FIVE: BIOSPHERE II: A MONUMENT TO THE FARCE OF ECOLOGY.

A review of 'Earth and Life' BBC2 14.11.97

This article is dedicated to english nature in particular and to ecologists in general. At the end of the 1980s a few of us tried to stop the labour dominated, Hull city council from going ahead with one of its interminable construction schemes on a delightful area of green space (sorry can't remember its name now - 'something' fields). We wrote our letters and published our magazines only to discover our position had been totally undermined by the prats in the regional branch of english nature (the organization may now be called something different) who decided the site wasn't worth saving. The reason for their decision was that the green space was not deemed a good example of that particular type of habitat. English nature's objective was to preserve the best examples of each habitat around the country and it wasn't bothered if development took place on less exemplary sites. This demonstrated clearly that this group of middle class, over cultivated, snotty ignoramuses had no appreciation of brutland's colossal Carbon debts, no idea about the role of Photosynthesis in the Earth's life support system, and not the slightest understanding of the connection between ecological destruction and the Earth's climate. The reason this organization was so stupid as to believe it could allow vast areas of the country's life support system to be cemented and yet still preserve the unique nature of a tiny number of exemplary sites of scientific interest was because they were ecologists who had no understanding of geophysiology, the science of the Earth's life support system. The science of ecology rarely ventures beyond the study of local habitats, local species and the relationship between them, to understand the Earth as a whole. As far as ecologists are concerned the disappearance of innumerable local habitats around the country (and around the world) doesn't have the slightest impact on the climate nor does it have any implications for the survival of their sacred sites.

This work is also dedicated to all other ecologists such as those in the modern, oomano-imperialist, land-grabbers movement, 'the land is ours'; the stroppy, macho rogues in 'green anarchist' advocating a primitivist decentralism in which tribes would wander the Earth happily living off nature in an ecologically sound, but climate-free, way; Earth firsters! who regard themselves as members of the 'radical ecological movement' whilst insisting on occupying Wilderness areas, rearing livestock and culling Wildlife; social ecologists, leftie-green decentralists, and anti-macdonalds' anarchos still stupid enough to believe they can save the Earth by exploiting the grievances and aspirations of those working for global corporate Earth rapists; to those on 'the ecologist' who, for the last twenty years, have settled into a comfortable niche producing a magazine read by a few thousand professional environmentalists around the world without showing any sign of enraging the livestock about the destruction being wreaked on the Earth's life support system.

The Plan.

In the late 1980s a group of professional ecologists embarked on a massive public relations' exercise. They planned to build a massive, greenhouse to demonstrate that ecologists could create artificial, self-contained, self-sufficient, gardens of eden in which people could spend their lives completely cut off from the rest of the Earth. These ecologists revealed they were just as much at home in the corporate world as they were with their prize winning blooms when they managed to raise a monstrous amount of money, $150 million, to fund the project. The greenhouse would house five different biomes - the key one being the tropical Rainforest, 'The tropical Forest with its rich vegetation was to provide the bulk of the oxygen and remove the CO2 storing it as wood.' The biosphere would be, as the author of 'Earth and Life' says without the slightest touch of irony, 'The most tightly sealed greenhouse in the world'. The project was grandiosely called biosphere II, given that the Earth itself was deemed to be biosphere I. It received worldwide attention. Could the yanks succeed in bottling not only cola but the Earth's life support system?

The experiment was intended to demonstrate that ecologists had the know-how to construct self-contained, ecological systems in the same way that architects design buildings. Eight oomans were supposed to live in this biosphere for two years surviving only on what could be grown within the greenhouse. If the experiment had succeeded it would have proved the validity of ecological science; boosted the social/corporate status of ecologists; and become a monument to the pride and prestige of ecologists' scientific profession. The ecologists believed the lessons learnt from this experiment would enable them to design even better biospheres in which people could live for longer periods of time. Eventually, maybe, even in perpetuity. The success of this venture would also enable ecologists to engage in a huge money making enterprize, just like other junk scientists in corporate universities - the perfect marriage of Truth and Profits. They would construct biospheres for use in inhospitable areas of the Earth; in space stations circling the Earth; on the moon; and, eventually, distant planets. Biospheres would enable oomans' to fulfill their destiny of leaving the Earth (where three quarters of the people live in poverty due to gross global injustices), colonizing the solar system, and warp driving their way around the galaxy. Some commentators believed that such biospheres may even help to save oomans if they devastate the Earth, "Ozone layer destruction, greenhouse warming, the pollution crisis, the exhaustion of farmlands and the loss of biodiversity all threaten to cause immense misery. Yet they too might appear unlikely to wipe out the entire human race, particularly since people could take refuge in artificial biospheres." - although quite how oomans could survive in greenhouses when they can't even survive in the great greenhouse of planet Earth is not discussed. But corporate ecologists refuse to regard their plans as being a rearguard action to save a few oomans on a devastated Earth. As far as they are concerned oomans are an enlightened, intelligent, compassionate, species who are looking after the Earth's life support system by covering it in pastureland. All they want is to help oomans to take their first steps into the universe - although quite what life forms on other planets would say about the arrival of a species which had exterminated all 'alien' i.e. non-ooman species on Earth is once again not mentioned.

To professional ecologists, biosphere model II was to be their moon landing. In private, many ecologists were becoming increasingly miffed that increasing attention was being devoted to james lovelock's new science of the Earth, geophysiology, so it was believed such a project would restore their scientific credibility. One of the leading lights of the project was wally broecker - a virulent anti-gaian. He, like most other ecologists, wasn't overly concerned about global burning in the real world, "The Earth is going to have a higher CO2 content and whether this is going to really make it warmer or not we don't know."

In 1991 eight ecologists entered the biospherical tomb for a two year period. It was lucky they weren't sealed in by a time lock or else they'd have been putrefying long before the doors opened again.

A Disaster before it even Started.

One of the first problems to emerge was that the ecologists who designed the centre parc lookalike simply forgot to work out how much sunlight would get into the biosphere. It might have been thought the sun was such a fundamental part of life that even ecologists would have noticed it but apparently they hadn't. They must have spent too much time either in boardrooms collecting cheques from their multi-national paymasters or in libraries learning the latin names for Plants in order to polish up their scientific credentials, "The special thick glass panes which could withstand the impact of a large hail storm had the unfortunate side effect of cutting out 50% of the light." This turned out to be disasterous for food production and, as a consequence, the inmates spent most of their sentence in a state of semi starvation. This sort of lifestyle is hardly likely to make biospherical life very appealing to the one-third of american livestock which is obese - most of whom expect to share their own personal biospheres with a wide range of farmyard Animals to keep them in the affluent lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.

A Disaster soon after it Started.

If the first problem was a surprise, the second was not. The last thing you expect corporate ecologists to worry about is CO2 emissions given that so many of these intellectual tarts spend most of their time inventing scientific rationales, such as cost-benefit analysis, for the endless construction projects proposed by their multi-national corporation paymasters. Even so, it might have been thought that whilst ecologists are a bunch of professional propagandists they still knew the truth and would at least get the CO2 emissions problem right for the sake of their own survival. What became apparent was that they had obviously fallen victim to their own lies.

Almost as soon as the doors closed behind them the concentration of CO2 started rising. One participant stated, "On the inside when we closed the door in 1991 we started with 400 parts per million (ppm). During a certain time of the mission it was .. close to 4,000 ppm." They were out by a factor of ten! "Dealing with the CO2 was to prove a major headache." - as if this headache existed only inside biosphere II. They tried the most obvious course of action to remove the excess CO2, 'All the biomes were put into maximum production to reduce the CO2. The excess biomass was removed and stored in the cellar.' Despite these frantic efforts it wasn't enough, 'The atmosphere inside biosphere II was showing some alarming trends. Slowly but relentlessly CO2 was increasing.'

It turned out that these corporate ecologists had not merely forgotten the sun, they'd forgotten the soil as well, "Too much soil had been put into the biosphere. This was the fatal mistake. For all this organic matter was a micro-paradise. Microbes in the soil decompose organic matter and in doing so they release CO2 and consume O2. Photosynthesis couldn't keep pace.'

It was only by sheer luck that this farce didn't degenerate into tragi-comedy, 'There was only one conclusion. High as it was, the CO2 in biosphere II wasn't nearly high enough. Something was removing massive amounts of CO2.' The level of CO2 didn't rocket higher than 4,000 ppm, thereby asphyxiating the inhabitants in a thick smog, because huge quantities of CO2 were being absorbed by something that wasn't supposed to play any role in the biosphere at all. It took months for the ecologists to discover the source of their salvation - the biosphere's concrete floor. The concrete was absorbing huge amounts of Carbon, "Concrete starts out with a fair amount of calcium hydroxide and then CO2 comes in and kicks out the water and turns calcium hydroxide into calcium carbonate. There was more concrete than soil which turned out where all the CO2 was." It was concluded, 'This completely unanticipated sink saved biosphere II from a very nasty situation.' Once again this is all too symbolic. If there's one thing which ecologists are less interested in than the sun, soil and CO2 emissions, its Carbon sinks ..... oh, and the greenhouse effect. Quite refreshingly, however, broecker admitted that biosphere II had a runaway greenhouse effect, "If they had built a biosphere without any concrete and put that much organic matter in the soil they would have had a runaway greenhouse effect." It's just the global burning on Earth he can't see.

Another Problem.

The converse of the CO2 problem was the oxygen problem. The microbes in the soil were soaking up huge quantities of oxygen and releasing it in the form of CO2. So, as the levels of CO2 rose, the levels of oxygen fell, 'If the CO2 in the bisophere goes up the oxygen must go down. Which it did. Month by alarming month.' The ecological system in the biosphere was so disasterously lop-sided, the concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere was dropping dramatically. The Earth's atmosphere contains 21% oxygen but in biosphere II it was heading into single figures when the plug was pulled on the project. The factory pharm ecologists decided to call it a day when the level of oxygen reached 14%.

The Admission of Failure.

The biosphere's concrete floor delayed the eventual disaster but couldn't evade it since there was too much soil in the biosphere - one must admire these so-called scientists for the scientific precision with which they determined how much soil would be suitable for the biosphere. Eventually, the ecologists had to admit defeat - the ecosystem designed by ecologists couldn't support oomans, 'By late 1992 O2 levels had sunk to 14.2%. Biosphere II could no longer operate as a materially closed facility and continue to support oomans. Starting on january 13th 1993, 475 days after sealing in the oomans, some 14,000 kilos of liquid oxygen were injected into the lungs over a 90 day period.' Pumping oxygen into the system allowed them to save face by completing the mission but there was no disguising this professional humiliation. Within the space of a mere 475 days these wealthy, over-civilized, car-owning, jet flying, consumerist ecologists had turned a beautiful biosphere into a choking, smog ridden, death trap - just about par for the course. If it hadn't been for the concrete floor the project would have collapsed ignominiously within a matter of weeks. The interesting question about this venture is that if the ecologists had been sealed into the death camp, what would they have died of first - starvation, Carbon poisoning or asphyxiation?

A Disaster from the Start.

Biosphere II is a monument to the crass failure of ecological science and the corporate decadence of professional ecologists. There could hardly be a more vivid demonstration of the pretensiousness of ecologists' claims to scientific status. This was one of the few occasions in history when the whole world witnessed the collapse of a psuedo science. Everyone now knows that professional ecologists don't know what they're talking about. It was only a stroke of fortune that prevented the whole world from witnessing the eight inmates clawing their way out of their high tech coffin starving, suffocating, and hallucinating from oxygen deprivation. Ecology is just as much junk science as the ministry of agriculture, food and fisheries' views on bse. It wouldn't have taken an 'O' level geophysiological student using a Carbon budget more than five minutes to work out that this system was totally unworkable.

Ecologists believed they knew all the basic principles of life giving them the power to design artificial environments in which oomans could survive in perpetuity. It turns out that what they have been teaching for the last three decades is so much junk. It will now be much more difficult for professional ecologists to be taken seriously at public enquiries when they try to give scientific respectability to their multinational corporation paymasters' construction projects. It was all too symbolic that they should end up with an atmosphere choking in CO2 and a runaway greenhouse effect. The next time anyone sees a professional ecologist at a development enquiry go up to him as he's getting out of his car and yell, "Biosphere off you detestable moron" and then stick his exhaust pipe up his arse.

Postscript.

After this review had been completed it was discovered that two other authors had written about the biospherian experiment. Their views blur the battlelines drawn in the above review - a geophysiological critique of the ecological values propping up the biospherian experiment.

The Views of Wolfgang Sachs.

Wolfgang sachs, a social ecologist, also criticizes the biosphere experiment but does so on the basis that geophysiology was as much of a rationale for the project as ecology. His criticisms of global environmental managers include what he calls global ecologists, such as those in nasa and the inter-governmental panel on climate change, and geophysiologists, "Environmentalism is being framed through an astronaut's perspective. The blue planet, suspended in the dark universe, has become the object of science and politics. Without the photographs of the earth it would scarcely have been possible to view the planet as an object of management. But there is a political, a scientific and a technological reason as well. Only in the course of the eighties - with the ozone hole, acid rain, and the greenhouse effect - did the global impact of pollution by industrial societies force itself into the foreground. Scientists have made enormous headway in representing the biosphere as an all embracing eco-system. And a new generation of instruments and equipment has created the possibility of measuring global processes. During the past decade, satellites, sensors, and computers have provided the means for calibrating the biosphere and displaying it in models. Research on the biosphere is rapidly becoming big science."

In response to sachs's views it can be argued that it is a difficult imagining most professional ecologists wanting to engage in global environmental management given their primary concern for legitimizing the global plunder being carried out by multi-national corporations. Most ecologists probably regard global environmental management as a threat which would limit capitalist developments. However, given the creation of global institutions such as nasa and the ipcc, it may have been unavoidable to try and put ecology on a more global footing.

Sachs's criticisms of geophysiology seem unfair. It is the first science of the Earth. It makes use of satellites, computers, and computer models and takes an archimedean perspective on the Earth. The dangers of geophysiology, like any other theory, lie in the uses to which it could be put. If global environmental managers adopted a geophysiological perspective and sought to use this information to enable multi-national corportaions to exploit the Earth, its resources, biodoversity and oomans as ruthlessly as possible this could turn into a night mare. But then again geophysiology could be used for more benign purposes.

Sachs's criticisms of geophysiology seemed unwarranted until it was discovered that lynn margulis, one of the leading proponents of geophysiology, supported the aims and objectives behind the biosphere experiment.

The Views of Lynn Margulis.

Whilst james lovelock believes high technology is imperative for helping to understand the Earth's life support system he is implacably opposed to global environmental management on Earth - although not on other planets. Lynn margulis, on the other hand, says very little about whether geophysiology could solve the problems that oomans are causing on Earth but believes it could provide the science to enable oomans to terraform other planets. Margulis has connections with nasa. She is on a prestigious committee, something like a think tank, sponsored by nasa, "Every other year since 1980 a nasa-supported group called planetary biology and microbial ecology (pbme) brings academics, researchers, and space scientists together .. ." She is a codirector of pbme-nasa. There is a certain irony in this. The nasa establishment is no admirer of lovelock's science of geophysiology. Indeed, politically it is unlikely they will become so. A few decades ago, lovelock was hired by nasa to invent an experiment for a rocket probe to determine whether there was life on mars. It turned out that the information about this question was already available. When lovelock predicted there wasn't life on mars he, in effect, made nasa's expedition to the planet completely redundant. They were not too happy with him for undermining their prestigious, high glam, big toy, adventure to mars. The fact that he had proved there was no life on mars whilst sitting in his armchair on Earth didn't stop them from spending billions of dollars pretending to search for life on a dead planet.

Lynn margulis was as enthusiatic about biosphere II as any professional ecologist - she was critical about it solely to the extent that she believed they didn't have the right science to create artificial biospheres. If only they understood geophysiology they would have been more likely to succeed. She argued that biosphere II was not self sufficient or self contained - it imported its electricity, "The 17 acre facility (biosphere II) allegedly was 'materially closed' in the autumn of september 1991 to all but its enormous intake of external electrical power." She concluded the only way to make biospheres operable in the future would be by using nuclear power, "It is clear that at present we are far from establishing any biospheres on mars. The energy needed for the mere sustenance of any biospheres, let alone their use as bases for any bio-industrial modification of the planet, will require on-site nuclear power."

Just like lovelock, margulis supports the idea of trying to make mars habitable but she dismisses his suggestion of engineering a new martian atmosphere by releasing cfcs and fast growing bacteria .. "colonizing mars so that humans might walk in the open along its canyons remains a distant fantasy. For the forseeable future, ecopoisis (by which she means a small scale occupation of mars by people living in biospheres) but not wholesale terraformation seems a possibility for mars; the former is, however, a prerequisite for the latter."

Margulis is also intent on ensuring the survival of oomans given the eventual destruction of the Earth by the sun's increasing heat. To survive, oomans must colonize other Planets outside this solar system, "Earth life will have to evolve to live on other planets, or even, perhaps around other suns."

Margulis not only supports the invasion of space and believes that geophysiology could help oomans to pollute the rest of the solar system, she has even tried to make the legitimacy of gaian theory dependent on the colonization of space. She believes the success of biospheres on other planets is critical to gaian theory because she deems them to be gaia's babies. The concept of gaia as a living organism has been condemned by commentators for the obvious reason that if it was a living organism then it would be able to reproduce. As far as margulis is concerned, biospheres are the way that gaia reproduces itself. The creation of biospheres would thus give gaian theory the scientific credibility it so far lacks, "Such artificial biospheres might be recognizable not merely as a human technology but as an expansion and metamorphosis of Earth's original biosphere by members of all of the five kingdoms of life. Gaia would have reproduced, challenging the objection that gaia cannot be a life form because it is incapable of reproduction." ; "The importance of the development within the biosphere of such enclosed ecosystems cannot be overestimated. What we see, rather, is the tendency of the Earth to re-create itself in miniature. If we take it to its logical extremes, it says not only that the Earth is alive but that it is on the verge of producing offspring." ; "Our relationship with gaia is still superficial. On the other hand, our ultimate potential as a nervous early warning system for gaia remains unsurpassed. Deflecting oncoming asteroids into space and spearheading the colonization of life on other planets represent additions to the gaian repertoire that our species must initiate." To margulis it doesn't seem in the least bit anamalous that ooman technology and overblown greenhouses should be deemed to be the offspring of a living organic entity .. "if we are part of the Earth, so is our technology, and it is through technology that controlled environments bearing plants, human beings, Animals, and microbes will soon be built in preparation for space travel and colonization." The notion of the Earth as a gaian organism (producing biospheres as offspring) is even more peculiar when margulis has demolished this idea, "We reject the analogy that gaia is a single organism, primarily because no single being feeds on its own wastes nor, by itself, recycles its own food. Much more appropriate is the claim that gaia is an interacting system, the components of which are organisms."

It is horrifying to discover that one of the founders of geophysiology could promote the colonization of space rather than helping to liberate Animals from ooman domination and to liberate oomans from poverty .. "the full scientific exploration of gaian control mechanisms is probably the surest single road leading to the successful implementation of self supporting living habitats in space. If we are to engineer large space stations that replenish their own vital supplies, then we must study the natural technology of gaia. Still more ambitiously, the terraformation of another planet, for example, mars, so that it can actually support human beings out in the open, is a gigantic task and one that becomes thinkable only from the gaian perspective."

Margulis believes the creation of biospheres will help to protect what is left of Wildlife on Earth, "If successful, controlled ecosystems will carry a powerful educational message about the need for co-operation of people with one another as well as with other species that support the global habitat." This is absurd. The invasion of space will enable oomans to go on killing other species in the same way as they have done on Earth. Indeed one of the main driving forces behind the space race is the hope that hunters will find more species to murder now that they have wiped out most of those on Earth. If oomans get into space it will be like letting loose a pack of demented, psychopathic killers on the universe. Oomans have murdered enough Animals on Earth - these scumbags should never be allowed off the Planet.

Conclusions.

The stance taken in this work is that geophysiology is quite different science from that of ecology - whether promoted by professional or global ecologists. In addition, the uses to which geophysiology could be put are different from those suggested by either lovelock or margulis. On the one hand, it is believed that geophysiology could be used to stabilize the Earth's climate through the creation of:- * global justice between all nations (thereby abolishing global poverty); * climate Forests to regulate the climate; and, * ooman-free Wilderness areas in which Wildlife would enjoy the freedom to live without the fear of being maimed, mutilated or murdered by members of the royal family or other oomano-imperialist dross. On the other hand, it is believed that geophysiology should help oomans to be more at home on Earth and to share the Planet with Wildlife rather than embarking upon the ecocidal invasion of space. The desire for the conquest of space is a gross form of oomano-imperialism - the underlying cultural value which is leading to the destruction of the Earth's life support system for oomans.