Читать онлайн The Future of Our Earth бесплатно
Judge the day not by the harvest you have gathered, but by the seeds you have sown on this day.
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
The universe, galaxies, our solar system is a huge world in which our Earth is sheltering, a small grain of sand living according to the laws of this world.
This vast world keeps its secrets. That is why restless human curiosity strives to explore the unknown and asks the question: what unknown forces make the world like this?
But we also need to find answers to other questions. For example, what kind of future awaits us? What can lead to the extinction of life on Earth?
If we decide to find out the truth about our future, then this will be the first step to have time to understand or even save a life from catastrophe.
But first, let's remind how our planet has changed as a result of human activity.
The warming of the planet is causing a threat, and this is no longer something assumed, but has already become a reality. The temperature on the planet is slowly rising. What happens if the temperature does not stop rising?
A lot will change. Ice on the tops of mountains, glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland will begin to melt. The water level in the oceans will rise. Many cities will be under water.
Permafrost will melt, exposing ancient burial sites of animal remains.
This will lead to the emergence of new pathogenic microorganisms and viruses unknown to modern humans. Waves of epidemics will overwhelm the earth.
Therefore, the replacement of polluting energy sources will help in solving this issue.
Humanity is aware of the importance of solving environmental problems, so there is a gradual transition to renewable, alternative energy sources. Such as the use of wind and solar energy.
The use of wind turbines and solar panels to some extent allows us to provide the population with safe energy that is so necessary for everyone. But these “environmentally friendly” species also have their drawbacks. Large areas are needed to obtain sufficient energy.
Solar energy depends on the weather, time of day, seasonality, it is necessary to periodically clean the reflective surface, and the price of solar panels is also high.
When using wind energy, the kinetic energy of air masses in the atmosphere is converted into various convenient types of it. Wind power is an irregular source of energy and depends on the strength of the wind. The unevenness is also associated with both the daily and annual receipt of it. Large wind turbines are difficult to repair, it is difficult to replace parts at an altitude of more than 100 meters. Wind power plants produce noise and vibration, so they are placed in an open area.
In winter, during heavy snowfall, ice growths form, and in order to start the wind turbines back, they have to be warmed up by the same means that conservationists so fiercely criticize.
It turns out that today the “green energyˮ is still unreliable.
Only new, high technologies could solve this problem, for example, the development of such an industry as bionanoenergy.
But along with the pollution of the planet, there is another important problem: forest fires.
The lungs of our planet are the forests of Russia and the jungles of the Amazon River basin, which are shrinking.
Therefore, a lot of environmental problems have accumulated. But there are also hidden problems on Earth…
We already know a lot about our planet. The age of the planet according to modern data is 4.54 billion years. The birth of a planet, according to the main hypothesis, is associated with the process of mass increment by gravitational attraction of matter from a large cloud of interstellar dust and gas.
To understand more about our Earth, let’s remember the structure of the planet.
At the center of the Earth is the inner core, the radius of which is approximately 1250 km. Then the outer core is located, which mainly contains iron. The thickness of this core is about 2200 km. The next layer is the mantle, consisting of silicates and oxides. This layer is the widest and is approximately 2900 km.
And the thinnest layer is the bark.
According to scientists, the inner core of the Earth is in a solid state as a result of strong pressure, unlike the outer core, which is represented in a liquid state.
It is believed that the inner core consists mainly of nickel and iron.
The average radius of the Earth is 6371 km.
Another interesting feature is plate tectonics. Continents, oceans are our planet. But continents, as if alive, move.
It is also hard to believe that a supercontinent once existed.
The German scientist Alfred Wegener (1880-1930) called such a supercontinent that emerged in the Paleozoic era Pangea.
He noticed that the coasts of South America and Africa, separated by the Atlantic Ocean, have an amazing similarity. The scientist also drew attention to the flora and fauna of both continents.
Based on these and other scientific data, Alfred Wegener proposed the theory of slow continental drift. The essence of this theory is that due to the movement of the Earth's mantle, the continents are drifting.