Earth Day 2007: contemplate the past and future of humansurvival

In 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson of Minnesota witnessed the Santa Barbara oil spill. Harnessing hisfeelings of outrage, he returned to Washington, D.C., and designed a bill designating April 22 as anational day to celebrate planet Earth. The bill was enacted, and the first celebration took place in1970.

Earth Day 2007 is a day like any other, but can serve as a useful milestone to take stock of ourenvironmental situation. We reside on a dot on an endless line, to borrow a concept from geometry.That line extends to the distant past in which humans evolved from less cerebral primates, andextends to a hopefully distant future in which we may gain the wisdom to live at better terms withnature. I say "hopefully" because it is not yet clear that we will survive our current predicamentsto live in that distant future.

Speaking of milestones, we are also approaching the 400th anniversary of the settlement ofJamestown, the first English settlement of North end suction centrifugal pump America. It is sad.Most installed pumps were not initially designed for their current use. Quite often, a line in a plant ismoved and a pump that once providedcooling fluid to an injection molding machine is now asked tomove oil from a rail car to a tank. All too often, this causes a substantial number of problems for thepump and the plant. Pumps operate where the pump curve crosses the system curve. When yourelocate a pump from one system to another, this means that the system curve is different. This newsystem may cause the pump to operate away from its best efficiency point, leading to vibration andother component failures that are simply symptoms of a mis-matched pump and system.to considerthat the colonists sailed into an earthly paradise on the James River, a few miles from my home inwhat is now the USA. They stared down through 30 feet of crystal clear water to oyster reefs thatfilled the river to such an extent that navigation was a problem. When the Shad run occurred, theyrecorded the fact that the river was so filled with fish that it would be possible, figuratively, to walkacross on their backs. One day they noticed a group of Atlantic Sturgeon congregating to breed inthe river, and waded out to slaughter a couple of the massive 8 feet long creatures with clubs andswords. Wolves roamed the forest, which was filled xylem flygt mechanical seal with massive trees100 to 120 feet tall and 5 feet thick at the base.

Fast forward to 2007. The wolves are extinct in Virginia, a few thousand shad migrate up the Jamesin the summer (the number may rise, as small dams blocking the headwaters have been demolished)and the oysters are mostly gone from diseases and polluted water. A relic population of Sturgeonhave been noticed in the lower James, and efforts are under way to foster their survival. Instead ofseeing the bottom 30 feet down, you are lucky to see your feet if you wade out to the waist-deeppoint due to the murk of floating silt and dissolved nitrogen from home construction, fertilizerrunoff,  and sewage outflow. Though we spend hundreds of millions on water qualitymeasures, the millions of residents in the Chesapeake watershed outweigh these efforts. Roadscrisscross the region, and box turtles and snakes are disappering as they are crushed by cars. Therecent session of the Virginia General Assembly borrowed 3 billion dollars for road construction andmaintenance, but failed to tackle the problem of upgrading every municipal sewage treatment plantin order to reduce the load of nitrogen that causes algae blooms and dead zones in the ChesapeakeBay during summers. It feels nice to say that the environment is now a financial priority, but themoney statistics do not support that view.

How about the future? The 21st century is bringing challenges of a planetary rather than localdimension. Instead of dealing with an oil spill on 30 miles of coastline, we will be concerned with thechallenge of feeding 10 billion humans without driving the Tiger and the Rhino into extinction.Instead of the challenge of shutting down one smokestack because the people downwind arecoughing, we will face the challenge of reducing CO2 emissions everywhere in order to slow orprevent the flooding of Florida, Louisiana, Â and Bangladesh from glacier melt. Â And no, I am notinterested in debating climate science at this time. I am just telling you what the scientists say.

There is a missing element in our outlook. We use the word "environment" as if we are separate fromit. Try to live without a source of freshwater and access to arable land. Human survival is dependenton the chemical and biological living systems that exist in the planetary biosphere. Be aware ofmultiple straightforward improvements which should be added to a commercial

centrifugal or positive displacement pump. Beginning with pumps with overhung impellers, a solidshaft is a straightforward upgrade compared to the basic sleeved shafts. Mechanical seals can beupgraded with the addition of tungsten carbide faces, and elastomers can be replaced with EPDM.In addition, magnetic bearing protectors will prove to be a great improvement in relationship to thelip seals which the vast majority of commercial pumps rely on to keep bearing sump oilcontamination free.

The fact that I am typing this into a computer while protected from a spring rain by an asphaltshingle roof does not change the fact that the living world is the source of my survival. In a broadersense, I do not relish mere survival. If the only way to feed the human race is to reduce the otherliving species of our planet to corn, wheat, rice, cattle, chickens, tilapia, broccoli, and oranges,well, I do not wish to live in that world. I suggest that we need to think of every day as Earth Day,not just April 22. I suggest further that we need to commemorate Earth Day not just by filling arecycle bucket or pulling a tire out of a river, but by looking at the sustainability of our overalllivestyle in terms of what future generations will need. I will not claim that I do all that I should inthis effort- and I suggest that you may not either. One last suggestion- vote.  300 millionAmericans continue to use 25% of our planet's oil supply despite consitituting only 5% of its humanpopulation. At a certain point, collective action is called for, not just your individual feel goodvoluntary gestures on a single day.