Biospheric life support system

K words Biospheric life support system Cascading ecological effects ... 

A global systems-level study on sustainable transport has been developed by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development [3] and reports that although sustainable mobility can be achieved, it is beyond the capabilities of any one company, one industry, or one coimtry to resolve. The same statement could be made for contaminated sediments or any other component of the biospheric life support system. 

A report of the National Research Council (NRC) [19] has been discussed by Hoagland [20] and criticized for neglecting ecology because degradation of the environment is one of the crucial problems of the century. One anticipated loss is that of biophilia (i.e., the love of all hfe forms). Failure to connect the dots may result in degradation of the planet s biospheric life support system. Decisions about contaminated sediments must routinely include connections to components of the larger systems (ecological and societal) of which they are a part. 

We need to remember that the scale of environmental changes now faced is far greater than ever before these effect the biosphere as a whole and are a threat to the life-support systems on which human society as we now know it relies. 

Certain types of microorganisms, termed chemoautotrophs, get their energy from inorranic compounds, but aside from this minor exception, the energy that runs the life support system of the biosphere comes from photosynthesis. 

Waters, G. C. R., Olabi, A., Hunter, J. B., Dixon, M. A., Lasseur, C. (2002). Bioregenerative food system cost based on optimized menus for advanced life support. Life Supp. Biosphere Set, 8, 199-210. 

The potential that life can exist in a subsurface realm, independent of photosynthetic productivity, has raised the possibility that habitable niches may exist elsewhere in our solar system [84]. As defined by the long-term stability of liquid water, the Earth is at present the only body in the solar system capable of supporting a surface biosphere. Any biosphere elsewhere in the solar system would therefore be confined to the deep subsurface. Specifically, attention has been focused on Mars and Europa, both of which may support... 

Earth s atmosphere is unique in our solar system. Other planets and some moons have an atmosphere, but Earth s atmosphere is the only one of which we are aware that can support life as we know it. (Life may exist elsewhere in the solar system—and the search for extraterrestrial life is part of many space missions—but the fact remains that the presence of life outside of Earth s biosphere has not been discovered.)... 

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