Macro-Engineers' Dreams, Richard Cathcart Chapter 1, page 3 Before 1901, biologists had yet to study all of our Earth's life, actually observing but a tiny fraction of its species (with a total mass today of 3.6 × 1017 grams), which defined its biosphere spatially.[29] The present-day mass of Earth's biosphere is approximately 1.148 × 1019 grams. Until the 20th century, biologists simply did not have access to all of Earth's zone of life (global Nature). Even today, there are places in the Arctic, the Antarctic, and the abyssal parts of our world's ocean which are yet unseen by visitors with enquiring minds. [30] Compromising with their personal physical limitations, biologists then adopted a practical methodological approach to the study of Earth's life environment and forms, which was ad hoc and twofold: to view what organized living matter they could in terms of kinds of entities, and to view our global Nature's regions; that is, intellectually convenient geographical volumes of Earth. Various terms have been proposed over the years for universal designation of such regions, but the term that is most often used in today's Hollywood-television-publishing complex of popular and technical literature is "ecosystem," first suggested by Arthur George Tansley (1871-1955) in 1936, approximately the same year in which John Maynard Keynes conceived macro-economics. [31] Since only slightly more than a single human generation had elapsed following Haeckel's coinage, "ecosystem" represented, and still epitomizes, a relatively new concept and, therefore, the concept was and still remains open to quite individual statement, both scientific and political. [32] Many moderns do use the term as a synonym for Earth-biosphere; others restrict its application to variously defined regional subdivisions of our Earth's life-containing zone. Used in its total sense, ecosystem is presumed to denote mankind's only intelligible field for biological and geoscientific investigation since it is the present-day environment of Homo sapiens. When the term "ecosystem" is used in its broadest sense, some kind of globally applicable scientific or philosophical judgment is usually being attempted. Countries, if considered as ecosystems, present scientists and law-biding politicians with very clearly demarcated boundaries! [33] Membership in the United Nations General Assembly has grown from 51 (on 15 October 1945) to 184 (by September 1993)! (The total number of nations now stands at 193, according to the National Geographic Society. Before the turn of the 21st century, geopoliticians expect formation of 10 to 30 more, some of which will not seek UNO membership.) However, since 1991-1992, several fundamental principles of international relations (such as the sovereignty of the state generally deemed supreme, national borders as sacrosanct, and territorial integrity as basic) are being redefined by the UNO. Nowadays, there is a trend, which may lead to the removal of legitimacy of state governments and result in UNO-fostered changes to the generally accepted legal status of international boundaries. Policy analysts of the Washington, DC-based Institute for Policy Studies claim that "Today, no one knows the Earth better than the military." [34] (The two current superpower military organizations were first in our planet to define a biosphere (Earth's) as an "integrated battlefield," a large geographical area involving the potential wartime use of nuclear, chemical, and conventional weapons!) [35] At a time when two military superpowers hope to establish a lasting new world order, both recognize the "right to self-expression" by groups of people. However, such a right need not take the form of political independence (self-determination). These current, post-Cold War superpower policies essentially recreate the same international geopolitical situation initiated about 1920 by the US and the USSR after World War I. [36] "Traditional" political and military alliances, which have defined the pattern of international relations since World War II, are now changing. Economic alliances are now playing an increasingly important role in shaping international relations. As our world's major extant economic alliances gain a fuller identity and mission, they could displace many "traditional" military and political alliances. Eventually, even these powerful economic alliances will wither, transformed into another type of global alliance system during a period of universal opulence made possible by nanotechnology. Unfortunately, that future alliance might consist of a single "system thinking" elite that is indifferent to nationalism. [37] Geoscientists speak concernedly of ecosystems even larger than our Earth's biosphere. Since life in other planets of our Solar System is yet to be ruled out, there may well be a Solar System ecosystem based on energy radiated by our Sun. Our "Earth surface" is embedded in a Solar System habitable zone. [38] Since cosmic radiation and debris from the interstellar medium [39] flow into our Solar System from the Milky Way Galaxy [40] and beyond, there may exist an ecosystem with an almost incomprehensible volume (one reasonable calculation shows our known physical universe to have a volume of 8.948 × 1078 cubic meters)! [41] Our Anthropocosmos is extensible [42] and ours is a world still very much in the making! [43] No professional scientist yet knows of any pressing need to coin terms to signify such gigantic systems, which might exist within our Universe. [44] Of course, geographical (and spatiographical) names are unlimited classes of words. According to most life scientists who subscribe to post-Darwin evolution theories, "rational man" is a product of Earth, and Earth's biosphere is Homo sapiens' territory. The human body contains at least 1027 atoms – any so-called teleportation device or matter transmitter would have to be awfully fast and always perfectly accurate to safely "beam" a human anywhere! The individual human body is, defined in mechanical engineering terms, a 10-cycle, closed-loop, sensing, computing (an ambulatory analog processing and storage mechanism – 10 trillion bytes of memory – with a bandwidth of about 50 bits per second), and performance system in a 100-kilogram chassis with a 75-watt motor. [45] Daily muscular energy available from 1,000,000 calories is equivalent to 1.2 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Self-fueling, each meal causes a temporary 1% gain in weight. Architects, meteorologists, and others usually consider a living person as a 120-watt convector heater. Individual human beings – females have a center of gravity 12% lower than males [46] – ordinarily have a "duty cycle" of sixteen hours on to eight hours off and each has virtually inextendable "biological clock." [47] This definition of our naturally-intelligent species [48] should serve to develop a reader's perspective on state-of-the-art [49] American geography since the start of the Space Age. United Nations demographers have estimated that our world's human populace exceeded 5.0 billion by mid-1987, or exactly twice what it was thought to be in 1950. Of that 1987 total, about 45% of those economically active persons were then engaged in agriculture, while 55% were industrial ideologues. NEXT PAGE - PREVIOUS PAGE - INDEX BACK TO TOP