In today’s rapidly developing world, vast amounts of energy resources are being utilized at an alarming rate, one which can certainly result in the extinction of our valuable natural resources. Moreover, majority of the energy resources utilized today are non-renewable natural resources like the petroleum products which account for nearly eighty percent of all the energy resources used. Thus, exploring alternative forms of energy so as to decrease our dependency on non-renewable forms of energy and consequently save the environment, has become more important than ever before. Today, energy resources used especially, the petroleum products, and in some developing countries like Nepal, fuel wood, are major sources of Green House Gases (GHG), which is the prime cause of climate change. The threat of climate change to the whole of mankind is greater today than ever before. Rapid utilization of Earth’s valuable resources has caused an imbalance in its delicate natural processes, thereby accelerating the rate of climate change, which is in fact a natural phenomenon. Thus, although clima...
Climate change is one of the biggest concerns for all nations across the globe over centuries. Climate shift refers to changes in patterns of weather which can be indicated through global warming, natural disasters and rise in sea level. There is a group of people, climate change skeptics, argue that climate change is not the result of human activity, meaning that it is naturally occurred. According to Slaght, this refers to internal factors which are the interaction between the atmosphere and ocean, and external factor, such as solar energy variations and volcanic eruption (John Slaght, 2009). However, most scientist claims that human also involve in this process. Consequently, this essay aims to discuss the impacts of greenhouse gases on climate, and then the contribution of human to climate change and lastly, some statistics about the effects of global warming.
With the ever‐rising prices of fossil fuels and the realization that our supply is severely limited, the need for an alternative energy source is rising steadily. Clearly the most efficient of the alternative options lies in bio fuels because they are naturally grown and thus have an unlimited supply, have virtually zero emissions, and can be us...
Climate change, otherwise known as global warming, has grown more apparent in recent years, with increased natural disasters, significantly warmer temperatures and unreasonably long seasons. Global warming is one of the main concerns that scientists have been researching for the past century. Scientific evidence shows that global warming is caused by human behaviors. Due to the amount of human-induced carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that have been released into the air, the earth is becoming a highly poisonous place to live on. Earth’s climate has been constantly changing ever since the Industrial Revolution, when innovations began and factories were built, which emitted mass air pollution. As more technological advances continued the years after, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air also increased. According to the UPI Space Daily News, “Global emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) - the main cause of global warming - increased by 45% between 1990 and 2010, and reached an all-time high of 33 billion tonnes in 2010” (Writers 1). The 1900s through the 2000s is the time period in which humans caused the most air pollution by creating vehicles and other industrial machinery. In the contemporary time period, human activities that contribute to climate change consist of hydraulic fracturing, rice cultivation, the increase of fossil fuel burning, and the rise of deforestation.
Through countless hours research and papers produce on the topic of global emissions, we can now understand how human activities are contributing to climate change. In many studies, human activities produce carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and fluorinated gases that all contribute to greenhouse gas. The ...
The emission of green house gasses due to human activity contributes the most in increasing global warming. Today, fossil fuels are used as a source of energy for transportation, electricity, industrial process and to increase human comfort in this era. Over the last decade humans have created mass amount of industries. These industries have been burning fossil fuels such as coal, which release carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide; carbon dioxide absorbs heat that raises the temperature of the earth. More than 80% of carbon dioxide comes from tr...
In this day and age, fossil fuels are a major source of energy around the world. The carbon cycle exists in order to flow carbon through the many different aspects of the Earth’s system - which includes water, air, land, and etc. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is labeled a greenhouse gas because it contri...
In this age of power lack, substitute sources, which are required to fix the problem of both a lack of sources and polluting the environment, have been paid more and more attention than ever before. There are many kinds of substitute sources of power that are modifying our life progressively, such as solar panel technology, breeze power, atomic power, tidal power, wave power etc. To be able to use these substitute sources successfully, it is necessary to come up with some legitimate alternatives. In this article, some alternatives such as, increasing the use of the substitute sources all over the globe, presenting government guidelines, and motivating R&D will be mentioned, together with the restrictions and disadvantages of these techniques.
The increase of greenhouse gas concentration happened nearly the same time as industrialisation through the 20th, when the worldwide human population started growing rapidly and farming also increased. Subjects of the stores and sources of these gases, both born and human induced, show than the main campaigns of the increasing concentrations are emissions from human actions (Australian Academy of Science, 2014). Human activities cause carbon dioxide input to the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning and deforestation. To this end, this report aims mainly to discuss the causes and effects of global warming and propound some suggestions to solve this issue.
Energy crisis and environmental pollution are highlighted to be one of the major global problems in the 21st century. For the past 200 years, human society has had a ravenous appetite for fossil fuels. The huge increase in human population and also the industrial revolution were the major sources of fossil fuel consumption. However it is becoming obvious that our dependence on fossil fuels is causing many problems that we are going to have to address. Therefore, our greatest challenge is to find means to reduce the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. Fortunately, we have the potential to reduce the CO2 emission from fossil fuels combustion by converting them into renewable, carbon-neutral energy sources that provide the energy services now obtained from fossil fuels (1–3).
Global heating and cooling has occurred on a cycle for millennia, however in the past thirty years the increased use of energy and fuels by humans has drastically changed this natural occurrence (Juerg, 2007). The largest cause of this warming is the release of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide levels are twenty-five percent higher than they were in 1957 (UCS, 2013). This seemingly insignificant change has caused a myriad of negative effects. The endangerment of species, rising of sea levels, and increased natural disasters are just a few examples of change brought about by global warming (Juerg, 2007). Even though global climate change presents a massive problem there are many proposed solutions to fix or delay it. These theories range from creating a giant sun shield in space to the simple practice of “reduce, reuse, and recycle” (Gray, 2009). However the most effective solution is to find different sources of fuel to power our day to day lives. The earth is in need of renewable, effective, and long lasting fuels. Global warming can be slowed through the use of renewable energy as it is versatile, clean, a good investment, and can easily be put into place in several different climates and environments.
According to the International Agency, “More than 40 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2010 came from electricity and heat generation” (qtd. in Weeks, “Climate Change” 528). Meanwhile, natural events, such as wildfires and volcanic eruptions, account for less than 10% of carbon dioxide emission (528). Furthermore, there are cases where human emissions of greenhouse gases cause other factors to amplify the progress of climate change (Reuss 35). When humans emit greenhouse gases and cause the global temperature to rise, ice melts (35). As a result of the ice melting, the earth has less ice to reflect light back into outer space (35). Consequently, the earth absorbs more sunlight and increases the global temperature. Even indirect actions, such as deforestation, contribute to climate change (35). When deforestation occurs, there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (35). This is because there are less trees to undergo a process call carbon sequestration—the act of absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converting it to oxygen (35). Additionally, the technology used to cut down trees operates on fossil fuels, and this contributes to the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere
Energy is the basic necessity of daily life. Nowadays, dependence on fossil fuels for energy needs becoming lower in numerous countries due to the potential of renewable energy to supply sustainable energy to the huge populations in many developing countries who are short of clean and continues energy. Generally, renewable energy can be defined as energy that is derived from natural resources which are constantly replenished and theoretically inexhaustible. Fossil fuels on the other hand can be described as energy that cannot be renewed and will eventually diminish. Thus, in many developing countries renewable energy is the alternative energy to replace non-renewable energy or commonly known as fossil fuels. In addition, according to Sorensen (2004), there is a greater demand for renewable energy sources nowadays due to the uncertainty of fuel price rise in living expenses. Commonly, there are many types of renewable energy available in our world such as wind power, biomass energy, solar energy, hydroelectric power and geothermal energy. However, the main three example of renewable energy are hydroelectric power, solar and biomass energy (Refer to Figure 1 in Appendix 1).
As we approach the future we are faced with many global problems. Most of these problems arise because we have caused them ourselves. We need to face these problems and find a solution. Global warming, although most often overlooked in importance, is a crucial problem of the future directly related to human activities. Global warming is caused by gases humans release into the atmosphere called anthropogenic gases and by deforestation. Anthropogenic gases include carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrofl...
With the depletion of fossil fuel resources comes speculations and debates about alternative energy sources. The world, including the Philippines, is practically dependent on a dwindling non-renewable source of energy. Today, experts are debating about and considering three options: Nuclear, Solar, or Wind Energy. Everyone has been accustomed to the bad image of nuclear energy as a result of the Chernobyl and Fukushima incidents above all others. The popular belief is that radiation from a nuclear meltdown is very harmful to humans and other living things—which is true—and that nuclear power plants are very dangerous and not ideal—which is not. According to Smith, et. al (n.d), all the nuclear disasters that ever occurred were caused by human error and natural disasters like tsunamis, not one because of system failure. Putting the false beliefs aside, with proper engineering and adequate maintenance by experts, a nuclear power plant is a very ideal and viable source of energy for the following reasons:
For years man has relied on energy in order to be successful in life. The industrial revolution relied on coal for the new inventions brought into the world. Life as has never been the same since then. However since that time, there has been little done to improve on energy efficiency and humans still primarily rely on fossil fuels for energy. For over a hundred years the Earth has become more polluted and dirtier than ever before. Now, with new, innovative technology there is an opportunity to change that and to rely on renewable, cleaner sources of energy. The main source of energy for the world should be alternative energy instead of energy from fossil fuels.