Fossil Fuels
Fossil fuels account for 85% of America’s prime source of current USA fuel use, as well as the
25% increase of carbon dioxide on our atmosphere. The outrageous costs of these statistics are
obvious with the cost of labor for mining, drilling, building, etc. Not to mention the
environmental impacts of the costs of burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels consist of 3 direct
consequences such as global warming, air deterioration, and land and water pollution.
Global Warming is one of the most slowly evolving and hazardous consequences of fossil fuels.
Global warming is caused by the gasses emitted from fossil fuels that get trapped in Earth’s
atmosphere, therefore it starts heating the global temperature slowly decade by decade. Some
scientists believe this could eventually lead to full melting of glaciers around the planet in
northern areas. This happening can lead to flooding populated areas, wet land, rivers, lakes etc.
Agriculture can be affected if such events happened as well. It can cause drier lands which
eventually lead up to frequents droughts. Some actions we can all take to help prevents atrocities
such as these could be burning less fuels, using an electric care or simply riding a bike.
Air pollution, which is perhaps the most violent threat from the effects of fossil fuels,
deteriorates the air and atmosphere. Fossil fuels create several contributing pollutants to our air.
Such as sulfur oxides, carbon monoxide, hyrdro-carbons, and nitrogen. Out of these factors
carbon monoxide is the most life threatening because it’s emitted profusely from cars and trucks.
Causing people to accept the pollution because everyone in the world is in use of a vehicle every
destination they make emitting carbon monoxide. Addition to that statement, there is no support
to our population from oil executives who do not want to minimize or diminish their profits from
switching to a cleaner; renewable source of energy. Hydro-carbons and nitrogen oxides together
are the main causes of smog. Smog affects our air purity and is more likely in larger cities. These
gasses emitted are slowly and surely obliterating our oxygen and atmosphere which will become
insufficient in the near future with continued fossil fuel use.
Land and water pollution occur everywhere and you can find it happening at just about any
place. It’s occurring even in our average; everyday human activities because of the products we
use on a daily basis such as detergents, fertilizers, and certain soaps. These products usually
contain nitrogen oxides and phosphorus and when using them they release those fumes into the
air. This doesn’t cause as much pollution as much as you think. Farms are a main factor of
causing land pollution. These farms and agriculture places emit many gases from their large
plant and animal inhabits. The reasoning behind it is cause of their large scale of plants and
animal inhabits become too much to handle. Because it’s a large hassle this leads to laziness and
sloppy work and that’s how much of animal waste and human waste ends up in our water
causing land and water pollution. My reaction to this was thinking a lot about how can we
actually solve this and can this be solved? We humans would have to completely change our
lifestyles and habits to actually make a worldwide impact. We’d have to search for a new
environment-friendly source that is renewable. Identifying all the ways we pollute appalled me.
I’ve realized we are harming ourselves as well as our planet and by the looks of it we are
becoming lazier and in the future if we don’t change our actions we will have accomplished
obliterating our home planet. Also what if we run low on fossil fuels? What else would we turn
to and how would we react? This is why it concerns me and why we should all take immediate
reaction towards this ethical issue.
Fossil fuels are an extremely primitive source of fuel compared to multiple energy conserving
alternatives. The amount of fossil fuel consumption today will cause a scarcity; its supply being
estimated in the next 30-40years. This resource is non-renewable and also has huge
consequences towards our planet and ecosystems. No matter how profitable, it is not justifiable.
Destroying and deteriorating our air and its purity, increasing global temperatures over decades
of fossil fuels consistent and increasing used as well as polluting the very land and water we
drink from.