elements to which modern man is exposed; his ancestors had minimal exposures to at least 7 of these. All are more or less toxic; 4 are known to accumulate in tissues with age, and 6 are more highly concentrated in man’s present environment than on the earth’s crust. Only 2 so far are considered to influence a disease." –H. A. Schroeder.

3.490 Source: "The Biological Trace Elements," Henry A. Schroeder, Journal of Chronic Disease, Vol. 18, 1965. pp. 226-27.

3.491 Man and the Biosphere

3.492 Air – Life may be sustained without food and water for some time as the organism may draw upon nutrients and liquids stored in the tissues, but air intake cannot be postponed for more than a brief interval. Respiration supplies oxygen to the tissues via the lungs and eliminates carbon dioxide and other oxidation products from the tissues. Oxygen intake need per day is approximately 1.35 pounds under normal conditions, and about 2.2 pounds of carbon dioxide are exhaled – i.e., taken up largely by plants and reconverted into oxygen and food in the photosynthesis cycle.

3.493 Water – Though somewhat less immediate than air, the organism’s need for water is still more stringent than food.

3.494 The body can lose practically all stored animal starch or glycogen, all reserves of fat and about one half of the protein which is stored or built into body structures, and not be confronted with great danger. But the loss of 10 per cent of body water is serious and a loss of 20 to 22 per cent means certain death.š

3.495 The daily water need is approximately 5 pounds per day. Depending on cultural context, much larger quantities are used for various other physiological functions, e.g., as in washing, general hygiene, etc.

3.496 Food – The various basic food requirements may be summarized briefly under these headings:

3.497 1) Carbohydrates, including starches and sugars, are the main energy fuel sources which compensate for the oxidation and heat energy losses in the general metabolism. Such ’fuel’ requirements depending on activities, average about 3,000 calories per day – to balance daily energy output/ loss of approximately the same amount.

3.498 As a general note on food energy conversion, man converts food intake into available ’mechanical’ work energies at about 20 per cent efficiency. Part of the food energy intake is consumed in respiration, circulation, digestion, etc. – part is given off as heat – part is used in nervous system activity – and part is indigestible and voided as waste.

3.499 2) Protein is required for the repair maintenance of organic structure and tissue. Though less in volume-demand than carbohydrate, an average of 100 grams per day (or 1.5 grams per kilo of body weight) is estimated as the minimal need.

3.500 3) Minerals, vitamins and a number of ’trace elements’ are required for adequate human function. Some daily minimal quantities are:

3.501 iron 0.015 grams calcium 0.45 grams phosphorus 0.86 grams salt 2.0 grams

3.502 šThe Ways of Man, J. Gillin, (Appleton Century Inc. 1948), p. 290.

3.503 Much attention has been given in recent years to the question of trace elements, the part played by mineral deficiencies in growth retardation, etc. Attempts have been made to correlate such ’trace’ resource availability in different soils and food plants with variation in social and cultural growth rates, to the extent that this factor observably affects other animal populations. Vitamin intakes of different types and quantities are also essential to adequate function and maintenance. There is little need for detailed comment on these here.

3.504 Temperature and Pressure – with narrow physiological adjustment to temperature variability, man can only survive within a median high range of cold heat. He is, in this sense, a ’subtropical’ animal functioning best where twenty-four hour temperatures average between 63 to 73 degrees F. Function and ’survival’ would be defined here in terms of health and activity output. Acclimatization plays a considerable part and through much evidence has been accumulated on higher physical activity as sustained in temperate climatic zones, this may well be due to other social and cultural factors. Pressure is also a limited adjustment area for the human organism and may be noted particularly in physiological difficulties, high altitudes or in underwater working.

3.505 Sleep requirement varies directly with age more markedly, perhaps, than other requirements in relation to body size, etc. From 18-20 hours per day when newborn, the need declines through 12-14 hours in the growing child, 7-9 hours for the mature adult and thence to 5-7 hours in later ages. There is some division of opinion on whether adult requirement for sleep varies with activity function or with cultural ’conditioning’. Sleep deprivation experiments have recorded only up to around 50 hours maximal time without sleep, and then only if the subject was kept in continuous activity of some sort.

3.506 Our emphasis in the biophysical requirements above has been on basic individual physiological requirements. Even in terms of simple physiological requirement, we cannot avoid considerable overlap with the ’technological’ system. Various biophysical modifications through sophisticated technical means are already routine. Artificial organs and extensions of organs are now operating as well as electronically controlled artificial limbs and ’natural’ organ transplants.

3.507 The artificial limb prosthetic attachment is one of the most interesting examples, which, though produced in response to human defect through birth or amputation, is capable of much wider application. The problems of delicacy of control and requisite power of manipulative and holding action have now been largely solved. Turning the body’s own energy to use, scientists have amplified bio-electrical muscle currents in limb ’stumps’ to trigger servo-mechanisms for hand movements – versatile enough to unscrew a light bulb, bend each artificial finger joint and lift up to nine pounds.

3.508 The use of electrical energy drawn directly from the body itself to power various internal and external organs directly, or to use for remote control of other mechanisms outside of the body has far reaching consequences. Apart from self-powering artificial organs, heart pacemakers, etc., it could also be used for transmitting signals for operating other controls at a distance, or acting internally as receiver/activator of metabolic control signals from remote medical centers.

3.509 With new valves for damaged hearts, synthetic tubes, clips, organs, and assists and metabolic amplifiers of various kinds, the biophysical organism may now enter a new era of synthetic regeneration. This field is now more than simply ’spare parts’ medicine, but has evolved swiftly into bio-engineering.

3.510 Man and the Biosphere 46

3.511 LIFE EXPECTANCIES

3.512 years of age 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 Neanderthal Man Mesolithic Man Copper Age/W. Turkey Bronze Age/Austria Greece & Rome Medieval England 17th Cent./Breslau 18th Cent./Philadelphia United States 1900 World Man Average 1965 75 70 60 50 40 30 1965 individual countries Sweden 74.9 U.S.A. 73.6 U.S.S.R. 71.6 Japan 70.3 Finland 69.0 Taiwan 65.5 Spain 63.5 Argentina 62.0 Venezuela 59.8 Greenland 53.6 Algeria 52.1 Turkey 50.4 India 46.9 Brazil 45.5 Cambodia 43.3 Mexico 39.8

3.513 Data: Health & Disease, Rene Dubos, Maya Pines & editors of Life, (New York: Time Inc.) 1965, pp. 193-195.

3.514 Surgery is essentially an engineering discipline . . . the integration of electronic circuits into the human body as functioning and permanent parts . . . is going to become very important and within the next ten years.ş

3.515 The most striking extension of all has been the general increase in human life expectancy and improved physiological function throughout the lengthened life span – in the advanced regions of the world. This capacity to prolong life, however, already has attendant problems in population control. We may anticipate further problems when prolongation is expanded toward genetic control of biophysical characteristics before and after birth; and when we increase our capacity to modify, by many present and emergent means, the emotional, mental and physical aspects of the human organism. Coupled with this, is the possibility of creating new types of ’living’ systems based on quite different biochemical configurations.

3.516 These advancements in biophysical ’control’ are specific aspects of the general advance in man’s knowledge of himself – as a biological organism. The interaction of biological, medical and engineering sciences which this entails is also underway in other areas such as water supply, waste disposal, air pollution, food preservation and public health.

3.517 We may sense, again, the growing eco-systems approach as beginning to operate at both the micro and macro extremities of human environ control – within the human body itself and outwardly to encompass the entire planetary body.

3.518 N.B. Our emphasis in the above biophysical requirements has been on basic individual needs. We have only mentioned, in passing, the way in which these basic needs are subject to psychosocial adjustment. Though we ’hunger’ biologically, we are generally ’hungry’ at socially designated intervals and for a definite range of culturally defined foods prepared in quite specific ways.

3.519 In the very process of responding to environmental stimuli, each individual human being creates his physical and mental personality from the biological attributes that are shared by all men. Human societies and culture emerged from the progressive integration of these responses.

3.520 The needs may be biological, the responses to the needs, and their satisfaction, are social and cultural – are learned responses. This brings us to our further division of the human system(s).

3.521 şElectronic Physiologic Aids, A. Kantrowitz, Director, Cardio-Vascular Surgery, Maimonides Hospital, New York, 1963.

3.522 "Humanistic Biology", R. Dubos, American Scholar, Vol. 34, No.2, 1965, p. 197.

3.523 Man and the Biosphere 48

3.524 Psychosocial

3.525 All that we have to say in this text is dependent on this central aspect of man. We have noted elsewhere that ’social patterns determine biological events’. In the case of man, this is strikingly evident. Man is human by virtue of his social existence – that he lives in, by, and for human society. This is not to devalue individual man, but to underline that man’s nature, i.e., his humanity, is socially produced. Society, in this case, is not confined to local society, but to the awareness of, and sense of belonging to, the larger human society – to the continuity of human cultural experience. Meaning, even for the individual, cannot be separated from its location within this societal context.

3.526 Man is made human by his earliest experiences of human contact. He learns to be a human being. When acutely deprived of such early periods of socialization, the organism exists, but so limited in mental and even physical development that basic survival itself is impaired.

3.527 The above preamble is necessary to further emphasize the integral orientation of all that we may discuss. Though we may stress an ’ecological’ approach, this remains almost exclusively man focused – a bias we cannot escape. We perceive the environment only in human related terms. No matter how ’objective’ we may strive to be, the formulation of objectivity is itself a peculiarly human symbolic process. All of our environmental transactions are conducted inescapably through such symbolic screens. Objective ’truths’ about such transactions are most clearly expressed in a series of highly abstracted symbol systems, whose claim to truth and objectivity is almost in due ratio to the degree of abstraction of their symbology – as in mathematics, the expression of the fundamental physical elements and their periodicities, the electro-magnetic spectrum, etc. These symbolic constructs are the highest ’ordering’ principles which we know, and, though we refer to their ’discovery’ in nature they are only apprehendable to use as conceptually ’created’, and communicated, symbols.

3.528 . . .the qualities and characteristics that constitute the visual sensations of which we are conscious . . .are not inherent in the so-called external ’things’ at which we are looking. The origin of our sensations is in the prior experiences and the characteristics and qualities of our sensations are determined by our unique personal (social) history, etc.

3.529 The prime vehicle for all our environmental interpretation and the basis for human action is some form of language. Both verbal and non-verbal symbolic languages ’order’ our perception of the environ and control the interpretation and communication of what we perceive. Language now constructs our reality.

3.530 The biological evolution of man is marked by the development of his nervous system and its associated organs for monitoring, controlling and adjusting the environ to his purpose – from the brain to the eyes, skin, limbs, etc. It is suggested that though man stopped physically evolving about 150 thousand years ago and is now a social animal,

3.531 "A symbol is something the meaning of which is not determined by its intrinsic physical properties, nor whose meaning has been established by the neuro-mechanism of the conditioned reflex, but something whose meaning is freely and arbitrarily determined by those who use it; let the color black indicate mourning. Only man is able to use symbols in this way," "The Symbol" Origin and Basis of Human Behavior", L. A. White, Philosophy of Science, Vol. 7, pp. 451, 1940.

3.532 "Experiments in Perception", Adelbert Ames, Jr., Progressive Architecture, December 1947, p. 20.

3.533 evolving only through his extensions, many of his apparently irrational behaviors are ex- plicable as ’instinctual’ responses which were biologically meaningful in early development – but are no longer appropriate to his changed condition. Fears and insecurities, expressed in certain ’dominance, territoriality, crowd and flight responses,’ etc., which had survival value in the past may often appear to act negatively in a more socially secure present. Their measurable physiological reactions are acute and often stressful. Taken as part of the total human system, they are, however, powerful sources of social energy when appro- priately channelled. Language and other ’symbolic responses’ are, for example, now inter- posed between physical stimuli and ’action’ response.

3.534 We may, more accurately, characterize the key evolutionary stage of man, not as tool making or using, but as communication through symbolic languages. Though, ". . . language may be termed the first industrial tool, as it involves a plurality of men, and is a prior requirement for the integrated efforts of many men"7, tool using in man is a cumu- lative and progressive activity unlike that of the tool using animals. Language as a prime tool, extends our control over the environ as demonstrably as any physical artefact – by naming and ordering, we control as effectively. Organized information is now our major tool resource.

3.535 Man’s ecological expansion has been particularly characterized by the role in which accumulated knowledge about the environ is preserved and passed on through succeeding generations. This would form part of the major evolutionary step in adaptability of the organism. Such generational transmission of socio-cultural experience, of that which makes man human, was possible only through the evolved ’family’ unit – within which a relatively fragile organism with an unusually long period of defenselessness and dependency on other could be effectively nurtured till able to survive as an individual. The period of nurture is also that of socialization, of forming the human personality. The function of transmitting social and cultural experience and of regulating social interaction also led to the complex growth of other human institutions – to human society as we know it. There is little to suggest that human society evolved ’instinctually’ in the strict biological sense. Rather, when we refer to the evolution of society, it may, perhaps, be more accurately meant in the sense of more consciously adaptive development. Animals have forms of society, but these lack the evolutionary capacity which has allowed human society to be more plastic and variable in its responses to particular environ situations. Change has been of key importance in this process and allows of the interaction of individual change agents within the society as influencing and modifying the overall societal orientation.

3.536 Social evolution, in this sense may be likened to a ’cybernetic’ process, one which is oriented to its goals by ’feedback’. Increased, and more highly organized, information about the environ and the society as an integral ongoing process is fed back in due propor- tion so as to ’guide’ forward development. As including the role of individual agents – in monitoring the signals, suggesting and predicting the changes of course required, etc. – we might more properly refer to ’psycho-social evolution’ as more clearly defining this process.

3.537 All human action is, in this sense, social action. Contemporary social theory generally analyzes human behavior as occurring, therefore, in a system of socially inter- active relationships, i.e., even where the specific interaction is with a physical resource, its form and purpose is socially determined. Further division of the psychosocial environ system would include three subdivisions to account for individual action, the society as an aggregate or collectivity of such actions and the culture as an environ continuum within

3.538 7Ideas and Integrity, R. B. Fuller, (Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1963).

3.539 Man and the Biosphere 50

3.540 which individual and societal actions take place. The symbolic processes of communication make all social action possible and furnish the matrix within which all such action takes place.

3.541 1) the personality system of the individual ’actor’ as motivated toward action by his needs in terms of various goals, commitments and socialized patterns of behavior. Different needs, situations, purposes elicit different roles or learned patterns of ’successful’ response behavior.

3.542 2) the social system, or structured order of social actions, consisting of the basic human institutions – family, kinship, religious, political, economic, etc. – and their related organizations.

3.543 These consist of sets of defined roles or patterns of behavior with their attendant, and appropriate ’sanctioned’, rewards and deprivations in different social systems. All human actions are related in one way or another to these institutionalized sets. They should not, however, be viewed as static forms, but as temporal configurations undergoing various rates of change according to their ’dynamic’ content of idiosyncratic individual actions.

3.544 3) the culture system contains the ’heritage’ of customs, habits, belief systems, etc. – in various ideologies, values, standards. These are all expressed in various symbolic modes – in more and less tangible physical forms as the arts and sciences, in less tangible form in the religions, mythologies, philosophies, etc. We might even include technology as a cultural artifact in this manner – with its system of social action as a form expressly concerned with the control of the physical environ through tools. Such tools are, themselves, also ’symbolic’ artifacts – increasingly dependent upon environ information input refined through symbolic language processes.

3.545 The above divisions are, needless to say, another series of convenient abstractions from a fused process of integral human action. A prime characteristic of the psycho-social system(s) are their transmissibility through non-biological means. They are socially, rather than biologically, inherited. Culture, used in the more generally inclusive sense to describe the whole system, may be termed the ecological context which encloses and screens all human activity within (and without) the biosphere.

3.546 The social behaviors of man are now the most critical factors in the maintenance of the ecosystem. We not only modify the environ by human action as manifested in science and technology – through physical transformations of the earth to economic purpose – but, all social institutions play their part in orienting the direction, goal and purposes which guide such environmental transactions.

3.547 Following our line of ’evolutionary’ development, it may be noted that it is only recently that we have acquired the social awareness that we may from this time forward exercise a more consciously direct control of our forward development. We generally forget the extent to which past historical societies were unaware of this, believing that such control lay more with capricious agencies external to man – the future was predestined, cyclically returned to past forms or was oriented to life after death. In this sense, we have ’invented’ the future almost as a consciously orienting strategy for our forward survival.

3.548 We have become aware that the forms of our social organizations and whole societies are also man-made and may be re-designed to fit our emergent needs and purposes. Our social ’technologies’ will now require precedence as control agencies for the developed capacities of physical technology. In terms of environ control, the tribal village, the city-state and, latterly, the nation state, were inventive adaptations towards our present ecological dominance. At our present level of planetary interdependency, the nation state form, for example, may be as dangerously obsolete as the self-governing autonomous tribal and city principalities which preceded it. The necessary growth of transnational social organizations seems to indicate this. The essential organizations which maintain the human ecosystem are no longer national in any real sense – world health, communications, transportation, etc., are, by agreement, vital to all and decisions relative to their governance may not be abrogated by any local agency. The continued growth of such world organizations may not, however, be left to emergency-pressured need, but must become the object of conscious design, taking gainful cognizance of the evolutionary developments and trends towards such global forms.

3.549 We may view this trend in another aspect relative to knowledge/information. In general, human survival has been evolutionarily successful through the bias towards integrative function, e.g., the manner in which the differentiated-out and specialized organic functions are integrally directed towards the overall end purposes of the organism. Man is one of the least specialized biological organisms. Extreme specialization in evolutionary, or ecological, terms of a highly differentiated set of ’special’ habitat requirements is usually accompanied by lack of adaptability. The organism tends towards extinction or remains low in the species hierarchy. Our present discussion may be phrased in these terms where the trend towards increased differentiation and specialization may be dangerous through lack of integration of our overall environ activities, i.e., as evidenced in air, water pollution, etc. The externalized functional extensions of man now ’evolve’ for him – as the microscope relieves the eye of further development of greater magnification power, so other tools and tool systems take over in duly specialized fashion. The extremely swift and relatively uncontrolled growth of our array of tool systems – as including forms of social organization – has not been accompanied by a corresponding extension of our integrative ’tools’ and systems. Fortunately, this negative trend seems to be in the process of reversal where our very large scale environ undertakings, as in the space programs, have forced a return to consideration of human activities as whole systems. The accompanying increase in global monitoring of the earth system through satellites and the swift diffusion and interchanges in the world communications network engenders an integral awareness of the essential unity of the planetary community.

3.550 We may note here, in concluding this section, that the psychosocial extension of man throughout the biosphere has been characterized as adding to this a "noosphere" layer.

3.551 First described by W. I. Vernadsky in La Biosphere, 1929; more recently discussed by Teilhard de Chardin in his various works, notably, The Phenomenon of Man, The Cloister Library, Harper 1961.

3.552 Man and the Biosphere 52

3.553 This idea of organized human thought now covering the globe as a functional part of the over- all ecological system is, to an extent, physically demonstrable in our present global com- munications networks; in the enormously accelerated growth of human knowledge with its parallel increase in the numbers of messages, meetings, journals, etc., ceaselessly cir- culating around the earth.

3.554 The notion of an ’information explosion’ however, is not borne out by this knowledge ex- pansion. Such knowledge is not simply accumulated facts, but the reduction of unrelated, and often apparently irrelevant, facts into new and more compact conceptual wholes. The overall process does not tend toward greater complexity but, rather toward simpler and more ’inclusive’ concepts. Recent revolutionary concepts in biology are an example of this – the DNA/RNA formulation ’impounds’ a great number of separate biological facts and relates biology via biochemistry to biophysics – and thence, to more elegantly simpler structural hierarchies. The increasing interrelation and interdependence of other ’separate’ disciplines is further evidence of this direction.

3.555 We may hypothesize that as information increases exponentially – explodes – conceptuality implodes, becoming increasingly more simplified.

3.556 The effect of this accelerated process on the life space and life style is quite marked. Where tribal man became disoriented when separated from his locality and early city and local state man could barely conceptualize his externally surrounding environment beyond these limits, we are now in a period when many men think wasily and casually in terms of the whole planet.

3.557 Such emerging world men are not confused by the explosion of information about the earth and its peoples, but are able to deal with this in whole terms, as easily as one previously conceived of one’s neighborhood, hometown, and surrounding country.

3.558 Our basic critical impasse in global terms is, however, our inability to use our swiftly occurring knowledge. The block is to be found most often in the persistence of obsolete social forms and attitudes. This returns us circularly to earlier comments on the role of social invention as a prime re-design need. To circumvent traditional, but now in- adequate modes of social action, we need to experiment with new forms of social organiza- tion – to re-fashion the psychosocial environ as vigorously as we have transformed the physical environ in the past century.

3.559 53 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.560 Technological System(s)

3.561 We have referred to the basic organic enterprise as that of securing energy and materials from the environment to maintain life. A rather simple statement, but one that accounts, in part, for most historical human activities. At the lowest level of early human survival we find evidence of cultural activity, but its more durable and widespread forms are associated with access to more energies than could be provided solely by unaided human physical effort. As we have noted, language is the tool which enables men to combine together to perform tasks, or convert energy collectively, which would be impossible for an isolated man. The symbolic gesture or sign is, therefore, a first ’technological’ extension. Second, perhaps, would come fire, as it is difficult to see how the knowledge of fire could be transmitted without language. Fire is a way of gaining access to stored solar energy, of extending the internal oxidation of the body metabolism to provide an external source of heat, predigest food, etc. – also providing one of our most durable symbols in the process.

3.562 The earliest men seem to have subsisted by hunting and food gathering, simply tapping into locally available, naturally cyclic, energy supplies. Such techniques would seldom provide the energy surpluses necessary to give sufficient leisure for large scale cultural pursuits except in particularly favorable habitats. Higher sustained yields and surpluses appear to have first come from the deliberate cultivation of selected plants and the herding and domestication of animals. This would allow for more permanent settlement, storage of food energies and the leisure with which to experiment and forward further survival strategies, e.g., in association with such settlements are usually found evidence of recording of seasonal and other periodicities to allow future planning. In close conjunction with such early technologies of cultivation and domestication comes the development of boats. The extended voyages possible with food stores, animals, etc., plus the navigational aids drawn from, and giving rise to, more accurate measurement of environment periodicities – the movements of the stars, phases of the moon, etc., added greatly to human survival knowledge. It is suggested that such ocean migration may even antedate fixed land settlement and that developed sea technologies, brought up on the land, account for the first sciences and technologies which form the bases of the early agricultural and animal domestication revolutions.

3.563 Whatever the origins of technology, it is patent that the system of artifacts which this now connotes, have developed in a unitary, evolutionary manner. We have referred to this idea as presented by many contemporary thinkers, but the following quotation from La Barre conveys it in succinct form:

3.564 Since man’s machines evolve now, not anatomical man, he has long since gone outside his own individual skin in his functional relatedness to the world. The real evolutionary unit now is not man’s mere body; it is ’all mankind’s-brains-together-with-all-the-extrabodily-materials-that-come-under-the-manipulation-of-their-hands’. Man’s physical ego is expanded to encompass everything within reach of his manipulating hands, within sight of his searching eyes, and within the scope of his restless brain. An airplane is part of a larger kinaesthetic and functional self . . .and airplanes are biologically cheap (as evolu-

3.565 Naga to Eden, R. B. Fuller (manuscript in preparation).

3.566 Man and the Biosphere

3.567 FIRST Technological revolution The discovery and use of the wheel

3.568 Tusk, horn, and bone hand tools

3.569 All purpose stone & wood fist axes

3.570 Special purpose stone & wood hand tools

3.571 SECOND Technological Revolution The discovery of methods for smeltin alloys and forged tools and weapons

3.572 Metal handtools with energy supplied

3.573 Bronze

3.574 Iron Age

3.575 10 5x10 5x10 10 5x10ş 2,000 AD 965 10 11 12 BC 1,965 Years

3.576 THE LINE OF HIGH ADVANTAGE MOBILE ENVIRON CONTROL DEVELOPMENT W

3.577 MODE TIME PERIOD AVERAGE TONNAGE HORSE POWER AVERAGE SPEED

3.578 Sailing Ships 2,500 BC 500 BC 1,000 AD 1400 1500 1600 150 250 30 300 100-500 1000 80 120 30-90 150-250 .... 500 8 knots 8 knots 12 knots 10 knots 10 knots 11 knots

3.579 Communications Word of mouth, drums, smoke, relay runners, and hand printed manuscripts prior to 1441 A.D. The Gutenberg 1441 printing press The rapid print Web 1863 newspaper press

3.580 THE RELATIVE SIZE OF THE WORLD A

3.581 15,00 AD -1840 AD

3.582 1850-193

3.583 Steam locomotives 65 m.p.h. while s averaged 36 m.p.

3.584 The best average speed of horse drawn coaches on land and sailing ships at sea was approximately 10 m.p.h.

3.585 Man on foot = 3 mph

3.586 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 90 BC AD

3.587 Man and the Biosphere

3.588 FIRST Technological revolution The discovery and use of the wheel

3.589 Tusk, horn, and bone hand tools

3.590 All purpose stone & wood fist axes

3.591 Special purpose stone & wood hand tools

3.592 SECOND Technological Revolution The discovery of methods for smelt alloys and forged tools and weapons

3.593 Metal handtools with energy suppli

3.594 Bronze

3.595 Iron Age

3.596 10 5x10 5x10 10 5x10ş 2,000 AD> 965 10 11 12 <BC 1,965 Ye

3.597 THE LINE OF HIGH ADVANTAGE MOBILE ENVIRON CONTROL DEVELOPMENT

3.598 MODE Sailing Ships

3.599 TIME PERIOD 2,500 BC 500 BC 1,000 AD 1400 1500 1600

3.600 AVERAGE TONNAGE 150 250 30 300 100-500 1000

3.601 HORSE POWER 80 120 30-90 150-250 .... 500

3.602 AVERAGE SPEED 8 knots 8 knots 12 knots 10 knots 10 knots 11 knots

3.603 Communications Word of mouth, drums, smoke, relay runners, and hand printed manuscripts prior to 1441 A.D.

3.604 The Gutenberg 1441 printing press

3.605 The rapid print Wel 1863 newspaper press

3.606 THE RELATIVE SIZE OF THE WORLD

3.607 15,00 AD -1840 AD

3.608 1850-1

3.609 Steam locomoti 65 m.p.h. while averaged 36 m.

3.610 The best average speed of horse drawn coaches on land and sailing ships at sea was approximately 10 m.p.h.

3.611 Man on foot = 3 mph

3.612 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 8 <BC AD>

3.613 STAGES OF TECHNOLOGY

3.614 THIRD The Industrial Revolution

3.615 FOURTH Chemicals & Chemical Engineering

3.616 FIFTH Electrical Transmission & Telecommunications

3.617 SIXTH Transportation

3.618 SEVENTH Limitless age

3.619 end of Franco-Prussian war

3.620 World War I.

3.621 World War II.

3.622 controlled atomic fission

3.623 AUTOMATION STAGE V DEVELOPED SOCIETIES Industrial Economies of Abundance

3.624 MECHANIZATION STAGE IV

3.625 DIVERSIFICATION STAGE III UNDERDEVELOPED SOCIETIES Agriculturally Based Marginal Economies

3.626 DOMESTICATION STAGE II

3.627 ADAPTATION STAGE I

3.628 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1965

3.629 Years Before Present

3.630 WHICH GOES FROM SHIP, TO AIRPLANE, TO ROCKET, TO MANNED SPACE VEHICLE

3.631 Clipper Steam Ships Airplanes Saturn V Rocket

3.632 1700 1800 1900 1940 1940 1950 1965

3.633 1,000 2,100 2,500 4,500 Propeller Jet 3,000 Tons

3.634 750 .... 1,200 1,400 3,500 12,000 200,000 lbs. thrust

3.635 12 knots 17-22 knots 16 knots 20 knots 300 m.p.h. 600 m.p.h. 25,000 m.p.h.

3.636 (3) The Bell 1876 telephone

3.637 (4) The Marconi 1895 telegraph

3.638 (5) First commercial 1920 radio broadcast

3.639 (6) National 1950 Television

3.640 (7) Transcontinental T.V. with the introduction of Early Bird satellite

3.641 AS TRAVEL TIME DECREASES

3.642 1950’s Propeller aircraft averaged 300-400 m.p.h.

3.643 1960’s Jet passenger aircraft averaged 500-700 m.p.h.

3.644 Carevel=5 mph.

3.645 This toned area represents population growth

3.646 Steam locomotive Horse Coach

3.647 Automobile

3.648 First flight across the Atlantic

3.649 Jet Jet super sonic XB-70

3.650 17,000 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 100 50 25 5 0

3.651 00 900 1000 1100 1200 1300 1400 1500 1600 1700 1800 1900 20 40 60 80 1965

3.652 tionary devices). Without being, through specialization, a biological amputee, he attaches all sorts of prosthetic devices to his limbs. This evolution-by-prosthesis is uniquely human and uniquely freed from the slowness of reproduction and of evolutionary variation into blind alleys from which there is no retreat.ź

3.653 The augmentation of organic capacity is, however, not confined solely to the evolu- tion of physical tools but includes also those ’invisible’ tools which have had as powerful an effect in transforming man’s condition. Such invisible tools as language, number, symbol and image systems are also extensions of human internal processes and have, through the larger conceptual systems – religion, philosophy, science, etc. – extended man’s control over environment.

3.654 We might even view the growth of social institutions as part of such psychophysical extension – the development of cities, states, ’families’ of nations. Certainly the develop- ment of the ’systems’ capability of coordinating large scale and long-term complex enter- prises, as in aerospace, in national and international planning, emerges as a powerful new technology. Also, where the hand tool; lathe, grinder, etc., extend physical capacities, our communication networks of radio, telephone, television and linked computer systems are extensions of the human senses and nervous system. Through his instrumented moni- toring of the electro-magnetic spectrum, man can now ’see’ in the infrared, ultraviolet and X-ray frequencies, ’hear’ in the radio frequencies, and more delicately ’feel’ through electronic metering than with his most sensitive skin areas.

3.655 As man has extended his immediate physical control over the material environ- ment, he has also extended his range of psychic mobility in space and time – to almost the same degree that he ’opens’ up his future, he also extends himself into the past through re- fined archaelogical techniques and ancillary instrumentation.

3.656 The latest phases of technological development now return upon the organism itself as man begins to directly repair, restore and to replace his internal organs, either through transplantation from others or by artificial devices. His bio-technical ’tool services’ range through plastic valves, tubes, filters, etc., to ’pacemakers’ for the heart, external ’kidneys’ and various prosthetic attachments which approach the natural limb capabilities.

3.657 Most of the extraordinary evolution of our complex industrial tools has taken place in the last two hundred years. Though the process of technological development predates history, our present accelerations may be located as taking off towards the end of the Eighteenth Century with the steam engine.źź

3.658 The brevity of this period probably accounts for the widespread apprehension that technological developments now threaten man, that technologies are out of control, etc. Such dire prophecies possibly result from a lack of understanding of the evolutionary and organic nature of technological development which we have emphasized so much in our pre- sent discussion. The idea is, in itself, probably somewhat alien to the understanding. Man has always assumed that an ’evolving’ technology would be of the mythological robotic variety – formed in his own image. It is, rather, more difficult to observe the evolution

3.659 źThe Human Animal, W. La Barre, (University of Chicago Press, 1954), p. 92.

3.660 źźWhilst recognizing the long build up toward this point, particularly in the medieval period, the first industrial revolution is a convenient benchmark for large scale industrial and urban expansion.

3.661 56 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.662 WORLD VOLUME OF TECHNICAL DOCUMENTS

3.663 GEODESY MECHANICS ASTRONOMY MATHEMATICS GEOPHYSICS PSYCHOLOGY NUCLEAR SCIENCE GEOLOGY PHYSICS METALLURGY GEOGRAPHY BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY AEROSPACE ENGINEERING BIOLOGY CHEMISTRY

3.664 NOTE: These figures are the estimate of an ad hoc subcommittee of the U.S. Congress on a national research data processing and retrieval center, prepared in 1963.

3.665 KEY 1961 1965 1970 680,000 900,500 1,143,000

3.666 Total estimated annual volume of significant documents during indicated years

3.667 Includes: civil, aeronautical, {military, marine, mechanical, electrical etc.

3.668 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 IN THOUSANDS OF DOCUMENTS

3.669 Source: "Systems Development Corporation, Magazine," Vol. 9, No. 2, February 1966.

3.670 Man and the Biosphere 57

3.671 of the aeroplane from single person/single engine with multiple wing surfaces, to multi engine/single wing, to propellerless jets of enormous size, speed and 400 passenger carrying capacity – almost in one human generation. It is as difficult to equate the evolution of the family of ’extended eyes’ – from bulky, tripod, wetplate still cameras to microminiaturized television scanners spinning around the globe outside of the earth’s atmosphere. We may only control and guide the further development of our technologies by applying to them some ’biological’ approach that we use in studying other life forms in the ecosystem.

3.672 As ’powered’, renewed, and ultimately directed by human life, technology is as organic as a snail shell, the carapace of a turtle, a spiderweb or the airborn dandelion seed. In many respects, it is now more ubiquitous as a functional component of the ecosystem than any organic life form other than man himself. The amounts of energy converted by machines, the materials extracted from the earth, processed, recombined and redistributed in the technological metabolism, and the gross effects of such increased metabolic rates on the ecosystem, are now greater than the effects of many global populations of other organic species.

3.673 When we come, therefore, to the question of ’control’ we must seek to find, as we have not yet consciously done on a large enough scale, the fundamental principles and ’laws’ which govern the evolution of physical technologies. These would include not only science and technology as related processes, but the many other organized institutions which are ’technological’ by nature, e.g., cities in their aspect of extended metabolic units, social organizations as extended control units, etc. When we apparently underline physical technologies, we should also bear in mind the parallel growth of more intangible technological means, as implied above in urban and social organizations. Almost every ordered aggregate of human actions whose effects modify the physical environ is, in this sense, a ’technology’. The application of the methodology of the physical sciences to the systematic scheduling of series of technological operations, e.g., in the ’systems’ approach, is often termed a ’soft’ technology. In the same regard, historically, so was a rain dance, or the ceremonies attending crop fertility or a ritual socio-religious drama – all systems for attaining to greater predictive understanding and extended control of the human environ.

3.674 To emphasize the organic nature of technology in this fashion, it should be noted, is not simply to pose some technological determinism as accounting for all human development and change. One could as easily suggest poetry as the determinant, and with as much validity. Rather, the purpose is to emphasize and re-emphasize the integral nature of all human processes – whether labelled technological, economic, cultural or whatever. Given the nature of the organism and its enclosing environ, and some notion of the history of its development within that environ, we may observe certain periodicities and orders of growth. So far, our understanding of the larger patterns of the human ecological transformations has been limited by our tendency to compartmentalize our knowledge of the process. The ’periodicities and orders’ of one discipline are usually left unrelated to those of another. Archaeology, a seemingly remote and quite academic field has taken the lead recently, in this manner. By bringing to bear the data and conceptual means of many disciplines – and their ancillary techniques of biochemical and physical analysis, radiation technologies, aerial and satellite photography, etc. – archaeologists are beginning to ’reconstruct’ the past as vigorously as we now document the present and probe the future.

3.675 The most recent and spectacular area of technological evolution has been the introduction of cybernetics – significantly, and symbolically, derived from the word for ’steering’ in the navigational sense. Defined as the mechanization of sensory thought and other psychophysical processes, cybernetics is an extension of the control capacities of the

3.676 58 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.677 COMPUTER PERFORMANCE

3.678 A Storage Size B Storage Speed 1,000 1,000,000 100 100,000 10 10,000 1 1,000 .1 100 .01 10 1955 60 65 70 75 1955 60 65 70 75 C Storage Cost D Total U.S. Computer Power $ 10 1,000,000 1 100,000 .10 10,000 .01 1,000 .001 100 .0001 10 .00001 1 1955 60 65 70 75 1955 60 65 70 75

3.679 Computer Weight, Volume, Power Costs: In 1953 a computer weighed approximately 5000 lbs., occupied 300-400 cu. ft. and required 40 kw. of power. Today’s computer weighs approximately 50 lbs., is a thousand times smaller and uses 265% less power than the 1953 model.

3.680 (A) Storage Size: From 1955-65 the storage size of central processing computer unit (cpu) has decreased by a factor of ten. During the next decade, fully integrated circuits may reduce its size by a factor of about 1000.

3.681 (B) Storage Speed: From 1955-65 internal speeds have increased by a factor of 200 and by 1975 such speeds are expected to again increase by this amount.

3.682 (C) Storage Cost: During the first decade of the computer the cost of performing one million operations decreased from $10.00 to about 5ć. By 1975 it is estimated that this decrease will amount to an additional factor of about 300.

3.683 (D) Computer Power: The total installed computer power in the United States during 1955 had a capacity of about one-half million additions per second. By 1965 this capacity increased to 200 million per second and if growth rates are sustained through 1975 the increase in capability will be about 400-fold.

3.684 Caption: adapted from W. H. Ware, "Future Computer Technology and Its Impact," D. D. AD 631-941. Office of Technical Services, U. S. Department of Commerce.

3.685 Source: P. Armer, "Computer Aspects of Technological Change, Automation and Economic Progress," Rand Corporation, November 1965.

3.686 human nervous system into electro-mechanical devices. Without elaborating on its techno- logical ramifications here, we may underline its importance in ecological terms. As the mechanical and chemical energy converters of the first series of industrial revolutions freed human muscle from routine tasks, so the computer revolution potentially frees man from comparable routine ’intellectual’ tasks – of monitoring, supervising, controlling many simultaneous and complex technical processes. Also, and importantly, it gives the possibility of swiftly expanding our global production, distribution and logistical support services toward satisfying the urgent material needs of large numbers of human beings still on the edge of survival.

3.687 In reducing the direct link between work and physical maintenance, automation/ cybernation also obsoletes many of the basic premises for our major social and economic institutions. These have been largely borne of a past when it was necessary to persuade, coerce or otherwise ’sanction’ the bulk of men into spending the greater part of their lives just producing the basic products for human physical survival. From this time forward, we may potentially produce, in abundance, all such material life sustaining requirements – without need to ’extract’ or demand human life-labor in equitable return. Instead of spend- ing most of his years merely maintaining himself, man is potentially freed to address him- self to the larger purposes and enormous range of activities implicit in the larger human enterprise.

3.688 The cybernetic revolution has occurred largely within the past two decades. It is important to underline this and to recognize its evolutionary significance in the light of our discussion above. We sense this period of change and transition as one of the most critical in human history. The specific focus of our discussion centers around our capacity to con- trol the enormous scale of our present global undertakings in a more positive, efficient and naturally advantageous manner and to avoid the dislocations and dangerous side effects of our swiftly accelerating technological growth.

3.689 It is of key relevance, therefore, that this new change agency of cybernetics is also specifically developed for massive control and decision-making in handling large scale systems with many complex and variable factors. At the point then, where man’s affairs reach the scale of potential disruption of the global ecosystem, he invents, with seeming spontaneity, precisely those conceptual and physical technologies which enable him to deal with the magnitude of a complex planetary society.

3.690 60 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.691 READINGS LIST HUMAN SYSTEMS

3.692 Anthropology Today. A.L. Kroeber (ed.), University of Chicago Press, 1953.

3.693 Bibliography of International Relations and World Affairs. E.H. Boehm. Clio Press. Santa Barbara, Calif. 1965.

3.694 Changing Human Behavior. John Mann. Scribner and Sons. New York, 1965.

3.695 The Chemical Revolution, a Contribution to Social Technology. A. Clow and N. Clow. London, 1952.

3.696 The City of Man. W. Warren Wagar. Houghton Mifflin Co. Boston, 1963.

3.697 Communication and Social Order. Hugh Dalziel Duncan. The Bedminster Press, 1962.

3.698 Continuities in Cultural Evolution. Margaret Mead. Yale University Press, 1964.

3.699 The Control of Human Heredity and Evolution. T.M. Sonneborn (ed.) MacMillan, 1965.

3.700 The Crisis of Cultural Change. Myron Bloy. Seabury, 1965.

3.701 The Culture Consumers. Alvin Toffler. The MacMillan Company, Ltd. 1964.

3.702 Cultural Foundations of Industrial Civilization. J.U. Nef. Cambridge University Press,1958.

3.703 Cultural Patterns and Technical Change. M. Mead (ed.) Mentor Books. (UNESCO), 1955.

3.704 Economic Man, Vol. I and II. C. Reinhold Noyes. Columbia University Press, 1948.

3.705 Education Automation. R. Buckminster Fuller. Southern Illinois Univ. Press. 1963.

3.706 Education, Manpower & Economic Growth: Strategies of Human Resource Development. Frederick Harbison and Charles A. Myers. McGraw- Hill Book Company, 1964.

3.707 Empire and Communications. H.A. Innes. Oxford University Press, 1953.

3.708 Essays in Sociological Theory. Talcott Parsons. Free Press. New York, 1964.

3.709 The Evolution of Culture. L.A. White. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1959.

3.710 Free Men and Free Markets. R. Theobald. Doubleday and Co. Inc. New York, 1963.

3.711 The Future as History. R.L. Heilbroner. Grove Press Inc. New York, 1961.

3.712 On Human Communications. Colin Cherry. Chapman Hall, 1957.

3.713 The Human Dialogue. F.W. Matson and Ashley Montagu (ed.) The Free Press. New York. 1967.

3.714 Human Ecology. J.W. Bewr. Milford, London. 1935.

3.715 Man and the Biosphere 61

3.716 The Human Meaning of the Social Sciences. D. Lerner (ed.) World Publ. Co. N.Y. 1959.

3.717 Human Values on the Spaceship Earth. K.E. Boulding and Henry Clark. National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., 1966.

3.718 Handbook of Modern Sociology. R.l. Faris. (ed.) Rand McNally and Co., 1964.

3.719 In the Human Grain. W.J. Ong. Collier, MacMillan Ltd. London. 1967.

3.720 The Influence of Culture on Visual Perception. M. H. Segall. Donald T. Campbell and Melville J. Herskovits. Bobbs- Merrill Co. Inc. New York, 1966.

3.721 International Cooperation and You. Louis Verniers. Union of International Assoc. Doc. No. 12. U.I.A. Publication No. 177, 1962.

3.722 International Institutions. Paul Reuter. Rinehart and Co. New York. 1958.

3.723 Language, Thought and Reality. Benjamin Lee Whorf. John Wiley and Sons. 1956.

3.724 Manpower Report of the President. U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1964.

3.725 Mirror for Man. C. Kluckhohn. Fawcett Publications Inc. 1963.

3.726 The New Sociology. I.L. Horowitz (ed.) Oxford University Press, Galaxy Books, 1965.

3.727 The Next Generation. Donald Michael. Vintage Books, New York, 1965.

3.728 People or Personnel. Paul Goodman. Random House, 1963.

3.729 Physiology of Man in Space. J.H.U. Brown (ed.) Academic Press., 1963.

3.730 The Scientific Estate. D.K. Price. Harvard University Press, 1965.

3.731 Sociology. T.B. Bottomore, Allen and Unwin Ltd. London, 1962.

3.732 The Silent Language. E.T. Hall. University of Illinois, 1960.

3.733 The Study of Culture at a Distance. Margaret Mead and Rhoda Metraux (ed.) University of Chicago Press, 1953.

3.734 Study of Thinking. J.S. Bruner. J.J.Goodnow and G.A. Austin. Chapman & Hall, Ltd. 1956.

3.735 The Technological Order. C.F. Stover (ed.) Wayne State Univerisity Press, 1963.

3.736 Technology and Social Change. Eli Ginzberg (ed.) Columbia University Press, 1964.

3.737 Theories of Society. Vol I and II. T. Parsons, E.Shils, K. Naegele, J.R. Pitts (ed’s) The Free Press. New York, 1961.

3.738 Of Time, Work & Leisure. Sebastian de Grazia. The Twentieth Century Fund, 1962.

3.739 Understanding Media. Marshall McLuhan. McGraw- Hill Book Company., 1964.

3.740 62 W.D.S.D. 1967 Document 6

3.741 Social Indicators. Raymond A. Bauer (ed.). M. I. T. Press 1966.

3.742 The State of the Nation (Social Systems Accounting). Bertram M. Gross. Travistock Publications. London, 1966.

3.743 Conflict Resolution and World Education. Stuart Mudd (ed.). DR. W. Junk, The Hague and Indiana University Press, 1966.

3.744 World Communications. UNESCO Publications Center, 1964.

3.745 World Handbook of Political and Social Indicators. Russett, Lasswell and Deutsch. Yale University Press, 1964.

3.746 World Technology and Human Destiny. R. Aron (ed.). University of Michigan Press. 1963.