Spaceship Earth in Deep Trouble
“ALL systems are go!” These were reassuring words to the three astronauts aboard Apollo 13 as it stood poised for its voyage to the moon and back. The success of the mission depended on the intricate life-support systems of the spacecraft; they would need to function with exactness throughout its nearly half-million-mile journey. The supplies of oxygen, water and electricity would have to be husbanded carefully. If one system went awry it could knock out other systems and endanger the men’s lives.
They did experience near disaster. But through constant communication with Ground Control and strict compliance with its instructions, the craft and crew were brought safely back to earth.
Our earth is in reality a giant spaceship and one that is in trouble, as earth’s physical environment is being thrown out of balance. It was not always this way. When the Creator put perfect human “passengers” on the earth, all its life-support systems were ready and functioning in complete harmony. Everything was in faultless balance. God made the reassuring pronouncement: ‘It is very good.’—Gen. 1:31.
For the good of these first human inhabitants of earth God gave them certain instructions. Obedience to such would keep them on a safe course wherein they would “have in subjection . . . all the earth” and would “cultivate . . . and . . . take care of” their environment.—Gen. 1:26; 2:15.
All life-support systems of the earth were designed to respond to man’s loving oversight. The whole globe was to become a paradise of beauty for a perfect human race to enjoy eternally. Only disobedience to his Creator would throw man and his environment out of balance.
The first man disobeyed his Creator and started doing things according to his own wisdom. This started the long chain of events that has brought us to the few remaining years of this system of things and an environmental defilement that now threatens all life on this planet.
Concern for Our Environment
Scientists recognize that the life-support arrangement of man’s environment is made up of many interrelated parts. The study of these parts is named “ecology.” This is the branch of biology that deals with the relationships living things have to one another and to their environment. The scientists who study these relationships are called “ecologists.”
Today ecologists deplore the general lack of discernment as to how much human life depends on keeping earth’s environment in balance. They realize that if one aspect of earth’s environment is thrown out of balance, it will in turn affect others, to the harm of man and other living creatures.
Consequently, concern for our environment is being expressed in the highest echelons of human government. For example, President Nixon of the United States in his State of the Union Message early in 1970 said: “The great question of the 70’s is: Shall we surrender our surroundings or shall we make peace with nature and begin making reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water?”
Nevertheless, many well-informed men of science believe time is running out or has already run out for bringing about a reversal of the rapid trend toward total environmental wreckage of spaceship earth.
Atmosphere Endangered
Without air we cannot live. Pure air is made up of 78 percent nitrogen, 21 percent oxygen and 1 percent divided between argon, water vapor and carbon dioxide. Maintaining the balance involves the use and renewal of these gases by plant, soil, animal and human life.
A dramatic example of this marvelous interlocking of air, soil, plant, animal and human life is seen in the nitrogen cycle. Nitrogen is required as food for all plants and fleshly creatures but cannot be assimilated in its natural state. However, nitrogen-fixing bacteria in the soil take this gas from the air in a wonderfully efficient way, changing it into plant food. In turn, animals and humans feed on the plants. When these die, other bacteria move in to decompose the dead plants and flesh. Ammonia results.
The remaining moves to complete the cycle are achieved by two distinct bacterial groups. The first changes the ammonia into nitrates and the other releases free nitrogen into the atmosphere. A similar vital interplay between plant life and air is seen in the way plants take in carbon dioxide through their leaves and release oxygen. Refraining from interfering with such a finely balanced system can assure us a lasting supply of clean and healthful air.
Instead of dealing kindly with his atmospheric environment, man has used it as a dumping ground. Ever since the so-called industrial age began he has spewed hundreds of millions of tons of pollutants into it, thinking that air currents would carry them off into limitless space. No thought was given as to what tomorrow might bring forth, yet it is as a noted writer once said: “Sooner or later, everybody sits down to a banquet of consequences.”
It appears that humans are now sitting down to that “banquet.” Time magazine of February 2, 1970, stated: “What most Americans now breathe is closer to ambient filth than to air.” The Toronto Star Weekly of April 11, 1970, called it the “Exhausted Air.” Automobiles are said to be the worst offenders, causing some 60 percent of all air pollution in North American cities. However, one jet aircraft spews out pollutants equal to what is emitted by one thousand automobiles! United States industry vomits 172 million tons of smoke and gases into the air each year. When the “ambient filth” of New York’s atmosphere was recently checked it showed that a person in that city daily breathes in the same amount of poisonous fumes as if he smoked thirty-eight cigarettes a day!
In 1968, a leading meteorologist, Morris Neiburger, showed the criticalness of the situation by saying:
“It is clear that as the amount of pollution . . . increases, a stage will be reached at which the cleansing processes in the atmosphere are no longer adequate to purify the air before it reaches or returns to sources where it receives additional pollution. . . . As time goes on the amount of pollution throughout the world will then increase. Eventually the concentration of toxic substances will reach and exceed lethal concentrations and life on earth will pass away.”
With the arrival of the very large urban units and ever-larger highways to cope with more and more cars, the balanced arrangement between plants, air and soil suffers dangerous interference. It is estimated that one million acres of land are added each year to the 60 million acres in the United States that have already gone out of plant and tree production due to highways and general urbanization. Now it is noted that oxygen and nitrogen cycles are not functioning effectively. The atmosphere is becoming overloaded with poisonous gases such as carbon monoxide and dioxide plus nitrogen oxides (which cause eye irritation and infection). Pesticides have played havoc with vital soil bacteria and insects helpful to plants, besides contributing to the general air pollution.
No wonder Life magazine of January 3, 1970, stated: “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support . . . predictions” such as: “In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution,” and “increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will affect earth’s temperature, leading to mass flooding or a new ice age.”
Do you not think it would be wise for mankind to husband the rapidly dwindling atmospheric resources as the astronauts did when some of their life-support systems failed?
Is Our Water Supply Secure?
Some persons would be inclined to say, Yes, as they point to the fact that 71 percent of earth’s surface is presently covered with water. In actuality, though, a little less than 1 percent of the some 325 million cubic miles of water on the globe is available for man’s use. If that becomes polluted, what then? Man must remember that he cannot live without water either. He does not want to become like the shipwrecked mariner who said: “Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink!” Unhappily, this is almost the situation man finds himself in today as he views a shrinking supply of clean water.
Now, why should this be the case? Because rivers have been used as a dumping area for human and industrial wastes. Till recently the rivers and lakes have been able to purify themselves. However, once this self-purification system is taxed beyond its capability to function in proper balance, these water sources lose their precious life-supporting qualities.
Lake Erie, on the border between Canada and the United States, is an outstanding example of what happens when water becomes overburdened with pollutants. This once-beautiful body of water has been so befouled by human and industrial wastes plus chemical phosphates and nitrates that ecologists speak of it as “dying.” Detergent phosphates, after having made the family wash gleaming white, end up in the lake to promote an overgrowth of algae (as do fertilizer nitrates). When the slimy green alga dies and goes into the process of decay, it uses up so much oxygen that the bacterial action once capable of cleaning up organic wastes in the lake is rendered useless. This applies to rivers too.
One would suppose that due to the immensity of the oceans, pollution problems would be minimal. Such is not the case. On February 19, 1970, United States Senator Gaylord Nelson warned of potential disaster to our oceans. He said: “Like all other systems of the planet, the sea is a fragile environment. . . . Upset the intricate ecological systems of the ocean and you run the grave risk of throwing all natural systems so seriously out of balance that the planet will no longer sustain any life. . . . We are already on the way to causing drastic and lasting damage to the ocean and environment.”
This is confirmed by students of the subject who warn that the entire ecology of the ocean may be drastically changed in another five years. They foresee diminishing supplies of food from the oceans. Even now, every kind of fish and animal life in the seas is affected, including the penguins of Antarctica! Is there a particular reason?
Recent studies indicate that the insecticide DDT, carried to the ends of the earth by ocean currents, is a chief contributor to this potential ecological disaster. DDT slows down the process of photosynthesis, the process by which green plants make the sun’s energy available to living creatures. All plant and animal life in the seas is dependent on this process.
Especially significant is the threat to innumerable multitudes of tiny water plants called diatoms. These live close to the surface of the oceans and produce much of earth’s oxygen supply. Without this vital element all of earth’s creatures would find themselves in the same position as the astronauts would have been if their oxygen supply had completely failed!
When we add to this all the other poisons constantly flowing into the oceans from polluted rivers, as well as one million tons of crude oil being spilled or dumped into the seas each year, it simply spells out one thing—spaceship earth is indeed in deep trouble!
What to Do?
In a belated effort to save spaceship earth its passengers have been notified by news media of the crisis. Laws have been passed to control pollution. Some good has resulted. The Thames River in England, once “one of the dirtiest in the world,” has since supported some sixty varieties of fish, but recently, alas! a garbage strike increased the pollution again.
Improvement can take place when people care about their environment. What can you do? Farmers and gardeners can remember that there is nothing wrong with compost or other organic fertilizers or the use of crop rotation to build up the soil. And could it be that you do not need to use your car as much as you do, or could you walk to a nearby store? Is it possible to curb water waste in your home? As housewives, can you use good old laundry soap instead of water-polluting phosphate detergents?
Though the Bible shows that Almighty God will straighten out conditions on earth by means of his kingdom, this is no reason for God-fearing persons today to go along with those who are ‘ruining their way upon the earth.’ (Gen. 6:12) Do what you can now on a personal and a family basis to refrain from adding to the pollution of earth’s environment. And in due time, with the direction provided by the Creator by means of his kingdom, all earth’s life-support systems will be restored to perfect balance and be approved as “very good.”