Word: oxygenate
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...vast web of interacting processes and organisms that form the rhythmic cycles and food chains in which one part of the living environment feeds on another. The biosphere is no immutable feature of the earth. Roughly 400 million years ago, terrestrial life consisted of some primitive organisms that consumed oxygen as fast as green plants manufactured it. Only by some primeval accident were the greedy organisms buried in sedimentary rock (as the source of crude oil, for example), thus permitting the atmosphere to become enriched to a life-sustaining mix of 20% oxygen, plus nitrogen, argon, carbon dioxide and water...
Industry already devours water on a vast scale-600,000 gal. to make one ton of synthetic rubber, for example-and the resultant hot water releases the dissolved oxygen in rivers and lakes. This kills the oxygen-dependent bacteria that degrade sewage. Meanwhile, the country's ever-mounting sewage is causing other oxygen-robbing processes. By 1980, these burdens may well dangerously deplete the oxygen in all 22 U.S. river basins. The first massive warning is what happened to Lake Erie, where overwhelming sewage from Detroit and other cities cut the oxygen content of most of the lake...
...also kill lakes. The problem is that treated sewage contains nitrate and phosphate, fertilizing substances widely used in agriculture that make things worse in overfertilized lakes. Though nitrate is normally harmless in the body, intestinal bacteria can turn it into nitrite, a compound that hinders hemoglobin from transporting oxygen to the tissues, causing labored breathing and even suffocation...
...some disaster may be lurking in all this, but laymen hardly know which scientist to believe. As a result of fossil-fuel burning, for example, carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen about 14% since 1860. According to Ecologist Lamont C. Cole, man is thus reducing the rate of oxygen regeneration, and Cole envisions a crisis in which the amount of oxygen on earth might disastrously decline. Other scientists fret that rising carbon dioxide will prevent heat from escaping into space. They foresee a hotter earth that could melt the polar icecaps, raise oceans as much...
Although Rizor had the advantage of relative youth, his long-standing heart disease had impaired his lung function, and after the operation he still needed artificial respiration, by way of an oxygen tube cut into his windpipe. Rizor's new heart was doing a fine job of pumping more blood, but the blood was not taking up enough oxygen. Explained Shumway: "This change in circulation has confused his lungs to some extent. The problem is whether there can be a satisfactory adjustment to the new heart. Liver and kidney functions are fine-in other words, all systems...