by Cassandra Campos
Staff Writer
Global warming is a topic everyone knows about but does nothing about it.
I believe that it is the government’s responsibility to find renewable resources as soon as possible and start enforcing them immediately, because we are running out of time.
One of the main reasons why I believe the government should start to aggressively search for renewable resources is because of the continuous deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, which has increased the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by more than a third since the industrial revolution began.
Also, another cause is methane. Methane is produced by landfills of waste, agriculture and, most importantly, through rice cultivation. All these human activities have greatly affected our atmosphere. Because of this, the world around us has already started to change. Ocean levels began to rise because of ice caps melting. Some animals start to become endangered, and this also starts to affect natural selection.
All of this because of the demand for a western lifestyle from 7 billion people around the world. This puts a lot of pressure on the government to try to generate more electricity, as well as to produce consumer goods to satisfy the demand. Even though the demand and pressure are high, the government needs to start using renewable resources and put them forward as soon as possible because we are slowly killing our world.
We are running out of our fossil fuels and most of the other resources we are currently using to produce our needs. Fossil fuels are a dense form of energy. They took millions of years to develop, and when they’re gone, they’ll be gone forever. There are three types of fossil fuels: oil, gas and coal. The amount of these resources we have left is very small.
We consume 11 billion tons of oil every year. Oil reserves are disappearing at the rate of 4 billion tons a year worldwide. If we keep this up, we will run out of oil by 2052. Gas is expected to run out in 2060, which is only eight years longer than oil, which is not much at all. Lastly, there’s coal. It is said that there’s enough coal to last for hundreds of years. But if you keep in mind that there won’t be any oil or gas, then coal is going to be our only source. We would run out of coal in 2088.
These are just predictions. But we might run out sooner, since there’s many emerging countries and the demand just keeps increasing. There is just no denying we will eventually run out of fossil fuels. Therefore, we need to start looking for options (renewable resources) soon.
Having renewable resources will help the economy mainly by creating new jobs. Some of the jobs would include the wind turbines, and geothermal power, which uses the heat created underneath the earth’s crust. There’s also solar energy, which uses the sunlight, and wave energy, which uses wave movement to create energy.
The sustained expansion in clean energy investments would generate a net increase of millions of dollars. The University of Tennessee did a study that showed that if ranches and farms and forestlands in the United States could meet a quarter of the country’s energy needs with renewable energy resources, then it would create about four to five million jobs. This would result in $700 billion in new economic activity per year.
Inventing renewable energy can be expensive at first. But in the long run, it pays off. It won’t be damaging the Earth or using up resources. Al Gore, former U.S. vice president, once said, “As more and more people understand what’s at stake, they become part of the solution, and share both in the challenges and opportunities.” I find this to be very true. The nation needs to focus on what needs to be done and get it done, especially if the government is the first to step up.
Leave a Reply