Word: oxygenate
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...biosphere (see chart, page 59) is an extraordinarily thin global envelope that sustains the only known life in the universe. At least 400 million years ago, some primeval accident allowed plant life to enrich the atmosphere to a life-supporting mixture of 20% oxygen, plus nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide and water vapor. With uncanny precision, the mixture was then maintained by plants, animals and bacteria, which used and returned the gases at equal rates. The result is a closed system, a balanced cycle in which nothing is wasted and everything counts...
...example, about 70% of the earth's oxygen is produced by ocean phytoplankton?passively floating plants and animals. This entire living system modified temperatures, curbed floods and nurtured man about 5,000,000 years ago. Only if the biosphere survives can man survive...
...tertiary treatment plants, they do not exterminate man-killing viruses, like those that cause infectious hepatitis. They also convert organic waste into inorganic compounds, especially nitrates and phosphates. When these are pumped into rivers and lakes, they fertilize aquatic plants, which flourish and then die. Most of the dissolved oxygen in the water is used up when they decompose. As a result, lakes "die" in the sense that they become devoid of oxygen, bereft of fish, choked by weeds. In short, by solving one problem (dirty water), the sewage plants create another (eutrophication...
Scientists have known for a long time that in large amounts the gas severely impairs the ability of the blood's hemoglobin to carry oxygen from lungs to tissues. The result is a loss of energy and a crippling of both mental and physical reactions. Inhaling the gas from auto exhaust has become a popular method of suicide. Now, because the highly industrialized Northern Hemisphere contains more than 90% of the world's CO, U.S. scientists are voicing new concern about its effects...
...parts per million parts of air-a level that is no rarity in today's congested cities. At that point it can harm pregnant women and victims of bronchitis, emphysema and chronic heart disease. A damaged heart, for example, may be unable to compensate for reduced oxygen supply, and death may result. In Chicago and Philadelphia, says John Middleton, a top federal air-control official, the CO danger point "is exceeded throughout one-third to one-half of the day, and in Los Angeles more than 40% of the time." Each day in Los Angeles, cars spew...