...BURNING OF FOSSIL FUELS NAME:- NAME OF PROFESSOR:- DATE:- BURNING OF FOSSIL FUELS The burning of fossil fuels is the major contributor to human caused climate change. Once taken out of the ground and burned , coal, oil and gas add to the amount of carbon cycling between the atmosphere and the oceans, soil, rock and vegetation. On human time scales, this transfer is irrevocable, once mined and burned, fossil carbon cannot be locked away safely underground again in the form of new deposits of coal, oil and gas, or in the form of carbonate rock, for millions of years. The transfer is also unsustainable: there is simply not enough “space” in above-ground biological and geological systems to park safely the huge mass of carbon coming out of the ground without carbon dioxide building up catastrophically in both the air and the oceans. At the most fundamental level, therefore, the climate solution revolves around initiating a new pathway away from fossil fuel dependence. Industrialized societies locked in to fossil fuels need to turn to structurally different, non-fossil energy, transport, agricultural and consumption regimes within a few decades to minimize future dangers and costs. Infrastructure, trade, even community structure will have to be reorganized, and state support shifted from fossil-fuelled development toward popular movements constructing or defending low-carbon means of livelihood and social...
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...BURNING OF FOSSIL FUELS NAME:- NAME OF PROFESSOR:- DATE:- BURNING OF FOSSIL FUELS The burning of fossil fuels is the major contributor to human caused climate change. Once taken out of the ground and burned , coal, oil and gas add to the amount of carbon cycling between the atmosphere and the oceans, soil, rock and vegetation. On human time scales, this transfer is irrevocable, once mined and burned, fossil carbon cannot be locked away safely underground again in the form of new deposits of coal, oil and gas, or in the form of carbonate rock, for millions of years. The transfer is also unsustainable: there is simply not enough “space” in above-ground biological and geological systems to park safely the huge mass of carbon coming out of the ground without carbon dioxide building up catastrophically in both the air and the oceans. At the most fundamental level, therefore, the climate solution revolves around initiating a new pathway away from fossil fuel dependence. Industrialized societies locked in to fossil fuels need to turn to structurally different, non-fossil energy, transport, agricultural and consumption regimes within a few decades to minimize future dangers and costs. Infrastructure, trade, even community structure will have to be reorganized, and state support shifted from fossil-fuelled development toward popular movements constructing or defending low-carbon...
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...Killing and polluting a massive proportion of the ecosystem. That is only a small portion of what fossil fuels can do to animals and plants. Alternative energy is the solution to the problem, and that is what should be used in the stead of fossil fuels. They should be used because the burning of fossil fuels damage the atmosphere, damage the...
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...purpose: to persuade the audience to support renewable energy Thesis: Renewable energy helps the environment and keeps people healthier than burning fossil fuels. Introduction: I. The United States is the leading consumers of fossil fuels. II. Renewable energy is energy harnessed from nature. Main points: I. The cost of oil is increasing at a very fast rate. a. The price of a barrel of crude oil has quadrupled in the past decade. b. The United States consumes 7.14 billion barrels of oil per year. c. About 57% of U.S. oil is imported from foreign countries. II. The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is harmful to the environment. d. Carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide are two harmful byproducts of burning fossil fuels. e. There are many health risks from breathing in the chemicals formed from burning fossil fuels. III. Renewable energy is much cheaper, more efficient, and cleaner to produce. f. Windmills are one of the cheapest forms of creating energy. g. The production of renewable energy seeks to harness the power of nature to convert into usable energy. h. There is no pollution formed from the creation of renewable energy. Review: I. The world’s fossil fuel supply is not infinite. II. The world is increasingly becoming more polluted from the burning of petroleum and oil. Bibliography Crude Oil FAQs. (2009, November 11). In Energy Information Administration. Retrieved 9:48 from http://tonto...
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...Burning fossil fuels such as oil and coal are changing the climate and making thousands of Americans sick. Coal burning power plants are poisoning the air and water. “Fossil fuels account for more than 80% of US global warming” (Jon Van, 1988). Burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide in the air, creating a greenhouse effect that traps heat in the atmosphere making the Earth heat up. “Each year, an average of 24,000 Americans die as a result of pollution from coal burning power plants” (Greepeace, 2010). Mercury and other toxic compounds are being released into the air and eater. Acid rain caused mostly by coal burning costs $10 billion a year in crop damages (Jon Van, 1988). Oil is the most used form of energy and accounts for 38% of the global energy source. 30% of carbon dioxide emissions in the air is caused by oil burning (MSc, 2003). Oil spills such as the BP Deep water Horizon leaked thousands of gallons of crude oil in the sea, contaminating water, beaches, wetlands, and destroying sea life. BP was burning oil from the surface, which released poisonous gasses into the air causing people to get sick. Sea life has also been heavily impacted and the full effects of the damage to the eco-system will not be known for years. People have an obligation to find and use alternative energy sources. We need to stop putting people, animals, and the environment in danger. With the continued use of coal and oil, we are heating up our plant, depleting and destroying our land...
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...alternatives for fossil fuels. Drilling for oil within our country may seem easier and less expensive, however it is a short term solution; we must not rely or assume that fossil fuels are an unlimited resource. We must consider alternatives for fuel and energy while recognizing the effects of pollution on the ozone layer. As we explore different types of renewable energy resources, we must be sure that they are safe on the environment and safe to use in homes or automobiles. Another aspect to consider is the availability of the resource. We do not want to waste time exploring resources which are not going to be readily available or resources that will diminish. The need for fossil fuels in the near future is still a necessity until a transformation can be made to an alternative source. There will always be a demand for fossil fuels, the goal is to reduce to use of fossil fuels as the burning of these fuels emits pollution into our atmosphere. The advantages of fossil fuels are that they are already readily available and distributed worldwide, which is very convenient. You can get gasoline and oil at any gas station and even some grocery stores, across the entire United States. Another advantage of fossil fuels is that they are easy to use as the burning of these fuels is what generates electricity. There are disadvantages of using fossil fuels such as the pollution caused by the burning of these fuels for one. Another disadvantage of fossil fuels is the dependency...
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...Thesis: Renewable energy helps the environment and keeps people healthier than burning fossil fuels. Introduction: I. The United States is the leading consumers of fossil fuels. II. Renewable energy is energy harnessed from nature. Main points: I. The cost of oil is increasing at a very fast rate. a. The price of a barrel of crude oil has quadrupled in the past decade. b. The United States consumes 7.14 billion barrels of oil per year. c. About 57% of U.S. oil is imported from foreign countries. II. The burning of oil and other fossil fuels is harmful to the environment. d. Carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide are two harmful byproducts of burning fossil fuels. e. There are many health risks from breathing in the chemicals formed from burning fossil fuels. III. Renewable energy is much cheaper, more efficient, and cleaner to produce. f. Windmills are one of the cheapest forms of creating energy. g. The production of renewable energy seeks to harness the power of nature to convert into usable energy. h. There is no pollution formed from the creation of renewable energy. Review: I. The world’s fossil fuel supply is not infinite. II. The world is increasingly becoming more polluted from the burning of petroleum and oil. Bibliography Crude Oil FAQs. (2009, November 11). In Energy Information Administration. Retrieved 9:48 from http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/ask/crudeoil_faqs.asp#foreign_oil Crude Oil Prices...
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...Global Warming Projections and Fossil Fuel Use By _______ Date: Course: Econ - 382 The belief that global warming has been caused by fossil fuels is a safe assumption simply because of the link that the two share. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that is released when fossil fuels are burnt. Every time a car gets started or coal gets burnt there is carbon dioxide released into the air and it becomes a part of the atmosphere. When this happens energy gets trapped in the atmosphere and that energy causes more heat to remain inside the earth than escape. As the heat is stuck inside the earth the temperature starts to raise slowly a slow rise that has led scientists to believe that global warming exists. The warming of the globe is steady, but its effects could be drastic enough to cause the world to undergo a great deal of change. Everything from the sea levels to the ice caps to even the weather can be affected by global warming and it can cause problems of both extremes, which could damage the earth beyond repair. The key aspect of all of this is that human activity is directly involved in just how much fossil fuels impact global warming and how it can have a larger impact on the earth and its temperature of a very small impact on it (“Climate Change Basics” 1). It can be safe to assume that there is a change in our climate which is referred to as global warming. The cause of this change has been under a great deal of debate...
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...The Burning of Fossil Fuels GS104-Intro to Environmental Science Steven Wimberly February 05, 2013 Fossil fuels are a very important part of our society today. Natural gas, Coal, and oil are the world’s primary and most important source of energy. “90% of the energy we use in this country [USA] comes from fossil fuels.” (http://www.ucsusa.org) Unfortunately, there are costs of using these fossil fuels to run our society. Some costs are obvious such as the cost of labor, equipment and supplies needed to extract, refine and transport the fossil fuels. These costs are taken care of in electricity bills, in the price of gasoline for automobiles and other governmental and company funding. There are many other costs that are less obvious. These costs are the effects fossil fuels have on our environment and on human health. Air pollution caused by the burning of coal and oil as well as dust in mines is causing problems for human health. The environment is suffering from acid rain, global warming and water and air pollution. Many times, the costs go unpaid for and unnoticed. It is imperative that we as a society take responsibility and strive to reduce the negative effects of fossil fuels on our environment. The global warming is a major environmental issue that is caused by the use of fossil fuels. When fossil fuels are burned, carbon dioxide is emitted. It captures heat in the earth’s atmosphere. What is happening is that the more carbon dioxide emitted the warmer the...
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...million years. As oceans warm and glaciers melt, land and cities along coasts may be flooded. Heat and drought may cause forests to die and food crops to fail. Global warming will affect weather everywhere, plants and animals everywhere, people everywhere; humans are warming the earth's atmosphere by burning fuels, cutting down forest, and by taking part in other activities that release certain heat trapping gases into the air. One major cause of global warming is the use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and natural gas that were formed from the remains of plant material deposited during the earth's carboniferous period. We have known for only a few thousand years that coal, oil, and natural gas can be burned to provide energy. It was not until the mid-1800s, however, that we began to burn very large quantities of these fossil fuels. The worldwide consumption of fossil fuel has increased dramatically. The world now burns at least five billion tons of fossil fuel each year. As this carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels enters the atmosphere, some of it is taken up by photosynthesizing plants, and the oceans absorb some. But because we are burning so much fossil fuel at such a rapid rate, we are putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than these natural processes are taking it out. There is no longer a balance between the amount of carbon dioxide being added to the air and the amount of carbon dioxide being removed. As a result, the concentration of...
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...Mostly I agree with the statement that climate change has nothing to do with fossil fuels, despite there being some contradictable evidence. There are also some reasons why David Bellamy’s statement could be wrong. There have been many times in history where the world’s co2 has been from 3 to 10 times higher that it is now, however the climate itself hadn’t changed greatly, so why is the co2 so important nowadays? One of the reasons for this could be that the ipcc has been in charge of climate change reports since 1988 and although there are many scientists on the team the organisation itself is controlled by politics rather than the science, thus creating a manipulated result. Leading from this if climate change (global warming) wasn’t such a big scare, the public would give less money towards ‘stopping it’ and research leaving a large amount of people unemployed. This would mean the public body is being misled and the complete matter is over exaggerated to suit the government. Furthermore the world’s climate has always been changing with little to no help from human influence. This has been proven through both the little ice age and the medieval warm period. The little ice age happened between the 1500 and 1800 where global temperature dropped to an average of around -0.8 degrees. During this time around 1780 industrialisation began in England, leaving London burning a substantial amount of fossil fuels and yet the temperature didn’t increase properly till around the 1800. This...
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...The Changing Climate 1. “Earth’s climate has always been changing; it is the rate of change that is of current concern to scientists.” With reference to Figure 1, and other evidence which you have come across, discuss the validity of this statement. Firstly, global climate change is defined as “a change in the long-term weather patterns that characterize the regions of the world.” From Figure 1, we can see that the Earth’s climate has always been changing (at least temperature-wise), as evidenced by the large fluctuations in temperature as shown in the graph, starting from 150000 years ago. Figure 1 [IMAGE]As shown in the graph, the average global temperature dropped for around 15000 years, and then started to increase sharply for around 10000 years, after which it dropped at remained relatively constant, although it continued to fluctuate by around 1-2oC. The average temperature then dropped sharply around 80000 years ago, and then rose again, followed by another 35000 years or so of relative constant temperature. After that, the temperature dropped steadily until around 15000 years ago, after which it began to rise sharply, with only a small decrease in the rate of increase in the past 2000 years. Hence, from figure 1 alone, we can see that the rate of change in the Earth’s global average temperature has been increasing over the past 15000 years, and even though the rate of change decreased somewhat during the past 5000 years or so, the worldwide...
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...complex and broad to summarize it in several sentences. Some people believe that environmental policy refers only to human relationships to nature; they understand that much environmental policy deals with human health concerns (Kraft & Furlong, 2009, p.341). Putting environmental policy even at a broader context, it can be defined as government actions that affect environmental quality and the use of natural resources (Kraft & Furlong, 2009, p.342). There is no doubt that environmental issues are global issues. Entire world is facing important environmental problems that need to be addressed at both state level and collaborative international level. United States alone is “the largest single emitter of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels” (www.cia.gov). Besides that air pollution in the United States resulting in acid rains; water pollution from runoff of pesticides and...
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...Environment The biggest threat to our environment is global warming and there are many theories as to what causes it. Scientists have concerns that over the past 250 years, man-kind has been artificially raising the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at an ever-increasing rate, mostly by burning fossil fuels. Over the last century the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). This happens because the coal or oil burning process combines carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO2. To a lesser extent, the clearing of land for agriculture, industry, and other human activities have increased concentrations as well. https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=clear+land+&FORM=HDRSC2 https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=clear+land+&FORM=HDRSC2 While many people blame fossil fuels as a cause to global warming, there is also illegal clearing of lands for developing agriculture companies that cause tropical deforestation and global warming. According to Wikipedia, tropical deforestation is clearance or clearing and removal of a forest or stand of trees where the land is thereafter converted to a non-forest use. Developing agriculture companies demand overseas trees and other supplies such as; wood products, beef, palm oil, and soy. The global demand for beef requires large areas of fields to raise cattle. These demands lead to tropical deforestations because companies clear about 35% percent of...
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...Fossil Fuel Risks Worldwide dependency on fossil fuel and increased consumption in the 20th century has resulted in a negative impact on the earth’s atmosphere and presents many risks to society. The consumption or burning of oil emits carbon dioxide while burning coal releases nitrous oxide. The emitted carbon dioxide is “considered to be the largest contributing factor to the release of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. (McLamb, 2011) Other risks to society include air pollution, water pollution, solid waste, and human illness. (essortment.com) Humans can suffer in many ways as a result of the consumption of fossil fuels. Coal miners can develop black lung disease while others can suffer from asthma or other respiratory diseases as a result of exposure to the air pollution from fossil fuels. (uscusa.org) The United States’ dependency on oil not only creates the environmental and health issues mentioned previously, it gives us the problem of integrating national security with our need for oil. We have been faced with protecting the oil of foreign nations to reassure our ongoing supply. An example of this was the Persian Gulf War. (uscusa.org) Greenhouse gases contribute to the effects of global warming. These effects are evident in countries around the world. For example, “in the Antarctica, warmer temperatures may result in more rapid ice melting which increases sea level and compromises the composition of surrounding waters.” (essortment.com) “During...
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