Relativity, The Gravity Of The Situation, and The Butterfly Effect

Posted at July 24, 2008

“347 A.D. Oil wells are drilled in China up to 800 feet deep using bits attached to bamboo poles.
1848 First modern oil well is drilled in Asia, on the Aspheron Peninsula northeast of Baku.
1849 Distillation of kerosene from oil by Canadian geologist Dr. Abraham Gesner. Kerosene eventually replaces whale oil as the illuminator of choice and creates a new market for crude oil.
1850 Oil from hand-dug pits in California at Los Angeles is distilled to produce lamp oil.
1854 First oil wells in Europe are drilled 30- to 50-meters deep at Bóbrka, Poland.
1858 First oil well in North America is drilled in Ontario, Canada.
1859 First oil well in United States is drilled 69 feet deep at Titusville, Pennsylvania.
1878 Electric light bulb invented by Thomas Edison eliminates demand for kerosene, and the oil industry enters a recession.
1885 Oil burners on steam engines in the California oil fields, and later on steam locomotives, create new crude oil markets.
1886 Gasoline-powered automobiles introduced in Europe by Karl Benz and Wilhelm Daimler creates additional markets for California oil. Prior to the automobile, gasoline was a cheap solvent produced as a by-product of kerosene distillation.”¹

As you can see the drilling for and extraction of oil, one of the products of ancient sunlight, has been with us for thousands of years. From ancient China and oil for lamps, to today’s gasoline and the automobile.

We as humans are quick to see value, react to change based on needs, and dependencies, to further our own ends.

Looking at the timeline we can see major extraction and use began around 160 years ago in 1848. Since then the demand for oil has continued to grow. “The 2007 world statistics for the period between the years 1960 and 2007 show extraction of 952,231,600,000 barrels for that 47 year period.“²

The specific weight of oil varies from place to place, generally 8 barrels equal a ton.

That means between 1960 and 2007 we removed oil with a mass of approximately 119,028,950,000 tons.

“Another carbon fuel of obvious weight and mass is coal. Current World coal consumption is about 6.2 billion tons annually.”³ “Recent fossil fuel consumption was 4.7 times the level in 1950,”⁴ and it now accounts for 77 percent of world energy use. According to the Energy Information Agency, it is believed that demand will increase by 50% by 2030.

“The calculated weight of the Earth is 5.978 sextillion metric tons, or 5,978 followed by 18 zeros. But the latest measurements show the true weight is actually 5.972 sextillion metric tons.”⁵

The constants used to calculate the weight of the Earth was off or so they say. The force of gravity, shown as the capital letter G, is a little tricky to measure. Scientists have come up with many different numbers, and each one gives us a different number for the Earth’s weight.

Scientists at the University of Washington found a more precise way to measure G. And now that they have this more exact measurement, they claim they have found the real weight of the Earth – they think. They warn that their findings may still change.

“The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory. Small variations of the initial condition of a dynamical system may produce large variations in the long-term behaviour of the system. So this is sometimes presented as esoteric behaviour, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.⁶ This is real science!

So here we are on a heavy planet, that comparably, we are taking seemingly small amounts of matter away from over a very long period of time. An old sailor, and mentor, once referred to it as removing its ballast. Unlike greenhouse gases or ozone depleting contaminants that can be reduced or replaced. These changes of mass caused by our consumption, in search of a better way of life, are creating long-term irreversible effects.”

Is the Geo Political mire of our times clouding and deluding our consciousness’ to what time it really is. Are we not aware enough to realize we are on the threshold of a new revolution, a new age, The Environment Revolution, The Environment Age An age where we should be coming to terms with our environment with a single minded determination to reverse the ravages of our time? We have a moment in time, that we as humans, can work together simultaneously, to improving world economies and the health of our planet by fostering the growth, development, and use of renewable, zero footprint, and carbon capture technologies, to create a long term sustainable world were we can live in at peace while preserving the natural order of things.

If we as a peoples continue to let the pettiness around us consume us, will we ever be able to express the perspicacity necessary to mend the amendable damages we are creating, or have created, where nature and planet Earth is concerned.

Do we, as world citizens have to suffer unmentionable hardships before we harmonize our ways with our environment. Knowing it’s only a matter of time and there are no “snap fixes” to put things back in order, are we going to let things go until the gravity of the situation becomes impossible to keep balanced in the ways that mater.

San Joaquin Geological Society ↩
OPEC, Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Energy Annual (IEA), annual reports 2007, and the International Energy Database 2007. ↩
Coal, Wikipedia the free encyclopaedia ↩
Increase since 1950 based on sources cited in note 1; share of total global energy use calculated by Worldwatch with 2000 data from IEA, World Energy Outlook 2002 (Paris: 2002), pp. 410–11. ↩
Windows to the Universe® ↩
Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia ↩