Science: Environmental Biology:

Mutually Reciprocal Roads for Fresh Water and Electricity in the Sea between Japan and China

Possibly Eternal Peace of the East Asia in the Global Warming Era

 

by Dr. Yohji Esashi

Honorary Professor, Tohoku University

Former Consultant, FAO

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1. Preface:

 At the end of 2014, COP20 (UN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE 2014) was held in Lima, the capital of Peru, and the allotment of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission by country was discussed.  Although no agreement was achieved between the developing countries and the developed countries, however, the conclusion was put off to the meeting in following fiscal year.   Even if an agreement is reached in a day, the agreement only delays the depletion of fossil fuels that are limited resources in the earth.  Therefore, it is predicted that the earth would be finally surrounded by atmosphere with large amount of GHG.  Human beings do not know how soon fossil fuels will be completely depleted.  But I can image that, at least 1,000 years later, the humans will have exhausted fossil fuels and will have to depend only on  renewable natural energy sources.  In this article, I want examine how people can live peacefully together in East Asia while enjoying basic human rights. 

 

2. Strain-Related Background of Existing in the East Asia

   When I survey the strained relations of East Asia historically, I cannot but admit that Japan, the first country in Asia attempts modernization, gave   the pressure to the surrounding nations, because Japan was a narrow island country with no resources for necessitating the import of both food and energy.  Above all, China and Korea are still wary of Japan, although Japan has become a peaceful country with a peace constitution after World War II, which had caused in conjunction with the rapid population expansion followed by the introduction of the Industrial Revolution.  

 

Although Japan was defeated in the World War II, Japan accomplished rapid economic growth afterwards and reached it so as to take it around  2,000, and to show GDP of the world second place.  However, the economic growth in Japan had begun to slow in the 1,990s, and in place of it, the economic growth in China and Korea had become remarkable. The economic growth produces new issues that cause the strain in the East Asia.  One is environmental accidents with the global warming, and other is the rapid economical development of China which overtook Japanese GDP and may do even the greatest GDP of American soon.  These were related each other, but were generated with Chinese expansionism, the Sinocentrism with vast population, which laid feeling of strain for the whole world, above all, for the Asia-Pacific region.

 

This modernization in China, with the rapid increase of population, had begun using world eminent coal as energy resources, and gasoline in the spread motorization.  The exhaust pollution gases from the thermal power stations and the cars, including the dust named PM2.5 other than the GHG,  give a healthy uneasiness to Chinese,  afterwards they come over to Korea and Japan on the prevailing westerlies and give both nations uneasiness.  But a more serious situation is reality to be going to form an economic zone of the origin of China money with the oversea Chinese, based on the Chinese self-confidence that was able to acquire economic power on the second place of the world.  The concrete example is a design of AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) establishment, announced in autumn of the last year  with the headquarter in Beijing, in which China finances accounts for half and the investment to the remaining half appeals to the other countries.   

 

Unlike European countries and a case of Japan, however, the population expansion in China has continued being relaxed exclusively in the form of the migrant worker to the foreign countries.   In most cases, the Chinese lived in a group for the language barrier and according to the instructions of the government, and as a result was to open Chinatown in each place, in which most of them have come to build the suitable wealth.

 

The Chinese government continued one-child policy to suppress the population pressure, but still the population on the China rose to the 11.4 hundred millions in about 1990 (World Economic Outlook Database:2014), and reached 13.4 hundred million in about 2010 when Chinese GDP overtook Japan (IMF:2014).   At this point in time, it is said that the total of the overseas Chinese scattered in the world reached from 20 millions to 50 millions, varying according to an investigation.  Since the world population at the point in time was about 68.67 hundred million (UNFPA), the Chinese population of 13.9 hundred millions reaches approximately a one-fifth of the world population. 

 

Under such a foreknowledge, the Singaporean Prime Minister, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew in 1991 proposed the World Chinese Entrepreneur Convention to hold once in every second year, which has aimed for contribution of the network among the overseas Chinese and for economic development of the host country.  On the other hand, in 2000 to be able to foresee that China’s GDP exceeds Japan of the second place of the world, the communist party government of China came to hold in the Overseas Chinese World Conference for Promoting the Peaceful Reunification of China in purpose to cooperate the Chinese peoples in the world and to prevent the independence of Taiwan.  Approximately at the same time, furthermore, the Chinese government has begun to hold “The Conference for Friendship of Oversea Association” every year in Beijing from 2002, in order to make use of financial power of the overseas Chinese in own country economic growth.               

 

Thus, the economic growth of China increased rapidly, and gave the confidence that Chinese who occupied 1/5 of the human population could be influence the world economy as greater consumers.  In fact, a large number of Chinese who became rich came to take a trip to the world as a tourist, and the Chinatown took on course vigor.  As a result, many countries including Japan trusted a China’s economy and even accepted the card settlement as China’s money Yuan like as US dollar.  These recent trends may be to be a sign that Yuan as well as dollar become a key currency of the world economy.    It is thought that above-mentioned AIIB was born in such expectations of China.

 

Such an overconfidence of China draws an air defense identification line on the Pacific without any consensus among surrounding countries. Many   fishing fleets which raised Chinese national flags, throng to the territorial waters of Japanese Ogasawara Islands of the East Pacific for capture of red coral even under global restriction.  This capture is used only under the Japanese maintenance power and is not a desirable act.

 

In order to demand eternal peace in the East Asia, there must be no feeling of strain between China of the second place of the world in GDP and Japan of the third place.  Fortunately, the population expansion in Japan already had completely stopped and, on the contrary, had entered in the times to be asked for the working population.  In China, on the other hand, one-child policy expressed an effect, and the population growth is going to peak soon. 

Even if population increase is over and a country area is very large, however, the population size of China is too much.  Can China provide the resources for a population of 1,400 millions?  Further question is how the population capacity of China’s area changes with progress of the global warming.

 

.The Industrial Revolution Changed the Survival Factors Dramatically

  In Japan, there is an old proverb that foods, clothing and shelter are necessary so that a human being lives.  Certainly, Japan is a marine nation consisting of islands spreading out in the temperate zone.  The current century is expressed in the other words with a century of the water, but the word of the water is left out of Japan.  It is certain that the fresh water is an indispensable factor to live for all living entities.  However, the fresh water does not become extinct from the planet earth because it circulates in the atmosphere.  This fact suggests that Japan is located under the splendid environment condition blessed with fresh water, so that global warming becomes how serious, but that Japan may be used to ache by the extreme rain or snowfall because the atmosphere includes a large quantity of steam for warming.

 

By recent analysis of DNA constitution, Japanese has been found to be completed in the mixed blood of Asian many peoples. The first passenger to the Japanese Islands escaped from the cold Eurasian Continent at the north end, when Japan was not separated by Mamiya Strait.  They are Mongolian and, for the proof, many Japanese babies have an inexperienced irregularity in Mongolia to the backside.  The second one to the Japanese Islands is people who arrived at Kyusyu Island from the south along Philippines, Taiwan, and Ryukyu on the Kuroshio Current.  Ancient Japanese first habitants are called “Paleolithic People”, which were excavated from remains.  The former was movement on the occasion of the invasion of the glacial epoch of a race, whereas the latter was race movement for oneself to avoid submergence at rise in sea level time on the occasion of the end of the glacial epoch.   The relic people in the former became the Ainu race in Karafuto and Hokkaido, whereas a native from much south settled in Taiwan.

 

The third one occurred after a glacial epoch completely over and the Japanese islands were completely separated from the continent in the sea. People of the continent came to go ashore with civilization by ship in the Japanese islands.  The main route was a route through the Korean Peninsula.  Especially of importance, it is the existence of people who came directly from Mainland China, and conveyed a character of kanji and rice growing civilization in Japan.  Peoples from the continent have formed the rule layer of Japan later.   The historical fact is demonstrated by the exhumation of the ship-shaped clay image.  In the Japanese history, this time seems to correspond from Jomon Period to Yayoi Period

 

Mutual interchange began from this Yayoi Period, but the people who settled down in Japan were good at the navigation and came to go abroad more positively, being described as an appearance of the Japanese pirates  “WAKOU” to a later Chinese history book.  The Interchange of Japan with China beginning in this time made the basis to support Japanese culture established by introducing Chinese character “kanji”.  I think that Japanese is the superior language in the world with the flexible structure that can incorporate every world language.   Further, I want to emphasize that the Japanese is in a relation of the far-off relative which received DNA of many Asian people, and thus, that the genetic diversity has been produced naturally in the Japanese.  Though the body was not very big, the genetic diversity had become the base that the talent person who could show ability in each field was made in this way, before the industrial revolution happened in the West.

 

Before the industrial revolution occurring in 1760 in the UK, moreover, the above-mentioned facts suggest that Japanese has splendid communication means to accept innovations.  Furthermore, Japan had begun education at the place that called itself a private elementary school of the Edo period (for 264 years of 1603-1867) before the industrial revolution.  The subjects of teaching were the national language, the classical Chinese which became basic, and Dutch or English. 

 

In 1853 when American whale captured ship captain Mr. Perry called at a port near Tokyo Bay, accordingly, Japan already had taken in fruit of the industrial revolution voluntarily.  From this time, however, Japan noticed importance of the acceptance of European and American advanced civilization all over the country, and judged the reform of the political system with need for the national modernization.   In other words, from time, energy increased in a serious factor for survival in addition to foods, clothing and shelter., although the information means has not yet recognized to be important so much.   In a sad thing, however, Japan was the narrow country where the blessing of the fossil fuel resources that became the energy sources was not gotten.   In that way, Japan had caused World War II for energy later.

 

The estimated population of Japan in the last year of the Edo was estimated to be approximately 3 millions, but it has threw on increase rapidly as soon as the industrial modernization begun in the new government under the Emperor system, and reached 120 millions 100 years later.  Because Japan was a narrow island, the first plan to weaken the population pressure was population injection to development to uncivilized islands in the country, Hokkaido, Kunashiri and Etorofu.  Besides, Japanese government performed policy-like emigration to United States and Brazil, etc.  Only the effort as the nation of Japan, however, Japan was not able to give employment opportunity and foods to the population that  continued rapidly increasing.  During such an effort, Japanese oneself  came to follow an European and American colonial policy.   Japanese knew that they were going to secure the rights and interests on the continent  before long, and judged that an action to prevent their expectations would help population pressure relaxation of Japan.  To make matter worse, Japan came to purse the new world in the continent in this way, too.  This situation had given a chance to participate in World War I to Japan later.

 

Fortunately, Japan won by this fight, and further got the sovereignty in a very large area of the Chishima Island, Karafuto southern half, the Korean Peninsula, Manchurian and Taiwan in the process until the time point.  To the background of such a good luck, it may be said that most nations were already in condition to be able to read and write national language by education.  And, such an expanse was able to relax stress from the population expansion, but it has brought vast petro energy demands for both movements for the rule and for the extensive defense.  As a result, the action of Japan that demand energy sources had become a direct cause of later World War II.   Here is the Japanese modern history that the success of the industrial modernization followed a population explosion in Japanese who increased foods, but Japan was not able to supply enough crude oil for the modernized industry and the increased population.   Moreover, the crude oil was not only the most important energy source but also the primordial materials of various kinds of products that were absolutely necessary for civic life. 

 

Not only the industrial modernization but also the agricultural modernization had almost completed in most countries of the world during the 20th century, but the kind of energy source was different among each countries.   The electricity was supplied by oil or coal in the countries that have plenty of fossil resources. For the production of electric power, however, Japan was not blessed with any fossil fuel, and could not but depend on the generation from hydroelectric power stations based on the abundant rain and snowfall.  For example, 4 hydroelectric power stations were established between the small river ”Hirosegawa” which flowed by my house with water flow at about 10 m3/s and 3 m altitude difference, before The World War I, but inefficient 2 of those had be destroyed with the construction of the thermal power station which is  operated with the heavy oil imported from the foreign countries..  

 

As for the defeat in the World War II, many Japanese went back to Japan, and thus the population pressure in Japan had deteriorated not only the energy self-sufficiency rate (about 4%) but also the food self-sufficient rate (40%) at once.  Thus, the factors for Japanese in the Edo era were food, clothing and shelter, but the industrial evolution and the defeat had added energy to them.  Moreover, one of the energy sources was the crude oil from which organic matters, plastic, vinyl and medicine etc. were produced.  

 

In addition, most human were distributed over the temperate zone with the four seasons.  They must take warmth in the winter season depending on the burning of the biomass in old days, but depending on heat of fossil fuel lately..  From the above-mentioned facts, it became clear that we must add energy to 3 elementary factors of foods, clothing and shelter.  However, all energy sources were fossil fuel, excepting hydraulic power generation and , though extremely few, warm geothermal power generation, until the peaceful use of atomic energy began after the World War II.   

 

All kinds of fossil fuel exhaust CO2, which absorbs the long wave light  from the sun and the radiant heat from the earth, and surrounds the earth with the warm atmosphere.   In addition to CO2, both nitrous oxide (N2O) which is generated from ammonium nitrate of compound fertilizer , and methane(CH4) called natural gas cannot ignore as warming gas, even if their contents are slightly less in amounts in air, since the former and the latter absorb infrared rays from the sun 300 times more and 20-30 times more, respectively than CO2.   Above all, it is to say that CH4 itself as well as oil and coal, the fossil fuels are to be limited resources reserved in the earth, and they are destined to deplete at sometime soon.   Moreover, it is very important that their consumption speed of the fossil fuel is high in proportion to the increase of the population, and that we could not leave the resources for various kinds of organic matter products.

 

Unlike the communication by words, the information revolution in 2000s offered many communication tools and may lead to the shift to the post-industrial society.  Both the paper and the pen became unnecessary for communication.  On the other hand, the all apparatus connecting to the computer, the cellular telephone and the robot etc. would not work where electricity is not available.   All begins to operate only depending on the electricity.  Judging from the relations of both mentioned above, the communication is small existence in comparison with energy.  If energy supply is stopped, we cannot live so easily without communication. 

 

I have ignored the importance of fresh water as a important factor to live, because Japan is blessed with rain and snowfalls on the islands located in the Asian monsoon zone through the year, and it is the country which there is not in the dry season so far.   In fact, however, the human being lives with fresh water as well as with other living entities, excepting the microbes which use a substance beside H2O as an electron donor.  Plants having various pigments, mainly chlorophyll, break down H2O→½O2+2H++2e using energy from the sun in the daytime, thus electron and hydrogen, thus the plants get abundantly bioenergy ATP and reduction power NADPH in them, and thus fixes neighboring CO2 to carbohydrates in a chloroplast.   This process is photosynthesis, but when the night comes over as the sun hides behind a mountain, the plants begin to take electrons out of H2O through a TCA cycle using the carbohydrates which saved within cells at the daytime as a substitute of the light, and finally produce abundant ATP and NADPH through the oxygen respiratory system in which the electron is delivered to O2 in atmosphere, thus making various high molecular organic substances even at night. 

 

The animals including human live through a process that is basically similar to the process of a plant at night.  That is, the animals live by eating the carbohydrates, lipids and proteins produced through the photosynthesis of plants, and these foods basically play a role to take out an electron from H2O and to supply ATP abundantly through an electron transport system called oxygen breathing.   A part of produced ATP is used for the reduction of NADP.  When the bioenergy and reduction power of the quantity were thus obtained using the electron flow from water, the animals grow up and can up a descendant.   This valid mechanism is common to all creatures, but if the natural environmental condition is different, the different food-chains bring about the characteristic ecosystem as Biodiversity Convention is applied to maintenance.        

 

In addition, the water carries various kinds of materials that flowed through the body as a liquid, and contributes to temperature control of the body.  It is natural that the fresh water is indispensable to both farming and manufacturing industry.  The Japanese natural environments were rich without letting the survival of human being oneself be conscious how the fresh water was important existence so as to leave only food, clothing and shelter for words to live.  Therefore, I want to decide to list the fresh water and the food for human being survival with “fresh water + food”  in combination from now on.

 

Until now, I have described 5 kinds of factors necessary for human survival, clothing, food and shelter in Japanese, “energy” after the industrial revolution, and “communication” after the information revolution.  Up to the present, however, all information appliances do not work without some kind of energy supply.  Of course, all of fresh water, food, clothing and shelter were not supplied under nothing of fresh water.  If we do not have  a house to sleep safely, we cannot live.  After fossil fuel dried up, the clothes will be made with any biomass.   For such reasons, I want to display the elements for human survival as follows: energy > fresh water+food > shelter> communication > clothing.  

 

. Global Warming Responding to Population Increase over the Capacity of Earth

 

It may be said that the failure in the modern history of Japan is not to  understand the priority of mentioned factors for human survival.   Since the education system of Japan enable Japanese to accept influence of  Industrial Revolution, the industrial modernization in Japan accomplished at the almost same speed as that in Europe and America.  But the developed industry in Japan had caused the sudden population expansion, for which Japanese government could not correspond approximately away  because Japan was narrow.  Without being only emigrant policy,  Japan had depended on the military authorities in imitation of Europe and America, and it had gone to demand the rights and interests on the continent.  In this, way, the oil had become more and more indispensable for Japan.

 

Europe and America grasped this Japanese weakness and came to restrict the export of oil to Japan to limit the expansion of armaments of Japan.   Then, the military authorities raised a slogan of “ Large Asia Prosperity Sphere” to the nation and came to cannot but demand oil resources from Indonesia which was a Netherland colony, thus dragged Japan into the World War II.  In a sad thing, they had run about the war without enough recognition that there are not the wells producing oil in large quantity in administrative authority area of the Japan.  Therefore, the throwing down of the atomic bombs were not necessary for the end of the war, for the situations that even we children was sent to investigate the number of neighboring pine trees and so let children feel a day of the war defeat.  The military authorities were to say to move a tank, warship etc. using the pine oil which was extracted from the stocks of the pine trees.

 

In the case of World War II, we Japanese gradually used the fossil fuels exhaustively, and finally were corned so as to depend on only biomass.  Now, the human being must notice it being in the identical situation.  By this article, fossil fuels want to do recognizing anew that these are limited resources using up earlier.  Then, even if we were given up by the fossil fuels, we could cook rice, sometimes put in warm bath, and run a bus using the biomass which was called firewood.   At the time of using up of the coming fossil fuels, it seems that the future human will be unable to use   the biomass called wood, because woody plants are the most important source of CO2, which acts on slowdown of the global warming.  A communal place with nature which the human demands is the forest, and the trees which are a main member of the forest are not allowed to be felled so easy.

 

On the other hand, the forest has been known as a commonsense terms that not only the trees stock CO2 in a trunk, but also steam H2O by transpiration into the atmosphere.   The H2O released from the forest as well as the H2O released from ocean in the atmosphere have become the source of the rainfall and snowfall.  Therefore, as living apart from the sea, people will keep the drinking water in the blessing of the forest than the blessing of the sea.   Thus, the people making much of the need of the maintenance of natural environments play an active part based on understanding of the structure of the nature, by making the political party that advocated green in some countries.   Nevertheless, the world’s largest forest of Amazon which fixes CO2 of enormous quantity to the organic matters get into such a situation that may be felled for cultivation of useful crops.   In the dispatch, the United Nations had an opportunity to draw any wisdom that was need by using the limited resources in recycling society for people who would live in the future.

 

It was the first Earth Summit of 1992.   The first free talking in the subcommittee for biological diversity treaty that I was invited and participated is memorized to be about future population capacity of the earth.  The values of each committee were greatly different by estimation, in which I spoke it to 8 billion to be degree.   In contrast, a certain committee descried that it could increase to 14 billion for possibility, but remarked that it would be weeded out by the outbreak of a certain infectious disease and decreased in an appropriate level.  In the background of his estimation, I had supposed that there was an estimation of the biomass production capacity on the very large area of the Siberia in the time when a mammoth lived in the primitive atmosphere which included past CO2 in large quantities, and when some kinds of grasses as wheat grew only during a season when sunshine and moderate temperature were kept.   In any case, infectious disease in the summer of the last year, Ebola gave heaviness in his remark.

 

However, I could not understand his estimation.  Surely, population capacity of the earth will be fixed with the potential supplying of foods.     At the point of time when most human beings exhausted available fossil fuels, it seems that the concentrations of CO2 and CH4 reached the high levels considerably, the warming extremely advanced, the sea surface rose, and the central area of the continent turned desert in a further wide area.   Even if the utilization of natural energy and of atomic energy is accelerated, the time of using up of the fossil fuels is only delayed, because of the limited resources of both uranium and thallium and of the un-predictable weather change in the future.  Therefore, it rather seems that the area suitable for farming decreases on the earth. 

 

Needless to say, the decisive factor to control a supply power of the food is fresh water.  In other words, the factor to decide a population capacity in each nation is a supply capability fresh water in a corresponding country.   However, the meaningful supplying capability of the fresh water seems to associate directly with both rainfall and snowfall unevenness through the year and in every area within the nation.  That is, there is not it in fresh water supply despite a superior nation, even if a rainfall or snowfall is seen only in the small portion in the nation, or even if a rainfall or snowfall is blessed only in a certain season. 

 

I do not foresee what time, but the human will use up fossil fuels sometime later.  At that time, it is certain that the earth becomes the planet that is much warmer than now.  In fact, the first abnormal weather associated with the warming had been reported year by year in everywhere,  particularly in the last year.  In Japan only, there has been already the twice for the damages of the heavy snowfalls in the cost of Japan Sea, although the heavy snowfall was generated in the zone of mountains in an average year. This phenomenon is estimated to be a result that the seawater temperature of the Japan Sea rises.  In fact, Japan Meteorological Agency reports that the temperature of seawater at depth of the water 200m rises to 0.6 for 20 years from 1992 to 2012 by measuring at 3 points in the Japan Sea.  It should be higher in the water temperature at the upper layer, and so it is thought that the atmospheric steam pressure on the Japan Sea area increases remarkably.  If the prevailing westerly of periodic wind begin to blow, on the contrary, it seems that the atmosphere temperature above the Japan Sea begins to decrease rapidly by capturing the evaporation heat, and as a result, it brings heavy snowfall in a foreside of the Japan Sea.  Such a weather change lets global warming have a question to world people.   

 

Thus, the rises in the concentrations of CO2, and CH4 etc. in the atmosphere has been already accompanied by the rises in temperature in both marine water and atmosphere.  The ocean occupies approximately 70% of all surface area of the earth, and its role supplying steam is far superior to the forest.   The appearance of the very large desert opening from North Africa in the Middle East and of the dryland in the North America, along the tropic of Cancer, and similarly the appearance of the deserts in Australia and South Africa and of the dryland in the South America, along the tropic of Capricorn, have been explained meteorologically by an atmospheric flow to go.   However, the very large desert in Gobi and Tarim Basin areas in China and the drying area from North America to Canada spread out in the temperate zone, and their appearances are not explained in the meteorology.  Those places only are distant from ocean.        

 

There is the story that the fossil of the dinosaur was found in the desert of this Chinese interior.   Moreover, the stock trace of a fossilized tree is excavated in the remains of Loulan located in the northeast part of the Taklamakan Desert.   According to these historical evidences, it is obvious that an ecosystem was established in this place of Chinese interior in the ancient time.   But, the Han race who set up the house on the ground soon was going to make a retaining wall afterwards to prevent the southing of the Mongolia race who held a residence in the northern ground.   It was the Great Wall, a world heritage of China.  The great wall was built with burning bricks at the beginning.  Since the fuel used on the occasion was the felled woods, the forest deterioration began gradually, and it became hard to get a tree to gradually fell.  As the retaining wall of the long and extensive castle goes to the west end, the state is left as a picture collapsing for use of the sun-dried bricks.   Because there was the forest in the Chinese interior as from these evidences, the steam circulated within the range of the atmosphere and showed that there was a food chain that was   based on natural environments.    In addition, the first global environment ravager in history of human might be Chinese who took actions protect their own peaceful life.  

 

5. The Fresh Water is Infinite as Resources, while the Ground Water is Limited

 

The next destruction of the large-scale global environment in the China’s continent inside was caused by the policy of the Chinese leader, Mr. Mao who was ignorant of science.  Probably, I think that he did not have even the biological basic knowledge of high school level, which all creatures, excepting special ones, live depending on bioenergy acquired in an oxidation process of hydrogen (H+) and electron out of dissociation of the water molecule (H2O).   All animals, including the human being, must take in food to take an electron out of water.  In contrast, the plants live like an animal in the night using the organic matters that has been produced by photosynthesis during daytime, but can let water dissociation using light of the sun in the day.  In any case, they cannot live and grow if the suitable quantity of supply of fresh water is not promised. 

 

Moreover, the higher plants must absorb a large quantity of fresh water through a rhizome system from the soil in order to lower leaf temperature by transpiration to photosynthesize organic substances.  On the other hand, the animals cannot live only with a fluid volume included within foods and require a large quantity of fresh water to drink.   Even in the domestic animals grazing grasses, a large quantity of drinking fresh water is indispensable for them like a human being in a winter season to assume dry grass bait. 

 

Similarly, a good state as the industry is decided on both the farming and the stock-raising how far the fresh water supply in the area becomes through the year.   As a matter of course, the supply of the fresh water in the area is decided in principle on the degree of the rainfall and snowfall in the area as well as quantity of the underwater.  However, the groundwater is a blessing of the rain snowfall and snowfall that poured into the neighborhood before.  On the other hand, the rain and snow in the area is basically a present with the steam circulating within the range of the atmosphere evaporated from both the ocean and the forest.   Therefore, the groundwater abundance in a certain area in the continent will be basically proportional to the degree of rainfall and snowfall.   An oasis to keep for the benefit of the water vein through the underground from the high mountains is no exception.  And, the supplying amount of the groundwater appears with the degree of rain and snowfall and with a constant time lag which is a late relation with a groundwater level so that the width of a stratum is big.  Thus, the supply of the fresh water caused by the rain and snowfall may be thought as endless since the sea area accounts about 70% at the earth surface, but the supplying power of the ground water may become limited temporarily.   In the zone of the limited rain and snowfall, the a situation to dry up of the groundwater becomes possible if the human being excessively uses the groundwater.

 

 

In China, unfortunately, the atmosphere circulation of water from the forest has already become extinct with the construction of Great Wall, suggesting that it is poor in the supply not only of the rain and snowfall but also of the underwater in the Chinese continent interior.  Unfortunately, the Chinese leader, Mr. Mao has hurried newly construction of China as he definitely could not understand the situation mentioned above.  The policy that was advocated by him was the history that was well known as Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1960, in which he demanded a great increase in production in agriculture and industry.

 

However, he forced extremely stupid instruction on the people there.  In the agriculture, he organized people in the commune by which he aimed at the maximum yield of cereals per unit area of the farmland.  Stupidly, the agricultural method recommended there was the technique called the dense planting by the high-density dissemination and then the personal inventive idea has been completely ignored.  This agricultural method may be applicable under the natural environments in the northern country such as  Russia, because the plants will be met for fresh water supply by lower evaporation rates and exposed to cold window even in the summer.  However, Mr. Mao has deeply attached to the imitation of Russia-born agricultural methods without being able to judge whether these methods are not suitable for China where a fresh water supply power is poorer than  Russia and temperature in the daytime is higher.

 

Thus, the application of the dense planting cultivation in the inlands of China with a little rainfall strengthened transpiration explosively, invited the consumption of groundwater, and has annihilated even the original ecosystem of farmland.  The result of the imitation of these stupid agricultural methods has been going to leave the name for the history as Great Chinese Famine or Mao’s Great Famine (1958-1961).  Not only has farming by the collectivization of the agriculture exhausted the farmland in the inland of China, but this has also led to the estimated starvation of between 10 and 60 million people (the actual number/estimate varies by source documents).

 

On the other hand, another purpose of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 was industrial promotion,  and then the production of steel which became various kinds of industrial materials was reinforced.  On this occasion, the resources used for a blast furnace as fuel were the biomass that it was easy to obtain as well as the coal that China held as resources in large quantities.   Early in the history of human, China felled the forest to bake bricks, but China has again performed deforestation on a large scale to begin to dissolve pig iron even in the modern times when the importance of the work of the forest began to be recognized.  In fact, the deforestation by China over these twice continues thrusting severe environmental situation for the Chinese  now, but it is certain that they are the large scale destruction of ecosystem peculiar to Eurasia midcontinent, like the reduction and extinction of the Aral Sea area due to the excessive immigration by Russia after the World War II.  Judging from these points, the destruction of natural environments caused in terms of human resource in Eurasia midcontinent is not the negative inheritance that it is permitted what we leave in history as a human community to live on this small planet earth.

 

6. Agreement of COP only Prolongs the Human Life on the Earth        

 

When the forest was felled once in a wide area, the reproduction of the forest becomes impossible if the area is not blessed with the rain through the year.  If there are dry and wet seasons in a year, a period of the wet season is short, and there is little rainfall, it is usual to continue going to ruin as for the ecosystem derived from the forest in the area irreversibly.  Usually, it is limited to the tropical rain forest zone where the resumption of nature that went to ruin is possible.   Accordingly, it is an extremely natural thing that the ecosystem traces the course of the collapse in the area where the existing forest that serves as a source of supply of the steam was destroyed intensively artificially as in the China interior.   In such an area that had become weak artificially, even the reforestation by the human planting is not easy unless a human being is greatly concerned by periodical sprinkling.

 

Certainly, the further dilapidation of the natural environments of the Chinese plateau in the 20th century is due to a policy to be said as the Great Leap Forward by the Chinese Communist Party government fascinated by Mr. Mao.  Meanly, he further commanded the Cultural Revolution campaign from 1996 to conceal own great misleading in 1958-1961, by which many cultural historic remains have been destroyed idly. However, the government  of the Chinese Communist Party faced the desiccation to approach capital Beijing and the suspension of water supply in the Yellow River, and it was the first time when they would notice the importance of his misleading.  Then, it seems that the first proof of their reflection will be the Forest Law established in 1979 after the end of the Cultural Revolution Movement.   Though belated, the Chinese government has begun to press an action of planting woody plants in addition to the management of the country by the conservation of forest sources.   

 

However, it was too slow that they noticed.   The atmospheric concentration of the global warming gases derived from fossil fuels began to already rise, and some scientists have begun concern the future global environment.   In fact, the concentration of CO2 that I learned at a junior high school was 310 ppm, but increased 330 ppm in the 1980s.   At that time, nobody had been able to play in the small marsh where I had enjoyed bamboo skating in the days of a primary schoolchild.  It was the times when myself already sensed warming of the earth bodily and when the global warming began to be discussed about whether or not it depends on discharge of CO2.  If so, the evaporation quantity of water might become superior to the quantity of rain snowfall in more areas in China.   As the progress of the warming increases the quantity of evaporation under the situation, planting may hardly  succeed.   When they noticed the importance of the planting, it has been the times in which they must use limited groundwater so that they succeed in planting.   In many areas of the middle country, the planting had the risk that might promote further desertification.  

 

By the way, the substantial amount of discharged CO2 should be shown with differences between the quantity of real discharge and the quantity of   absorption fixation by the trees.  In COP 20, all countries should cooperate by an augment of the emission credit of CO2, since they are concerned with real atmospheric CO2 density. However, although China and India are large  countries of CO2  discharge, they continue to take the situation of developing countries still in COP 20, and do not yet reach the agreement with developed countries in 2014.  This opposition with the developed countries and developing countries continues has already continued during 17 years since COP3 for Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention Climate Change in 1997.  China, which is a self-styled latter representative, gets GDP of the second place of the world during this period, but disappointingly it does not seem to feel the responsibility that had greatly reduced a CO2 absorption source under the slogan named the Great Leap Forward.  In the background, it seems that China may have the prospect having the enough sources for fresh water supply by which the forest can bring up.  Finally, the important one is make a clear prospect in an absorption –fixing system of the CO2 for the tomorrow’s earth.   Needless to say, the international talks in COP are necessary for the reduction of the emission of CO2, CH4 and N2O, but we must do something to prevent atmospheric accumulation of CO2 further.  

 

Saying that we must do something by all means, this is because CO2 itself is toxic for all animals including the human being, in addition to a source of global warming.   It has the volcanic disaster in the crater lake of Lac Nyos in Cameroon in 1986 that I want to remember.   On the occasion, approximately 1500 persons die by exposure to volcanic CO2.  For oxygen breathing in animals, it goes without saying that a big difference in CO2 density in the inside and outside of the alveolus is necessary for CO2 exchange to send out CO2 as waste of blood.   According to the instructions from the Japanese Fire and Disaster Management Agency, it is written that we must control the CO2 density out of the current atmosphere to several times to exhaust CO2 in blood smoothly.  If CO2 density exceeds 50,000ppm, the human being presents with dyspnea, and the blood pressure rises, thus causing various kinds of severe symptoms.  Current CO2 has already exceeded 400 ppm , and so it will not take time so long to reach its critical concentration that CO2 causes the global further warming and the survival of our own.                          

 

Each country in COP will agree by effluent control of CO2 sometimes soon.   Even so, however, the fossil fuels continue being used and dry up sometime soon.  At that time, the biggest problem is whether or not the human can  hold down atmospheric CO2 density to the level that the slightest adverse effects do not give for the working of the life of animals.  

 

I have known that the atmosphere of the time when the earth was born consisted mostly of CO2.   And the most which existed as CO2 was returned to the earth after being fixed as limestone.   But I do not know what percent of the ancient CO2 becomes fossil fuels, and what percent of them becomes irreproducible organic matters such as the plastic and then is returned to the earth either.   In the case of the future fossil fuel drying up, there is the biggest problem thrust at us who live in the present age, whether the humankind can control below atmospheric CO2 density at least 1,000ppm as well as a weather change called the global warming.  It is not merely a problem to get off with only the global warming.

 

It is to suppress the excessive rise in CO2 density to be important here.  To that end, both the direct use of CO2 as industrial material and its temporary retention will be considered.  The latter is already pushed as development of the means to shut in CO2 in the deep bottom of the sea and in the deep soil.   However, the problems that it is hard to predict such as earthquake induction or the neutralization of the sea are left.  The best means to hold a rise in CO2 density stores CO2 as wood and keeps alive in  recycling society in the future.

 

7. Energy, Fresh Water+Foods as Human Survival Condition

 

I have stated that the increase in CO2 would include the crisis of the human extinction.  However, the land covers only about 30% of the earth, and the remaining is the ocean, which is the greatest source of fresh water supply. The area of lands must continue reducing with increasing of global warming, and on the one hand, the ocean must continue acidifying with increasing CO2 density, following the collapse of marine ecosystem.  Then, I want further to arrange the elements concerning with human survival.

 

In the case of most, the estimation of the capacity of the world population has been done based on the estimation of the food supply. All types of food are organic matters, which are constituted from a carbon atom, but it overflows as CO2 now within the atmosphere on the every land on the earth.     

 

In addition, the carbon elements are returned to organic matters of foods if fresh water exists except for microorganisms, in which a water molecule H2O is divided into a pair of H+ and electron and O2 by light (the sun ) acts on organic reduction of the CO2 there.  Therefore, the population capacity of the earth in the future after the fossil fuel drying up is not with a failure of food supply, and it will be estimated at land area met with both the sun light  and the fresh water.   By the way, there are the marine products such as fishery products, whales and seaweeds, too, but not the staple foods.  However, these marine products are unrelated to both the fresh water supply and the land area, although the living entities in river, lake and sea as well as ones on lands are dependent on electron and H+ from a water molecule.

 

Human being is in the top of the food chain in the ecosystem and eats every creature as food, which this organic substance is basically formed with CO2 and H2O.  According to FAO (1997), the quantities of fresh water necessary for producing 1kg of roots, grains, poultry meat and beef were 1, 1.5, 6 and 15 m3, respectively.  If we serve them by the hunting of wild fishery and animals, it is not necessary to meet a demand for fresh water, but it is necessary to have a suitably wide place for hunting and fishing. On the contrary, we need very large land area, if going to bring up grazing animals in particular at a grassy plain so that there is little rain snowfall, and the productivity per unit area becomes low extremely.

 

In any case, the human must prevent that the atmospheric density of CO2 reaches a fatal level for which the best method will be to contribute to the recycling society as biomass by covering the land by woody plants.  If so, the first step of that purpose will be that the human distributes an area as wide as possible of the land on the earth for wood planting.  For this, the stock-raising industry for grazing animals is unfavorable for occupying a very large grassy place, and the ranch will have to greatly reduce for the survival of the human.  For this, however, there is some balance among   essential amino acids ,such as including a benzene ring in structure, which the human must intake from the animal proteins.

 

For this, the stock-raising industry to occupy a glassy place only for the purpose of production of beef cattle on a large scale cannot but to decline.  The breeding of the cow should be limited to milk cow, and similarly, the sheep cannot but accept only wool production, too.  At the first, the state of the stock-raising industry in the future society must be reformed for the utilization of the land innovatively. The stock-raising industry to occupy a grassy place for only production of beef cattle on large scale will become extinct.  The breeding of the cow should be limited to a milk-cow, and the breeding of the sheep cannot but be limited to wool production.  The horse racing is destined to become the entertainment that is not welcomed and will be limited to a support of the human labor.   After having finished a role, all of them will function as the supply decrease of the animal protein for edible meat.

 

In the future, however, the fisheries industry should be greatly concerned with supplying animal proteins necessary for survival, but it is uncertain for the moment.   The reason is because I cannot expect how long the rises in marine acidification and seawater temperature increase.  Therefore, the concentrations of CO2 and O2 in the seawater decrease gradually in future, for the decreasing solubility of gases with increasing seawater temperature , and as a result the marine ecosystem will become poor.  Probably, the level of sea in the future seems to increase by the thermal expansion of sea itself and by the fusion of the permanently frozen ground, and to expand the sea area against the land area.   However, I do not think the ocean which was acidified and warmed lays rich marine products.   At that time, the human being may live by getting the animal proteins from the culture type marine products, but not fishery type in order to use some area intensively.

 

The space collection type production of animal proteins has already spread by the breeding of chickens, but such as the three-dimensional use of space, called as the battery cage method, should be introduced not only for egg production but also for chicken meat in the future.  In the future, if the human beings look for the higher efficiency of animal protein production, they should utilize the insects which there are for the first stage of the food chain.   We Japanese had made insects edible before pesticides spread.  I liked the fry-up of the grasshopper which lives in the rice field, too.   However, it seems that the weather predicted in the future to become higher temperatures and more humid at many places so that there are no farming places unrelated to a pesticide and no ranch with large grassland. 

 

As means to secure the food of many people, a food production method by the three-dimensional land must be investigated while confronting global warming in the near future.  We should think the large quantities breeding method of various kinds of insects, which are edible at the stage of larva or of imago.  After having exhausted fossil fuels before long, it is not to be able to build sustainable recycling society only by the superficial use of very large land, and, as for what can assert, the human must part from the ranch type stock-raising industry and the pelagic fishing or whaling.                         

 

By the way, an intake of the animal proteins is necessary for human  growth, but it is a story on having been able to secure cereals of the quantity enough.  As a matter of course, those production depend on fresh water supply.   According to the former FAO report, it is said that the fresh water of 1.5 m3 is necessary for cereal production of 1 kg cereals, being in quantity of 1/10 of the beef and equal to 1/4 of the chicken.  Moreover, if the food is roots, vegetables or fruits, the amount of fresh water is enough with 1m3 per kg. 

 

In general, the higher plants constituting the base of a food chain in the natural world produce an ecosystem peculiar to the area, but the way of their life is different depending on fresh water supply during their growth season.   In addition, most plant has evolved adaptively in response to the length of the sunshine with a different endogenous clock in according to the latitude where its kind was born.   All plants avoid the dry season and change a growth style which time wet season comes at.  Here, it will be necessary to think by dividing the plants into two groups: one is the trees which function as a biomass by which the tomorrow’s sustained recycling society will be leaded, and another is the foods of grains, roots, culinary plants which are indispensable for living.  However, the woody plants of the former is also important as the source supplying steam into atmosphere and supplying fresh water as rain or snow fall, and the plants of the latter are important not only as staple and side foods but also as the materials of medicine and textiles etc., and furthermore as baits letting various kinds of stock-raising industry and of marine cultured industry.

 

By the way, the biggest problem of human being is to control a concentration of CO2 below 1,000 ppm in the atmosphere in which is exhausted, in order to not disturb human oxygen breathing even if global warming advances.  To that end, the human being must increase the forest cover as the CO2 absorption source as much as possible.   As the fossil fuels are worn out, the great plain of very large Siberia and the sterile ground in northern Canada may change into the place suitable for farming, but in order to hold the CO2 concentration down 1,000ppm, all land area on the earth blessed constantly with rain or snow falls should be assigned for forest creation more than for the food production.   What we should notice under the situation, how many people is the acceptable population capacity of the earth?

 

I have estimated that the population capacity of the earth would be 8 billion from those days of the first Earth Summit.  According to UNFP, the world population is approximately 7.4 billion in 2014, may exceed my estimate soon, but the increasing rates of population begin to decline in many country.  Accordingly , the world population may converge in 8 billion or more.  Moreover, there is no any country that awfully suffers from starvation in particular at present.  Although the self-sufficient rate of food in Japan is very low with about 40%, the values in China and India, both are   Asian large countries is in the top or begins to decrease. , In the case of Japan, approximately 40% of low situation have continued always, but the self-sufficient rate of foods seems to begin increasing automatically to near 80%,  since a decrease process of population has already begun for the low birth rate of about 0.35.  These facts suggest that the foods will not cause any serious state in Asia excepting China, if natural environments do not change greatly.

 

Nevertheless, it is extremely important that we prepare frequent occurrence of the abnormal weather with the global warming of the earth.  And it is to work hard to increase the forest now, although it is also important to suppress the discharge of CO2, CH4 and N2O.  At first, it will be to work hard at wood planting.   In this case, there will be not only the choice of the tree species suitable for the place but also developing new varieties of woody plants.   Secondly, there will be the work to enlarge the land space for tree planting.   In this case, there will be the work to produce vacant land for planting by raising the productivity per unit area of the farming.   Finally, it is the most difficult thing, but is an effort to change the area that is not suitable for planting in the land where the planting is possible.  In this item, I want to describe about the trial of the second problem.

 

The food self-sufficiency ratio in Japan has been coming for many years is only around 40%, because the Japanese islands were in the steep mountains which were not suitable for farming.  Near 76% of the country are covered really exhaustively in the forest, which have already played the role to prevent a global warming.   Japan became a small country after the World War II, but the effort was begun from early time in order to raise food self-sufficiency ratio somehow.  Our research group in which I participated wrestled for a study whether could let us grow the plants how much in the completely artificial space that neither the soil nor the sunlight used at all.   We adopted rice and duckweed, both belonging to the monocotyledoneae taxonomically, as the representative plants which accomplish the original scenery of the farm village of Japan.   It was a reckless challenge in those days, but we ignored the air-conditioning and lighting costs received a bailout from the government as a fundamental research.   We adopted two kinds of duckweeds for the thing which assumed vegetables a representative.  Lemna gibba  represented the long day plant which has adopted to the northern area, while Lemna pausicostata was a representative of the short day plants which has adopted to more southern areas. From this research group, some extremely important results of research lead to the birth and development of biology, agriculture and environmental sciences in future.

 

Editor’s Note: The above text has been excerpted from Dr. Esashi’s book, the full text of which is available to BWW Society Members upon request. Email: president@bwwsociety.org

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