Preventing the increase of water vapor released into the atmosphere means we have to switch from fossil fuel production – our main energy source – to renewable energy sources. Climate change has become like a massive snowball rolling down the hill for some time now; it becomes more and more of a problem as time goes on creating a bigger challenge in our fight to mitigating Climate Change. Carbon Dioxide warms the earth surface thus making more water vapor which amplifies the warming of the Earth. We must cut back our carbon emissions since fossil fuel production is responsible for 90 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions according to the United Nation Climate Action website. Especially dangerous is carbon dioxide produced in the process of burning coal which is a main source of cheap energy worldwide.
It is known that burning fossil fuels makes up 90% of carbon emissions. Unfortunately United Nation has stated that “Fossil fuels account for more than 80% of global energy production”, making it difficult to change our energy production methods to renewable energy in a short period of time. Knowing this we should first try to find ideas on how to reduce the number of pollutants produced from coal plants, which won’t stop climate change, but it is a first step to mitigate global warming while we can slowly rely more and more on renewable sources.
Coal plants can also lessen their emissions by using scrubbers to create “clean coal”, which is coal that has been burned using advanced technologies to reduce emitted pollutants. Any sort of change that aids mitigating climate change is worth discussing and considering. While humanity transfers their dependence on renewable sources, we may also change our original power producers more environmentally friendly.
Resources
- “The National Academies Presents: What You Need to Know about Energy.” Our Energy Sources, Coal –, http://needtoknow.nas.edu/energy/energy-sources/fossil-fuels/coal/.
- “Renewable Energy – Powering a Safer Future.” United Nations, United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/raising-ambition/renewable-energy
image: https://www.ge.com/news/reports/spring-cleaning-world-scrubbing-coal-power-plants-toxic-gas
One Response
It is true to say fossil fuels are a major contributing factor to climate change and makes up the most part of carbon emissions which is the reason for the speeding up of climate change by human activity instead of natural causes. The name fossil fuels comes from the events that took place in the past eras where plankton and bacteria died out and the remains of the plankton became crushed and buried deep into the surface through the layering of soils. The pressure and the presence of water nearby created the dark-colored liquid substance which is petroleum or crude oil. Over time to the present, pumpjacks are used to pump the crude oil out and create fossil fuel products. Crude oil is called to make the different variations of oil that are used by humans. The most cooled types of oil are gases, naphtha, gasoline, and kerosene which are less denser in content and flow like water. These are used in plastic production and car fuel components like gasoline or petroleum. Heavier oils that come from the highly heated content are kerosine, diesel, and bitumen/asphalt residue which are seen used in jets planes, and ships for fuel and asphalt roads and roofing materials. The entire process of maintaining and getting a hold of these resources is an issue itself. Fracking is the systematic process used to extract fossil fuels from underground where oil reservoirs are not present. Instead, the oil is extracted from the fracking process that fractures deep into ground rocks and takes in the remains of oil/gas through well systems and using water to carry the gas. Sometimes these wells may leak and contaminate drinking water systems underground making the system worse.