So the Earth at the largest level is a System, it separated from its surrounding and understanding

the inputs and the outputs that allow us to manage the system.

So the big things were looking at are the matter and then the energy. The matter remembers
what were made of it’s the atom to make us and the rocks and the water. The energy is the ability to do
work. Now if you look at the matter in our planet is actually a closed system, the amount of matter we
have in our planet is conserve. We don’t get new matter from space so we’re stuck at the atoms that we
have it is conserve over time. If we look at the energy however, it more than an open system. We
continue to get energy coming from the sun and we lose that energy as heat. And so the thing about the
matter that we should understand is that it is conserved and that has huge ramification, if we were
looking for example for minerals we can’t just grow minerals, the amount of minerals that we have on
our planet are finite and we have to go find those minerals. If were looking at energy, understanding the
laws of thermodynamics, the first law is essentially the conservation of energy, energy can neither be
created or destroyed but the second law is also important and that deals with the amount of useful
energy, every time we have an interaction when we’re converting energy we’re losing some of that
useful energy.

And so understanding how a system works is done through system analysis, if it doesn’t change
we say that the system is at steady state or at equilibrium and we can move that towards steady state
using the negative feedback loop or a way using a positive feedback loop.

And so the big picture a system is simply separated from its surroundings using a boundary and
we were call this closed system like the matter we have in our planet is a closed system we don’t get
new matter we don’t lose matter generally to space.

If we look at an open system like energy then there’s flow from the surrounding and to a system
and vice versa.

And so the matter on our planet is made up of a finite amount of atoms. So the atoms we have
on our planet are going to be differ depending on where we are so if we’re looking at humans think that
for a second what are most of the atom in a human going to be so we’ll break it down to % composition
by mass of human body where mostly made up of water . In general we’re going to be made by mass of
oxygen.

If we’re looking at the water so the sea water what would break up this way is mostly is going to
be oxygen as well is mostly made up of water.

So if we were looking at the rock, what is mostly the rock made of that is oxygen.

And if were looking at the atmosphere that is mostly going to be a nitrogen but we’re also going
to have a large amount of oxygen there as a trace element. And so the oxygen in our atmosphere can
eventually become the oxygen in the rock, water and can be oxygen in us. It has to be recycled because
we’re not creating new atoms in our planet.
 And next that we should deal is Energy, energy was first qualified by James Joule using this
apparatus. Here is a weigh that would fall; it would spin paddles inside water and so you could measure
changes in the temperature using the thermometer, we were able to quantify energy which is the ability
to do work. Understanding the law of thermodynamics is incredibly important, so if the car moves from
here to here, its converting energy we’re not creating energy we’re converting it to one form to another.
So where was the energy before the motion of the car? It was in gasoline, before then it was in crude oil,
before then it was in ancient rainforest, before then it was given off by sunlight and used by that
rainforest for the photosynthesis but we are not creating new energy, we cannot create nor destroy,
that is the first law of thermodynamics.

The second law deals more with system so were going to have inputs into the systems of the car
and were going to have outputs. And if we were looking on the amount of energy that goes into to the
car we can think of the gasoline, the energy in the gasoline itself. We’re using some of that energy for
the Kinetic motion of the car but we were also losing some of that energy in friction, in heat and in
sound. And so what the second law of thermodynamics talks to is that in each interactions and each
points along that pathway we’re losing some useful of that useful energy it’s eventually becoming heat
which is non-usable on our planet.

And so in understanding this balance is are of system analysis. Think of it as a bathtub with holes
in it, you’ve got input and you’ve got output. And if the amount of input matches the amount of output
then we’re at what is called steady state.

But what happen if we have an increase in input or increase in output we can lose that steady
state and maintaining that is feedback loop. So if we were looking at a real system on our planet is a
Swiss lake, we would find that the level of the lake is going to be steady state and in nature we find that
almost all systems in nature are going to be in steady state, so they’re going to stay at the same level but
how would they do that? They do that through feedback loop. And as we think about it as we melt the
snow we increase the amount of water in the lake the level goes up we might have more drainage and
that’s going to give the level the same.

What else might happen since the lake is really large we were going to have more evaporation
of that surface area in the level of the lake is going down. Now we have a smaller surface area there is a
less evaporation now the level of the lake is going to go up so that is the negative feedback loop we can
look at the level of Earth system as well and so the Earth is being heated so we were increasing
greenhouse gases and increasing our temperature in our planet and so there is a negative feedback loop
that takes care of that as we heat up the planet there’s more heat in the planet what happens is will lose
more of that heat in space and so that is a negative feedback loop.

The problem is that we have also a positive feedback loop working on our planet right now. An
example, if we heat up the ocean what happens we’re getting evaporation in the ocean that creates
water vapor and water vapor is an incredible greenhouse gas, and what it does do? it heats up the Earth
which creates more evaporation of water and more global warming. Another example, we can look at
this white area up here, so if we have a lot of ice that has high albedo ( A high albedo means the surface
reflects the majority of the radiation that hits it and absorbs the rest.) it reflects a lot of the light back in
the space, what happens as we start to melt that ice and there is less albedo (A low  albedo means a
surface reflects a small amount of the incoming radiation and absorbs the rest.) we were absorbing
more that heat and so we were increasing the temperature.