"The Evolution of Energy": Exploring the Impact of Fossil Fuels.

Out of all the planets in our solar system, Earth is the only one who’s atmosphere allows it to sustain life on it. This atmosphere is a blanket of thin air consisting of gases mostly nitrogen and oxygen and greenhouse gases like Carbondioxide, water vapour and methane; while these greenhouse gases make up for only 1% of the components of air, they are the ones that keeps the earth nice and warm. As our planet gets warmed up by the sun, heat is released from earth’s surface and sent back out in space but these greenhouse gases trap some of it and send it back to earth, this is called the greenhouse effect. For continuation of an environment sustainable for life, this blanket cannot become too thick. While earth has its natural climatic cycle for absorption and release of such gases, human activities over the past century have entirely disrupted it as 80% of disruption is caused due to excessive emission of greenhouse gases by the burning of fossil fuels.

What are Fossil Fuels

Carbon, as we know it, is an essential ingredient of life. Some million years ago, when there were more tress than human, carbon dioxide was absorbed by trees from which carbon was

stored and oxygen, which is also a necessity for life, was released in the air; after many years when the dead remains of plants and trees , turned into geological deposit of carbon components like black rock due to heat and pressure under several thousand feet of slit which when extracted serve as coal used to generate energy.

In the ocean, the dead remains of planktons would also get buried deep into the earth’s crust that later on turn into black ooze called oil and also pockets of natural gas are created. Coal, natural Gas and oil are the known as fossil fuels because of their origin and because of the fact that burning them creates huge amount of energy.

Usage Of fossil Fuels

Fossil fuels are used in almost everything that we use on a daily life basis, infact 80% of the energy consumed by us is provided through fossil fuels; to produce concrete and metal for infrastructure development, to run giant factories for large scale production of commodities, to supply electricity on large scale, to create fertilisers for production of cattle food and for agriculture, to fuel the automobiles etc. 56 million animals are globally raised every year for food purposes and the huge amount of excrement from such livestock farming results in emission of gases like hydrogen sulphide, ammonia and methane into the thin air, 30% of the land mass on earth is used for such harbouring of cattle and for the production of their food. 1500 lbs of waste is created by one single human and when calculated collectively of all humans, the huge solid landfills are created which release methane gas in the air. Methane is 23 times more efficient in absorbing heat in the atmosphere.

Impact Of Usage

Due to increased usage of Fossil fuels, the amount Of Carbondioxide emitted in the environment over the past 100 years has increased by 100 ppm as compared to the 50ppm increase over thousands of years. The natural pollutant of earth i.e. volcanic eruptions releases 500 million tons of carbon dioxide per years which is like the 2% of the 40 Billion tons of Carbon dioxide emitted per year due to human activities. The emission has become 100 times faster and as a result the greenhouse effect is more intense which means the temperature of the earth has risen more than it would naturally i.e. by 1.5 degree in farenheit. This mere one degree rise in the temperature of earth has resulted in extreme weather conditions all around the globe and all the species are trying to adapt to it. It is pertinent to mention that extinction of any one species will lead to the domino effect on the food chain and the entire life that exists may end. This extreme need for a larger and luxurious life has resulted in increased consumption of energy by burning of fossil fuels which has lead to excess emission of CO2. The warm blanket is getting too thick and the evidence lies in the extreme heat waves faced this year all over the globe. This continuous increase in heat in earth’s atmosphere over the past years has resulted in melting of 65% of polar ice caps; 400 billion tons of ice has been lost and sea level has risen resulting in more severe and intense natural disasters like floods and draught and loss of coastal life in various states.; one-fifth of Bangladesh is already in water and Africa has been facing more severe draughts than ever and to mention that India has recorded highest temperature in summers in its history. Air pollution as we know it has been increasing globally resulting in depletion of quality of life as long term effect of inhaling all the greenhouse gases leads to various respiratory and cardiovascular diseases; approximately 20% of deaths are due to respiratory diseases. The long term workers of coal mining factories often develop various respiratory issues and cancer due to exposure to coal for long time. The risk of accidents due to storage and extraction of these fossil fuels cannot be ignored. The disaster of 2010 in gulf of Mexico is remembered by history; the gas leak explosion caused spillage of 206 million gallons of oil into the water , reaching thousand of kilometres of the coastlines destroying the natural habitats for a large number of species.

What can be done

If the consumption by humans is not controlled and the usage of fossil fuels is not reduced soon the blanket of earth’s atmosphere will become too hot to sustain life. Subtle changes in our daily life are required to reverse the damage caused by the burning of fossil fuels and to reduced it over-time. Primarily, fuel should be made out of the infinite energy provided by sun and wind. The earth absorbs more energy by sun in an hour than it takes the entire civilisation to use within a year and promotion of public transport and electric cars will reduce the need for natural oil and gas.

These changes will come only if we realise that the luxurious life we have been chasing after will not sustain us for long and we need to go back to traditional way of life to improve the quality of life.