Purple People Eaters and Carbon Crunchers

It all started with a purple picture of our planet.

Have you ever been shopping at a store or dining out when the power goes out or just the credit card terminal is on the fritz?
It’s quite comical actually. In fact, the level of confuzzlement seems directly related to the age of the person needing to take your money. The younger the cashier/clerk/waiter is, the higher this level peaks. Of course cash would solve the problem, but who carries that anymore?
I have encountered some MacGyver -esque cashiers who tear a strip of receipt tape and rub your credit cards raised image onto it, it works. Basically this procedure is like a retro version of those old plastic and metal slide credit card device with those carbon copy slips, most stores don’t even have those lying around anymore, I've even shown someone how to use one (as a customer). I’ve also seen the look of defeat on those young faces, the contemplation of “giving it away” (items or goods) instead of figuring a way to take my money, I’ve never been that lucky. Scott only gets off free I've heard. We used to use carbon copies for the most important documents, and some government agencies still rely upon them (as well as dot matrix printers and Windows XP OS) but outside of federal bureaucracy, those archaic forms have all been recycled back into the earth by now.

 Diagram adapted from U.S. DOE, Biological and Environmental Research Information System. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Elementary Carbon 

Carbon is the 6^th element on the periodical table and is considered our close life partner, not just as in casual carbon (14) dating, but as coal mates.

Image of Black Carbon by By FK1954 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

In fact, carbon is the 4^th most common element in our universe, and the 15^th most common element in the Earth’s crust. The element carbon links man with the environment by means of simple organic chemistry, most basically life as we know it requires carbon as much as we need oxygen or that magical molecular triad formula of water.  The most common types of carbon are attributed to coal deposits which we then process for various applications. Carbon has three main naturally occurring allotropes or bonding formula which are; amorphous, diamond and graphite. There is a possible albeit controversial fourth allotrope of carbon called Chaoite or ‘white carbon’ reportedly discovered around 1969 in Bavaria. Due to the alleged unique properties of this transparent birefringent properties, meaning it is able to dissect a single light beam in two, mineralogists believe starting as graphite the mineral is chemically altered through a process called ‘shock metamorphosis’. For now, even though the diamond shows that carbon can be both transparent and prismatic, the dominant negative perspective of its existence has kept the element from being added officially or mentioned in science textbooks.

A Diamond A Dozen 

Everyone knows that diamonds are the hardest minerals on the planet. Those geological gemstones set the ‘gold standard’ for gemological hardness, occupying the highest (10) level on the Mohs scale.  Diamonds are formed under specific high temperatures and at depths of between 90-120 miles deep inside the earth’s mantle.  Diamonds that are found (naturally forming), that are mined and actually reach the surface that we can get our grubby fingers on are thought to range from 1-3+ billion years old. Some people may know that cremated human remains may also synthetically be turned into a diamond keepsake, each of these varying slightly based on our own compound levels or ingredients.

Here are main (top ten) basic ingredients of a human being by volume:

• 65% Oxygen
• 18% Carbon
• 10% Hydrogen
• 3% Nitrogen
• 1.5% Calcium
• 1% Phosphorus
• 0.35% Potassium
• 0.25% Sulfur
• 0.15% Sodium
• 0.05% Magnesium

I know that’s super basic, but it’s  easy it is to forget that there’s more to us than just air, water, and some blubber for energy. Carbon is as unique as it is common, mysterious as it is basic, and a natural resource as well as a contaminant. Graphite is the soft, diamonds are hard, graphite conducts electricity, diamonds are the best known electric insulator possible (having the most destructive breakdown features of electricity known), graphite crystallizes in a hexagonal manner, diamonds prefer cubism. Carbon can be bi-polar, both literally and figuratively.

Image By Cassell & Co., 1897-1899, Graphite Mine (The Queen's Empire. Volume 1. Cassell & Co. London) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Understanding the “Paradox of Value” is an underlying issue that results in much bamboozlement and crosses over all cultures in the 21^st century relating to our current life on this planet. This brilliant and simple concept relates to both perceived and actual levels of scarcity and abundance.  Best summarized by Jim Pinto who says, “Any technology which creates abundance poses problems for any process which existed to benefit from scarcity,” (like humans).  As with diamonds, who are valued and advertised as being prizes buried in the rough, iconic rocks, and anciently rare, they are hardly scarce even though the bloodshed over their acquisition would lead you to believe so (perceived scarcity).  

Image By Malis [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Scientists have been busy working with graphene and possible applications. Graphene is on the forefront of chemical science and has been determined to be (as of 2009) the strongest material known on Earth.  

When we think of carbon being a danger to the environment, this type of “carbon footprint” is referring to ‘black carbon’ or the incomplete combustion of pure carbon which occurs through the burning of fossil fuels but also occurs naturally. Black carbon is relatively ‘short lived’ (a week or so compared to carbon dioxide which lingers in the atmosphere for centuries), moves perpetually around the globe in the atmosphere and accounts for around 30% of carbon stored in soils. The black coal-rich carbon soil is the Miracle Grow for tropical forest, black coal is directly linked with soil fertility.

When the popular eco motto “reduce your carbon footprint” is chanted, I often wonder if people know what this means beyond the “hole in the ozone”. Global warming is on fire lately, it’s gone viral like an infectious disease, but not everyone understands the science or the whole picture, it’s easier to jump on a wagon and hitch a ride on the mainstream than to walk a distance alone.  Carbon accounting has become as necessary as having Twitter for professional reasons, ethical capitalism is wildly successful and mildly marketable, offensive to no other earth-born denizen, right? We’re on this planet together. Well, I’m a little offended, honestly, but I’m just one person, what does it matter?

Eco-friendly and self-described “green companies” are really friends with benefits, those benefits come in the form of green-backs for the corporation.

Cash and the environment are linked only by mankind who acts as if Mother Nature takes a rubber check, in fact I’m sure she’s grateful for the $18.7 billion from BP but the deposit in oil was already made, the promissory note will be saved for the next great flood. 

This eco-culture did not invent recycling, Mother Nature coined that process. We came up with bottled water (and reverse osmosis) and bags so we always have more we need. Mother Nature has rain (mineral filtered) and wind (Nature's broom), always traveling lightly. Bio-degradation was a term coined in 1961 and was helpful in explaining how long it takes for litter to disappear from the side of the road. This ecological alarm bell was critical for many manufacturers to make decisions based not on profit margin alone, theoretically. While it is a real albeit general term for a scientific process, it’s more of a catch-phrase. Let’s face reality, everything is biodegradable, even us, eventually. 
For a majority of the human race obsessed with extending our own bio-expectancy/longevity, we seem to not understand; the positive and negative connections between us and our environment, scarcity and abundance, or preservation and consumption completely.  We race to conclusions, and yet no matter how much of a hurry we are in, we are all guaranteed to reach the finish line- with our carbon containers filled (our body), either as a ring on someone’s finger or as some nutrient rich man-ewer.

When the all power does finally go out (not just in your local town), and all outstanding accounts are to be settled with Mother Nature, our human number game of forensic carbon accounting will not be used to settle the score. Instead, Mother Nature will find the balance on her own and divvy out lumps of coal as she sees fit (consult Santa Claus for your projected allotment).  Then again, we could all just end up as transparent gems on her crown jeweled tiara in the 'heavens', and Plato thought those were stars.

Image night view from ISS by NASA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Feature image By NASA (NASA Image of the Day) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

About photo from wikimedia:"As interest in Earth's changing climate heats up, a tiny dark particle is stepping into the limelight: black carbon. Commonly known as soot, black carbon enters the air when fossil fuels and biofuels, such as coal, wood, and diesel are burned. Black carbon is found worldwide, but its presence and impact are particularly strong in Asia. Black carbon, a short-lived particle, is in perpetual motion across the globe. The Tibetan Plateau's high levels of black carbon likely impact the region's temperature, clouds and monsoon season."