Industrial Revolution: The Use Of Fossil Fuels

Due to the use of fossil fuels an increasingly large output of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the earth is slowly but surely getting warmer. The problem with this is that ice is melting, making the sea level rise, and something called “Global Weirding” is taking place, changing global weather patterns and creating storms in places where they are otherwise unheard of, and ecosystem are changing, driving some species to go extinct. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the global economic system has relied mostly on coal and other limited and polluting resources as their primary source of energy. While it may be said that without the use of such resources we would not be at the technological standing we are today, they have

polluted our world far more than any alternative energy source would have. Without some serious actions taking place in the world, we will continue to travel down a road of pollution and destruction that we will soon not be able to return from.
The use of fossil fuels is just one of many complex global issues that are causing climate change, and there are many different ways to look at these issues.

Take a look at recycling; the plastic coffee cup you used this morning can only be recycled so many times before it ends up as part of a plastic bench made from recycled material sitting in a park or a supposedly “eco friendly” trash can, an item that can no longer be recycled; and just think about all the fuel and energy it took to get it there. Another way to look at these problems is from a scientific point of view; based on past evidence and our current rising heat levels, the average temperature of the earth 7 generation from now will have risen 24.5 degrees due to use of fossil fuels and the effects of climate

change.
As we know, our current energy sources of coal, oil, and other fossil fuels are beginning to run in short supply, and at our current rate of consumption, we will have run out of oil in the next 55 years, and natural gases will run out only one year later. Despite this, the major concern is that the use of coal will pollute the earth to the extent that our other natural resources will be rendered unusable. The solution to this crisis is distributed energy sources; energy sources that are constantly able to replenish themselves, like hydropower, solar energy, wind, or even steam. There are also technologies that we can create to actually pull greenhouse gases out of the air and reduce the amount of solar rays getting caught by these gases and turned into heat. We can make our homes “green homes” by replacing light bulbs that use half or less of the energy that the light bulb found in an average household does. We can also stop funding the companies that are the major contributors to our crisis.
Our current economic cycle is a one-way ride to a desolate future, and here is why.

Our current cycle consists of five major portions: first is extraction; extracting the resources that we need from the earth, leaving no way for the resources to replenish or regrow, while also driving people and animals out of their native home. Second is production, where the resources we have pulled from the earth are being make into products, in the process releasing polluting chemicals into the air, while ruining the health of the workers that take part in the production, people that are often the same ones driven from their home by the extraction of resources from their land. Third is distribution, where all the products are put into corporate businesses that sell them as fast as they can at half the price it actually took to make them. Fourth is consumption: here we see people buying the items put into production, only to throw four fifths of the items away within the month. The fifth and perhaps most devastating is disposal, where the product that took so much to produce are thrown in the trash, soon to become part of a landfill, or get thrown into an incinerator to pollute our atmosphere. While these are all parts of our everyday lives, there are alternate options for every section of this cycle: rather than extracting resources from the land in a way that leaves them with no way to replenish themselves, we can only take what we need, leaving the rest to regrow. Rather then

producing products with the use of harmful chemicals and unhealthy working conditions, we can do it in eco friendly and healthy environments in a way that doesn’t out-way the cost of the actual item. Rather then consuming items as fast as we can and then throwing them away, we can use things that don’t constantly need to be replaced, items that we can reuse over and over again.
For the major problems we are faced with today, like climate change and pollution, we will need to completely change our global economic system. During the Industrial Revolution people thought that our resources were unlimited, but now we have started to realize that they aren’t, and we need to find an alternate source of energy. We need to extend our hand of empathy to the environment; reengage with nature, working with it in a way that benefits not just us but also nature and all its aspects. Scientists and writers have said that we are entering our third Industrial Revolution, and we need to make sure this is one that leaves us with a perfectly sustainable lifestyle. Our global consciousness is not one that is supportive of this, instead making us want to buy more things and advance technologies that are wrecking the environment. Imagine if instead of watching a commercial that was advertising the new iPhone, you saw instead something telling you to compost, or put solar panels on your roof.
Our current lifestyle and economic system is one that is sending an extreme amount of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, polluting the earth and leaving little hope for a brighter future, but there are thousands of actions that we can take to change this, starting with new energy sources and a different global consciousness. We have seen constant change in human lifestyle throughout history, why not make the next change one that benefits the earth and all its species?