CO2 increase and emotional state brain function
I wonder if there has been recent research into the effects of small increases in carbon dioxide in the air we breathe, regarding the present-day average emotional state of people?
An online search shows that the air outside has risen from 288 ppmv in 1850 to 369.5 ppmv in 2000 ( http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html ) and that in Biosphere II it rose to about 3400 ppm ( http://www.biospherics.org/experimentchrono1.html ) about ten times as much. Although the ecosystem was quite strange in that semi-closed ecosystem with all that CO2, such as Morning Glory plants running rampant, the effects of increased CO2 being breathed by the crew of Biosphere II is a bit hard to find right now.
I recall reading, at the time the first crew exited from Biosphere II, that the crew was getting into hot arguments at the mealtimes, such as claiming someone else got more food than they did, and this was a big deal to them worthy of severe anger; it was said that the increased CO2 they had long term breathed had severely affected their mental state.
Our bodies and minds are keenly adapted to the high energy system utilizing the oxygen in the air, and exhaling the CO2 we produce inside that is of greater concentration than in the air outside our lungs. That adaption was to a CO2 level of less than 288 ppmv in 1850. Now it is 370 ppmv, about 27% higher concentration of CO2 and going up rapidly.
Could it be, I wonder, if that CO2 in our blood that has to diffuse out into lung air that already has 27% higher CO2 concentration in it, is having a noticeable effect on us. Particularly, in what seems to be a generally more irascible interaction style, both locally observed, and per news online. Our brains need lots of energy, more than our muscles; so our brains might start having subtle responses to extra CO2 even before we show fatigue in exercise due to excess CO2 in the air we breathe.
And indoor air, especially in semi-sealed up wintertime rooms, probably has significantly more CO2 in it from our accumulated exhalations, that might add to the effect.
This question is in the quest for understanding of why people choose to do what they do.
Yet of course also the Biosphere II experiment in Arizona comes to mind regarding my extension of teh KESTS to GEO concept to utilizing the highly efficient continuous transportation system to build and poplate a coupel of 10,000-person rotating cities in GEO, expected to be closely balanced ecosystems. Of course, the environment in Arizona does not have the much higher solar influx on one side and the deep cold of space on the shadow side, existing in GEO; yet, they are both semi-closed eoosystems, a bit like my aquariums at home as a youth. Carbon dioxide in the habitats in GEO would just be one of a huge number of living parameters that would need balancing by the myriad interacting living and electromechanical systems there.
But if we as a world of people are actually starting to react toward excess CO2 in our breathing air, so much that we cannot get together and fix the problem but instead just get group-angry and consider fighting is the answer, we are probably done for.
When I was very young, I sometimes got severe asthma, which no doubt exposed me to higher concentrations of CO2 than most people experience. What I remember mostly was that it totally got my attention, trying to squeeze a bit of air in and then back out again. Maybe that is why it is a higher valence item for me than it is to the general public. Nonetheless, the subject might be worthy of some focused research in the near future. Some parts of the brain might alter function faster than other parts, too, as the CO2 content in the blood rises.
An online search shows that the air outside has risen from 288 ppmv in 1850 to 369.5 ppmv in 2000 ( http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html ) and that in Biosphere II it rose to about 3400 ppm ( http://www.biospherics.org/experimentchrono1.html ) about ten times as much. Although the ecosystem was quite strange in that semi-closed ecosystem with all that CO2, such as Morning Glory plants running rampant, the effects of increased CO2 being breathed by the crew of Biosphere II is a bit hard to find right now.
I recall reading, at the time the first crew exited from Biosphere II, that the crew was getting into hot arguments at the mealtimes, such as claiming someone else got more food than they did, and this was a big deal to them worthy of severe anger; it was said that the increased CO2 they had long term breathed had severely affected their mental state.
Our bodies and minds are keenly adapted to the high energy system utilizing the oxygen in the air, and exhaling the CO2 we produce inside that is of greater concentration than in the air outside our lungs. That adaption was to a CO2 level of less than 288 ppmv in 1850. Now it is 370 ppmv, about 27% higher concentration of CO2 and going up rapidly.
Could it be, I wonder, if that CO2 in our blood that has to diffuse out into lung air that already has 27% higher CO2 concentration in it, is having a noticeable effect on us. Particularly, in what seems to be a generally more irascible interaction style, both locally observed, and per news online. Our brains need lots of energy, more than our muscles; so our brains might start having subtle responses to extra CO2 even before we show fatigue in exercise due to excess CO2 in the air we breathe.
And indoor air, especially in semi-sealed up wintertime rooms, probably has significantly more CO2 in it from our accumulated exhalations, that might add to the effect.
This question is in the quest for understanding of why people choose to do what they do.
Yet of course also the Biosphere II experiment in Arizona comes to mind regarding my extension of teh KESTS to GEO concept to utilizing the highly efficient continuous transportation system to build and poplate a coupel of 10,000-person rotating cities in GEO, expected to be closely balanced ecosystems. Of course, the environment in Arizona does not have the much higher solar influx on one side and the deep cold of space on the shadow side, existing in GEO; yet, they are both semi-closed eoosystems, a bit like my aquariums at home as a youth. Carbon dioxide in the habitats in GEO would just be one of a huge number of living parameters that would need balancing by the myriad interacting living and electromechanical systems there.
But if we as a world of people are actually starting to react toward excess CO2 in our breathing air, so much that we cannot get together and fix the problem but instead just get group-angry and consider fighting is the answer, we are probably done for.
When I was very young, I sometimes got severe asthma, which no doubt exposed me to higher concentrations of CO2 than most people experience. What I remember mostly was that it totally got my attention, trying to squeeze a bit of air in and then back out again. Maybe that is why it is a higher valence item for me than it is to the general public. Nonetheless, the subject might be worthy of some focused research in the near future. Some parts of the brain might alter function faster than other parts, too, as the CO2 content in the blood rises.
Labels: biosphere II, CO2, mental function
posted by Unknown at
11:48
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