There Is a Free Lunch

There Is a a Free Lunch

Robert Neulieb Ph. D.

I sit by my radio listening to my favorite sophisticated station and then feel a cringe encompassing my whole body when I hear despite the 1^st Law of Thermodynamics that energy is something that can be produced and consumed.  Besides being correct 2^nd Law arguments provide more guidance and understanding. It reminds me that I have been cringing and even violently cringing that results in shuttering for numerous years starting when I submitted an article proposal on the uniqueness of the Sun-Earth energy interaction to a secondary school science education journal and received a rejection stating that there is no such thing as a free lunch.  That letter not only left me cringing and shuttering but sent me on a quest to find a free lunch.  Here is my report.

Eureka!  I found the ultimate free lunch and even the goose that lays golden eggs.  This exploration didn’t require arduous treks through deserts and jungles or even over frozen tundra or the highest mountains.  A stroll in almost any urban park would prove adequate.  A detailed understanding of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics aren’t required.  Most five or six year olds could understand the essence.  Compare photographs of the moon’s surface with that of the urban park and then explain to that five or six year old that the difference is sunlight captured by green plants and that because and only because sunlight comes from outside of the Earth it can add to our planet’s surface without a greater earthly sacrifice.  Bingo – free lunch and a continuous laying of proverbial golden eggs!

Now show that five or six year old photographs of strip mining, mountain top removal, tar sand extraction or denuded landscapes sacrificed for fracking sand and he will understand the difference between Earth based energy conversion and solar but won’t understand why.  Throw in ocean acidification, rising sea levels and extreme weather and he will most assuredly question adult sanity!  Why hurt the goose?

The real quest should be the question “Why does this gift mean so little to humans – at least adults.”

Over the last couple of years I have dispatched a deluge of emails and learned many lessons. While I feel that it is easy to explain I have been taught patience, that adult education can be a slow, oh so slow, process and above all there’s never a five or six-year old where you need them.

First Law of Ecology

First Law of Ecology

Robert Neulieb Ph. D.

It is frustrating to hear about the necessity to conserve energy when a failure to conserve energy on any scale larger than Nano in time and space would earn one The Nobel Prize in Physics.  Phrases such as energy production and consumption are heard on the most sophisticated news networks.  It is possible to convert chemical, nuclear or other energy into electrical, kinetic or just maintain kinetic energy accompanied an increase in internal energy (likely temperature) of the surrounding, but it is not possible to either produce or consume energy.  The difference is not just semantics.

Entropy and The Second Law of Thermodynamics offer many insights.  It tells us that energy runs downhill in its usefulness with any conversion.  More importantly to ecology, it tells us that it is really order that can be transferred from one place or substance to another always with losses.  Within one closed system only net degradation is possible.  Increased order is possible at one location only if greater sacrifices are made elsewhere.

The sun-earth interaction is most illuminating.  The degradations occurring in the sun have no human connection.  Its solar energy, however, is the only energy that can create net order on earth.  The sun-earth interaction can be viewed as the opportunity to collect some order relinquished by the sun and incorporate it on earth.  Billions of years of the water cycle, and the development of the earth’s surface, plants and animals attests to its potential.  The ordering/degradation potentials of actions can be viewed as the First Law of Ecology.

In Search of a Free Lunch

In Search of a Free Lunch

Robert Neulieb Ph.D.

I submitted a proposal for an article on the uniqueness of the Sun-Earth energy interaction to a secondary school science education journal and received a rejection stating that there is no such thing as a free lunch That letter sent me on a quest to find a free lunch.  Here is my report.

Eureka!  I found the ultimate free lunch and even the goose that lays golden eggs.  This exploration didn’t require arduous treks through deserts and jungles or even over frozen tundra or the highest mountains.  A stroll in almost any urban park would prove adequate.  A detailed understanding of entropy and the Second Law of Thermodynamics aren’t required.  Most five or six year olds could understand the essence.  Compare photographs of the moon’s surface with that of the urban park and then explain to that five or six year old that the difference is sunlight captured by green plants and that because and only because sunlight comes from outside of the Earth it can add to our planet’s surface without a greater earthly sacrifice.  Bingo – free lunch and a continuous laying of proverbial golden eggs!

Now show that five or six-year old photographs of strip mining, mountain top removal, tar sand extraction or denuded landscapes sacrificed for fracking sand and he will understand the difference between Earth based energy conversion and solar but won’t understand why.  Throw in ocean acidification, rising sea levels and extreme weather and he will most assuredly question adult sanity!  Why hurt the goose?

The real quest should be the question “Why does this gift mean so little to humans – at least adults?”  Here are some thoughts.

Many centuries ago, long before the birth of Christ, gold and gems became the media of trade among the wealthy.  While the gold standard has been abandoned, the medium of trade remains something assigned a value by certain political elite and not by Earth’s vital processes.  At the time of adoption, human population was minute compared to todays and disruptions unnoticeable.

Strip mining, mountain top removal, tar sand extraction and fracking sand exploitation are only valued by what another corporation is willing to pay.  Completely ignored are the value to Earth’s atmosphere and ecosystems when these areas are left intact.

This inability to value Earth’s vital processes is rampant in property tax assessments.  If some land contains the above resources or others, such as marketable timber, the evaluation probably is high because only income potential and not the importance to a livable Earth are considered.  It is expensive to help!

Ecuador tried to convince the major countries of the planet that a pristine Amazon rainforest permanently protecting oil deposits residing under it should be valued for its contribution to a livable Earth.  Their proposal gained zero traction!

Earth doesn’t need trade agreements tied to the current monetary system.  It needs negotiations for a new system so that Earth’s vital processes which are dependent upon the Sun – Earth energy interaction are valued!  The Earth must have primacy.  The Second Law of Thermodynamics can provide much insight into earthly evaluations and can’t be repealed.  Without such a change, I predict that climate change will neither be the last nor worst environmental crisis on Earth. Crises seem to blind us to fundamental principles and send us, instead, searching for Band aids.  Band aids, the seemingly endless number of regulations railed against by businesses, are symptoms of an economic system that lacks any intrinsic qualities to address reality.  Band aids can no longer protect our free lunch or save the goose.  There’s no room for any more!  She needs recuperative therapy!