Radu Bajureanu Blog | Do best what you can!

This is a description of our trip to Wompatuck State Park. This is one of the MA, USA park. There exist the possibility to stay with camping.

The maintenance of the Earth’s atmosphere oxygen balance is a major concern of contemporary ecologists. Its regeneration is due to plants with metabolism based on chlorophyll, both of the planktonic and terrestrial plants, especially of the rainforests. In this regard, it is noted that a hectare of forest produces about 50 times more oxygen than the same area covered with grass or agricultural plants.

Reducing the areas covered by forests, destruction of plants and obstruction of their development as produced by environmental pollution, land cover construction and transportation routes, as well as enormous amounts of oxygen consumption by industry and vehicles tend to disturb the equilibrium quantity of this crucial element of life.

Air pollution is due, especially in cities, to following source categories: industrial enterprises, means of transportation, home heating systems, waste removal and treatment.

Phytoplankton is endangered by chlorinated pesticides, biocides with long remanence time characters, whose last place of storage is ocean water, which represents more than two thirds of the planet. Estimated at one billion kgs the annual amount of chlorinated pesticides and their persistent metabolites and around 30 years duration of use, the potential risk for sea water to suffer great destruction of phytoplankton can be a reality, but still cannot be controlled.

A large amount of oxygen is consumed to ensure combustion, among which, lately, means of transport with internal combustion engine have a significant share.

Overall, on the globe, it is consumed annually for combustion about 2 • 10 ¹¹ t oxygen, quantity much smaller than that produced through photosynthesis (3.2 • 10 ¹¹ t / year that is 2.6 • 10 ¹¹ t by plants on land, especially from tropical forests and 0.6 • 10 ¹¹ t by marine phytoplankton).

If  consumed fossil fuels  increase by 5% annually, over about 130 years (in 2140) atmospheric oxygen will decrease by 30%.

Oxygen is the most important substance for life, being the most common gas in the atmosphere. Its proportion in the lithosphere (58%), considered as atomic weight, exceeds all other elements together; otherwise it is also on the first place (47%) with regard to atomic weight. In the air, it is in a proportion of 20.9% and in water (combined) of 89%.

The human body absorbs in relaxation state around. 100 ml of oxygen in each breath, retaining 25-30% (in effort can absorb 10 times more), which represents an air quantity of 8-10 l per minute, that is 15,000 to 20,000 l per day, which places this contribution on the first place from the qualitative point of view, of the permanence and physiological importance between environmental substances penetrated into the body. The oxygen is decreasing proportionally pressure lapse, becoming insufficient for some patients, from several hundreds of meters height, for untrained from 2000-3000 m and 5000-6000 m for everyone.

Low concentrations, with the risk of respiratory failure can be found in confined spaces where gas is consumed by oxidative processes (biological or other nature processes) and where it is often replaced with inert gas (methane) or toxic (CO2, H2S and so on). The relative lack of oxygen, tolerated for a short period of time even to below 10% is fatal if it is prolonged or exceeds excessively, with all attempts to accommodate the body by increasing the frequency and amplitude of respiration. Even small fluctuations from normal lead to negative consequences with regard to susceptible individuals.

Nowadays, consumption for technological purposes is necessary same as for biological purposes and technical quantities consumed by the industrial installations are considerable. Reducing of air pollution caused by vehicles is one of the most difficult issues of contemporary civilization, because in many developed countries, they constitute the most important category of sources of air pollution. From the viewpoint of human ecology, regardless of their sources, atmospheric protection is based on the principle of maximum permissible concentrations (MPC), ie of the dose of pollutants which cause direct or indirect harmful actions on the human body.

Urban air, from houses, like that of collective spaces as public institutions, means of transport and so on, is primarily polluted by dust and irritant gases and other pollutants resulting from combustion as with toxic metals and metalloids in traces, to which pollutants are added often from working places. In this regard, a significant negative contribution in terms of human health is attributed to smoking. Tobacco smoking is one of the most bizarre and harmful habits of contemporary human population, now quite a widespread  practice that finds no basis in any kind of need and whose expansion can hardly be explained in terms of history, psychology and other criteria. Smoking represents an important cause of illness and death for a large proportion of the world, more important than many epidemic diseases and accidents, pollution etc. There were identified about 1200 substances, most of them with carcinogenic role in tobacco and smoke resulting from its burning. Smoking reduces life expectancy and reduces longevity. Life expectancy of smokers is reduced in regard to the number of cigarettes smoked, thus early starting of smoking and its long practice reduce proportionally the longevity. As a general rule, the years of life lost by smokers represent after a study, 3.7 years for people who start smoking after 25 years and 8.2 years for those who start smoking before 15 years.

The worst periods concerning air quality from houses inhabited by people are frosty winter days when no ventilation is made because of the cold.

Carbon dioxide from the air of housing is tolerated, on hygienic bases, only up to 0.07 to 0.1%, a rate that shows that the air is polluted, exerting a number of negative effects to pathogenic action, stronger as the level and duration of exposure are higher.

Earth’s atmosphere receives as a whole, about 2 • 10 ¹º t pollutants in the form of particles and gases (of which more than half is represented by the carbon dioxide). Among gaseous air pollutants that are evacuated annually in large quantities we can mention the following: CO, SO2, various hydrocarbons, NO2. Amounts of Pb, Hg, chlorinated pesticides and so on, got in the air, represent conditions of the high qualities of persistence and concentration in food chains.

Vegetation world is the source of oxygen for the rest of the living creatures. It has been calculated for about 1 trillion tons / year consumed quantity of oxygen for breathing. Of this, approximately 2/3 is generated by terrestrial plants and one third of aquatic plankton. Need of forests is becoming increasingly a more understood issue; lately, it is starting to be planted large free areas in the mass actions. A ha of woodland absorbs annually from the atmosphere, 3.7 mil.t CO2 and generates 2 mil.t. of O2. Rainforest produces 30% of the oxygen generated on land. The oxygen produced by three oaks can maintain the life of a man till death.

Water has represented and represents the essence of life. Water is the main factor within the planetary ecosystem.

The total volume of water on Earth is 1.35 billion km3 at surface + 8 million km3 in basement + 13.000 km3 in atmosphere. In percentage, 92.7 % of water is represented by the oceans, 2.15% is frozen water and 0.65% of water is represented as freshwater on Earth or atmosphere. Thus, freshwater constitutes 39.2 million km3 (2.7%) and is characterized by unequal distribution, and most of it must be be brought from polar areas.

Polluted water damages 25 times more of clean water. The industrial consumption of water is enormous: 40 l for for tin, 10 l for 1 liter of petrol, 27 l for a liter of alcohol, 200 m3 per tonne of steel, 3.5 m3 per tonne of cement.

At the individual level, the maintenance of body hygiene, body conditioning and strengthening requires a quantity of water estimated as 50-60 l / day per person. Household needs, the collective sanitation, water use for economic, industrial, urban purposes can raise very much the needed water value, which may exceed 1000 l/day per capita. The residual water is not suitable for use  over distances of thousands of miles and sometimes alter water resources not only at the local level, but also regionaly, nationally and even globally.

These needs require a water cycle in economy, which includes several steps of water treatment and purification.

Water is vital for a proper functioning of mind and body. An adult can live 3 weeks without food, but only 3-5 days without water. 57% of human body is represented by water and for its proper functioning, this quantity should remain constant. Inevitably, because of body functioning and metabolism, the body loses 1.5-2 liters of water daily through urine, feces, perspiration and respiration. A man can bear this loss about three days, but its efficiency decreases more. As a result the death follows.

The scientists have stated that for the proper body functioning, every person needs 2-3 liters of water daily for cold weather and about 4-5 liters for hot weather.

Without water, the man does everything in order to drink it. Mad of thirst, he can swallow even gasoline, antifreeze from car radiator or seawater. And if some liquids that seem to be good to drink are available, do not hurry to dring anything!

Basic rules:

Do not drink water with bad smell or taste; water with cadavers in it or in their neighbourhood, water with oily or milky cover.

If possible, drink only boiled, disinfected and filtered water.

Do not drink with large gulps. After a long lack of water, at first drink a little.

Never drink seawater.

You have to consider any water you find as polluted. Water can include the following components: solid impurities (inorganic, organic), chemical (heavy metals, halogens), living organisms (bacteria, viruses, parasites’eggs, etc..). Even very clean water (apparently) may be contaminated. The tap water is also polluted. And even the enticing brook might have passed through a village, or through a sheepfold, or over a dead animal. Although some survivors have drunk the most dirty liquids without cleaning them and nothing bad has happened to them, the danger of falling ill with cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, enteritis, hydatid cyst, etc. is too high, and the consequences are also dramatic, in order to assume the risk to do like them.

Our ancestors knew a lot regarding the unusual qualities of water. The modern man is possessing short memory. Energy properties of water can be called undoubtfully magical. That’s why in our folk tales, it is always spoken about dead and living water.

Water has a long capacity, even a permanent one, to conserve the energetic information, registering it someway in memory. Water is able to not only to memorize, but also to lave the strange energetic information, whether we are thinking about this property or not. That’s why it is common for us to wash in the morning, although it has been forgotten for what we are doing it.

There is also such a tradition, appeared from our ancient believers, to put overnight a cup of water at the end of the bed. It seems that every person had such a situation when early in the morning he/she wake up in a bad mood without any reason with a feeling like all the night he carried wood. Water can undertake by itself the bit, to remove the negative influence. In the morning this water has to be thrown immediately.

If you had a nasty dream and you are afraid that it could be a premonition, it would be enough to let off the tap water and tell it the dream you have seen. It is recommended as nobody to hear about your dream, while the tap water is flowing. Water will remove the bad content of the dream, as well as its influence upon you.

Water is also able to lead the welfare of your home. It is mandatory to watch any tap to not flow after closing it and to not leave it opened for a long period if it is not necessary. Anyway, any cleaning itself is a magic act, while it is flowing it doesn’t affect your welfare.

The ensurance of the necessary volume of water represents the major problem of the contemporary world. Our planet’s water reserves decrease due to multiple causes, but mainly as a result of the intense and continuous pollution of the great natural resources of water.

Water is perhaps the first of resources in the oceans, which currently requires to be used due to gradual depletion of freshwater resources from the hydrographic network of the continents. Desalinization is done either by means of osmosis or reverse dialysis using cellulose acetate membranes.

The current solution of improving the lack of water is to use it properly and to reduce the pollution. First of all, it is required to be changed the attitude towards the excessive water consumption with the environmental one, with economic consumption and minimal pollution, so to return the environment the consumed quantity of water closer to the natural features, preserving existing resources in order to be used without any risk and significant expenses by those that will follow after certain consumers.

Planet’s ecological balance is seriously jeopardized. For the first time in its history, mankind came to be able to move materials, to produce energy and waste, in quantities of the same order and size as the nature. Man can, through its unconscious actions, cause – directly or indirectly – natural disasters (floods, droughts, hurricanes, earthquakes), nuclear accidents, etc. We can also mention the lack of water: in 2000 year one billion of people did not have access to safe drinking water and 2 billion lacked access to any water. If we speak about the lack of breathable air: millions of people asphyxiate due to the smog (poisonous fog caused by gases from vehicles). Running after money, mankind destroys itself through: pollution, genetic experiments made ​​without the necessary knowledge, use of antibiotics to fatten animals, untreated garbage, etc. And gravity of these problems is greatly emphasized by the spectacular growth of population on the planet. Humanity is threatened by various biological threats: degeneration of individuals from societies and developed countries (due to sedentary lifestyle: obesity, serious illness, declining birth rates, etc.), as well as those underdeveloped (caused by hunger, significant growth of population, increasing violence and crime, etc.), reappearance of diseases, germs, parasites resistant to any known drug; terrorist use of nuclear or biological weapons, etc. We must recognize that besides some advantages (the easier way of obtaining the food, shelter, defense, etc., civilization and education produce ill effects on humans: deterioration of its vital functions, decreasing physical strength, decreasing fertility, decreasing survival instincts and combative spirit etc. We can notice also serious negative consequences: sedentary lifestyle, escape from reality (creating imaginary reality – see the “virtual” reality, drugs), etc. The significant increase of population, extreme poverty of those 6 billion people, stagnation or decrease of living standards because of unequal access to technical progress (2 billion people lack access to electricity), violent death due to numerous wars of all kinds, massive environmental pollution – all these dangers, vital for mankind are real.

Like any achievement in real life, survival requires conscious use of own physical and mental effort. Weaknesses of some people become advantages of others.

It is said that a Japanese and a Romanian went through the African savannah. Tired of road and heat, they found a tree and stopped happily at his shadow. They have undressed, unshod, and drank water. Suddenly, from a bush anhorrible lion has appeared who was going to attack the men. Both of them were paralyzed by fear. However, the Japanese quickly began to shoe. The Romanian onehas noticed that and asked the Japanese: “Do you think that with the shoes you will run faster than a lion?” “No” answered the Japanese while trembling, “just faster than you …”

In this hard struggle for existence (which, however, too many of us refuse to see), with inevitable winners and losers, winners and losers, survivors and those that have been gone, the problem of our nation’s survival has been and is actual till nowadays. Reread Eminescu’s Doina! Dangers are surrounding us everywhere, even if we try by all means (often successfully) all kinds of measures to attenuate the vigilance that we have.

The current “Transition” is not something that passes by so quickly: the future will be a permanent and continuous transition – to the unknown. Every moment is a transition one. Change and uncertainty will be the only sure thing. In the past century, world population increased for four times. Most people are living in cities. Science development (motivated significantly by the willingness to obtain material gains and not enough censored by ethical or moral criteria) has produced new and newer technology with a major influence on people’s lives: antibiotics, jet aircraft, genetic engineering, weapons of mass destruction, the Internet – and more. They have dramatically increased the density, intensity and pace of human interaction. Internationalization or globalization forward without limits and involve us all, with or without our will.

So what should we do? Maybe it will be better to ask the Earth to explain us some things that we cannot understand. Let’s remember how we dammed rivers entering into competition with nature and how we built all kinds of mines, destroying earthly thin crust of the Earth’s cheek, ransacking and destroying the balance created ​​by nature during millions of years. People have tried to take by force all that doesn’t belong to them. Then, after great wars and skirmishes, people were dividing the wealth torn from the Earth. The Earth shook under the feet of people wishful for power, wealth, blood and explosions in all kinds of weaponry, the latest achievements of human civilization, always used first of all for destruction.

The Earth suffered enormously, but it cannot endure the humans influence anymore, it shakes slowly, trying to escape from the civilized human. It leads to a hurricane, or it creates an earthquake in the poorest countries. Or it leads to the crush of the planes, that is the miracle of the technics that are bumping upon the Earth’s chest; or it is organizing other kind of catastrophes. The Earth suggests people that the civilized ones should maintain good relations with each other, with the nature that is surrounding their dwelling, with the Earth. Would we hear and understand these suggestions?