LIFE EARTH SKY

LIFE EARTH SKY offers a series of informative blogs to help us understand many ways our World is changing as Life, Earth, and the Atmosphere interact with each other. Far more is happening than just a warming planet and changing climate. Our goal is to help more people understand the reasons Earth is warming, climates and ocean chemistries are changing, how life is being impacted, how the gases in our atmosphere are being impacted, and consider what this means for future generations, extending for millennia to come.

Life, Earth and its Atmosphere, our Sky, are each very complex topics to research and understand. It takes the scientific method to research and discover billions of interrelated facts. Each topic is very complex, with countless interconnected, moving parts. We must rely on many different scientific disciplines or specialties to understand and develop effective strategies for healing Life, Earth and our Sky. The scientific research is ongoing and conclusive. Scientists know what we should do. Not being scientists, it is difficult for most of us to understand the problems, their magnitude, and recognize the right solutions and actions to take.

LIFE EARTH SKY aims to inform and enlighten. We will cover current understandings gleaned from multiple scientific disciplines. We’ll discuss the what, where, when, how and why for a better understanding of the changing conditions on our planet. Over time, more scientific disciplines will be introduced for background knowledge. Their blog articles will follow, telling more details, unfolding the story as we go to explain the causes and effects of the changing conditions and direct consequences affecting LIFE, EARTH and SKY.

Knowledge Impacts Everything We Do

We hope sharing this knowledge will have positive and powerful impacts.
Please join us.

July 2021 through December 2024 Update ~

Back in July 2021, scientific journal articles began being published at a rapid rate concerning a book I was writing. It was on hold waiting for the science to catch up. Once technology had advanced enough (quantum leaps), articles that related to my book topics started becoming available. I dropped everything to finish my book, given the new discoveries and evidence.
I thought it might take 3 or 4 months, tops. Nope. I have been working on the book, with new articles related to my book’s topics being published nearly every day – so much to learn and keep up with.
Finally, on December 16, 2024, I finished reading/reviewing/taking notes/writing, and am now in the editing/formatting/cover design phase. Once this book is complete (hopefully only a couple more months and not another year! ), I hope to return to contributing to Life Earth Sky.

Thank you for your kind messages. I look forward to getting back into this groove soon …. but finishing my book is primary. I am just so fortunate and grateful for such significant technological advances. I am working as hard as I can on the book to complete it.

Happy Holidays and New Year! See you in 2025!!!

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Mankind’s earliest attempts to understand energy, matter and his place in the Universe were through the philosophy of alchemy. Alchemy was the precursor to science. It began in India approximately five thousand years ago, spread to China, eventually made its way eastward to Egypt and the Middle East, eventually making its way to Spain and finally the rest of Europe by the 8^th century. Over its long history, its purposes have included purifying the spirit and body to reach immortality and other spiritual or religious goals, improving fertility with rhinoceros horn medicines, trying to cure ailments with mercury, arsenic, and lead concoctions, figuring out man’s connection to the planets, sun and stars, understanding natural phenomena, such as lightning occurs because Zeus throws lightning bolts when he is angry at men, and trying to turn lesser metals into gold. All seemed exactly right, reasonable, and logical at the time, but they weren’t.

There is a long list of famous alchemists. They were Indian, Chinese, Islamic, Egyptian, Roman, Greek, and European philosophers from the past, plus famous scholars of alchemy from the 19^th and 20^th centuries, including the Swiss founder of analytical psychology, Carl Jung (1875-1961).

Alchemy is a philosophy whose ‘philosophical theories’ about energy, matter and spirit were driven by assumptions, inference, and coincidence. Over the millennia, most studies were based on superstitions and folklore of the time, biased by religious, political, and personal beliefs, and diminished by charlatan quackery. Philosophical arguments were won by whomever told the greatest tale (early marketing), carried the biggest stick or had the most power (Galileo vs the Roman Catholic Church; 1633), along with successful discoveries by the occasional genius; for example, Archimedes, Aristotle, and Galileo. The history of Alchemy, through the tales of alchemists’ lives, is fascinating, perhaps even binge-worthy.

Rejecting alchemy as the only means for discovering cause and effect facts, Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626) emphasized reliance on inductive reasoning for leading the mind to facts, rather than the reverse. He rejected other’s reliance on cultural or instinctive presumptions discovered from within, backed up only by the mind’s opinions and assertions. Methods needed to be based on observable, empirical evidence that was testable and measurable through repeatable experiments, which were carefully designed to determine if hypothetical statements were true or false, and included necessary controls to avoid misleading results, recording every detail, analyzing the results, drawing conclusions from the facts to determine validity of the hypotheses, followed by retesting, verify,ing and publishing the studies, so others could run the same experiments to validate or negate the conclusions. Just like that sentence, the scientific method is long, thorough, and complex. It is longer still, since everything must be repeated, repeated, repeated to gain statistical significance and certainty for the conclusions. Science continues to probe the unknown because each research study brings to light even more hypotheses to test.

Philosophy continues to be used in science. Albert Einstein (1879-1955) and Niels Bohr (1885-1962) were theoretical physicists, meaning they used mathematics to discover presumed facts about science. Einstein used to say that they conducted ‘thought experiments’ when they interpreted what they believed mathematics was telling them about quantum mechanics, and how atoms were structured, how particles and waves behaved, both nearby and at a distance. It wasn’t until decades later that modern technology advanced enough for experimental physicists to run the actual experiments to test Bohr and Einstein’s philosophical theories. Many tests have been run with particle accelerators at CERN in Switzerland and quantum mechanics has been proven valid.

Hence, we have two kinds of theories – Philosophical Theory and Scientific Theory. One poses theories based on educated assumptions and ideas, whereas Scientific Theory provides empirical evidence to prove facts .

Due to the scientific method, fact finding does not rely on the occasional genius dedicating a lifetime before something can be discovered or correctly understood. Following the scientific method allows millions of trained, qualified scientists to discover facts that are free and independent from the folklore of the time, cultural or corporate biases, political agendas, and religious beliefs. Important discoveries are made daily all over the world.

Discovering facts through science is essential. Science reveals correct answers to the questions Mankind has asked since the beginning of time. Science is how answers are discovered for all of the who, what, where, when, how and why questions that are asked concerning our World, Life, Earth, Sky, and the Universe.

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“Physical sciences” refer to scientific disciplines that focus on non-living systems. The four main branches are physics, chemistry, astronomy, and Earth sciences. There are subdisciplines that fall under each of those four main branches of the physical sciences, too. Separating out the physical sciences from life sciences only pertains to general differences in their fields of study, in their focus. It is an easy way to categorize and distinguish one major branch of scientific study from another. Across the disciplines, the same physical laws apply, and there is overlap between some physical and life science fields.

Topics studied under the broad umbrella of the non-living, physical sciences include particle physics, quantum mechanics, thermodynamics, inorganic chemistry, cosmology, meteorology, geochemistry, soil chemistry, oceanography, plate tectonics, climatology, paleoclimatology, glaciology, and much more. There is something to interest everyone. Each of these fields can define a career.

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“Life Sciences” study all life forms. As with the physical sciences, the life sciences follow the same laws of physics and rely on knowledge from mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Life sciences are applications science to focus on who, what, when, where, how, and why concerning living organisms (also including some species that are not actually ‘living’, such as viruses and prions), from the tiniest to the largest, from the prehistoric to present day.

Topics studied under the broad umbrella of the life sciences include biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, cell biology, microbiology, botany (plant biology), marine biology, soil biology, and biomedical sciences, including such fields as physiology, immunology, pathology, endocrinology, and neurobiology. The discipline is vast and diverse. There is something for everyone who’s interested in the biochemical, cellular, behavioral processes, and/or life cycles (to name a few) of living systems. Life sciences offer many rewarding career paths.