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
John Pellam John Pellam John Pellam John Pellam John
Pellam John Pellam John Pellam John Pellam John Pellam John Pellam The BWW
Society The Bibliotheque World Wide Society The Institute for Positive Global
Solutions Pellam Journal of Science
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.
３.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.
４.
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
© 2016 The Bibliotheque: World Wide Society