Therefore, sometimes in the future we will run out of them. For this reason, fossil fuels are considered as non-renewable meaning that they are not replaced as soon as we use them. Moreover burning fossil fuels leads to pollution and many environmental impacts. Because our world depends so much on energy, we need to use sources of energy that will last forever – renewable energy, generating power from natural resources that are replenished on the earth. As we are theoretically reaching “peak oil”, “peak gas” etc.
Green Revolution In the 20th century the food surplus was being out paced by population, which led to mass famine and starvation. With the Green Revolution in place the food supply skyrocketed, and population followed, but the population stayed behind the overall food supply keeping famine and starvation at bay and creating prosperity, for the most part. Despite the fact that the revolution has helped those problems it did have some negative affects mainly regarding the environment. Documents 3,10 and 8 can be grouped together around the idea that the Green Revolution is not the solution to the lack of food supply in the world because all three authors argue that it is a complete failure, that the revolution compromised the actual seed certain countries had been growing for thousands of years, or that the revolution wasn’t what the developing countries needed. In document 3, Harry Truman states that the developing countries not only need but also deserve the support of the developed countries to improve living conditions, food supply, disease control, and economic life.
Sweden , for instance, has spent $14 Billion and rising to manage its radioactive waste and is now decommissioning its reactors. Nuclear power is not green due to all the points made above and also due to the following additional facts; namely that nuclear power plants use a great deal of water, uranium is a non-renewable resource and there is significant energy and resources needed to build nuclear plants. CONS - Nuclear power is not a renewable source of energy. High-grade, low-cost ores will run out in 50 years - It is not "greenhouse gas" free, producing more emissions than some renewable power sources such as wind - It would take at least 10 years and several billion dollars to build Australia's first nuclear power station - Plants are potential targets for terrorists attacks; smuggling of radioactive material is on the rise; no complete solution to the disposal of radioactive waste has been
Last Chance In Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2007 documentary, The 11th Hour, we see that our blue planet is dangerously ill, and we don’t have much time to heal it. Human society has had a serious problem with nature since the industrial revolution. DiCaprio shows us that we are over using natural resources and emitting a lot of Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere. Our next generations will not survive if we keep doing what we are doing now in the future. In environmentalist Bill McKibben’s 2008 article, “Civilization Last Chance,” we are warned that we are in a state of emergency time we have little to save our environment from the danger.
Knowing that we have renewable resources, the opposing voices argued that we need to use less fossil fuels and more of the renewable resources. They do have a valid point, with them bringing up the statistic that we are using fossil fuels 100,000 times faster than they are being formed and many people
The History of the Solar Powered Water Heating System Barbarann INF103: Computer Literacy Egad! November 19, 2012 The History of the Solar Powered Water Heating System Earth is in danger and humans are the culprit by living in a highly industrialized world dependent on fossil fuels and other non-renewable resources. Not only the environment is being harmed, finances are influenced as the cost of fossil fuels continues to rise. Luckily, there are alternative sources of power like the sun. A solar powered water heating system is the easiest initial investment in renewable energy a person can make (Ramlow, 2007).
Over the past few decades or so, the major cigarette companies have pursued a safer cigarette but have not gotten very far. “Industry researchers often found ways of lowering one or two of the dangerous compounds, only to discover that their tinkering had either increased the level of some other harmful compound or so dramatically altered the cigarette that it wouldn't be accepted by consumers.” (PBS-Cigarette History). All in all the cigarette companies have only brought down the levels of tar and cyanide in cigarettes but have not really made much progress in making a “safer cigarette.” Through all these efforts and all the ages of trying, cigarettes are still harmful to the human body. Smoking harms nearly every organ in our system, and causes many diseases, not to mention the reduction in the general health of
We have created massive power plants throughout the United States that emit toxic fumes and gases. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, there are approximately 6,600 operational power plants in the United States alone (“Kinds of Power Plants”, 2013). While not every one of these power plants is responsible for releasing the dangerous toxins, one could argue that whatever the product may be that they are producing, is still significantly contributing to amount of harmful greenhouse gases that is causing damage to atmosphere. Not only are the power plants causing a disturbance to the balance of our ecosystem, but there are the gases that are emitted from petroleum gas and fuel in our cars, buses, planes and trains. There are countless numbers of transportation means in
Unfortunately, the activity of burning or combusting fossil fuels releases various kinds of hazardous substances and pollutants which eventually leads to changes in the environment; such as climate change, global warming, and changes in environmental health. Let us start with the change in climate or climate change. For over the past 150 years, the burning of fossil fuels, such as coal and oil have caused the concentrations of heat-trapping "greenhouse gases" to increase significantly in our atmosphere. These gases prevent heat from escaping to space, somewhat like the glass panels of a greenhouse. It would change our climate, but it would not bring us close to the level of uninhabitable Venus.
EAP VI/A R/W YUCHENG WAN 11/27/12 Is Global Warming Manmade? Abstract Global warming is caused by numerous activities such as driving, taking airplanes, generating electricity, displaying fireworks, using air conditioning, developing industry and logging because those activities emit so much carbon dioxide that global temperatures rise up. Trees store CO2 in the forest system, so if forests are damaged, much CO2 will be released, which will increase the global temperatures. As this paper illustrates, natural climate cycles have already changed from warm to cool, so global warming is not because of natural factors. The solutions for global warming may include improving the efficiency of energy, protecting forests, producing more energy from renewable sources, generating electricity by wind, traveling in more fuel-efficiently vehicles, riding bicycles and using more efficient electrical appliances.