Free «Climate Change, Pollution, Natural Resources, & Fuel Management» Essay Sample
Table of Contents
Climate Change
According to Stott, Gillett, Hegerl, Karoly, Stone, Zhang, and Zwiers (2012) climate change refers to the distribution of the weather pattern statistics where such change is experienced over a long duration. The change may last for decades or for thousands of years (De Fraiture, Smakhtin, and Bossio, 2007). The Earth has been experiencing adverse climate over the recent past. The rate has exacerbated especially starting from the last half of the 20th century (Rosenberg, Vedlitz, Cowman, and Zahran, 2010). The average global temperatures have been rising steadily leading to adverse effect that changed lives of billions to the worst as a result of destruction of their livelihood natural resources (Jacobson, 2009). Therefore, the current rate of climate change is deemed by the majority as a global disaster as its effects have far reaching adverse changes (Stott et al., 2012). It is not only considered a threat to the current generation but also to the posterity (Filho, 2009). Therefore, the current proposal will highlight some of the aspects that are so conspicuous whenever negative impact of climate change is being mentioned. They include the ever-rising ocean levels, destruction of the coral reefs, percentage increase of carbon dioxide, and decreased food production (Filho, 2009). Others include aspects such as increased rate of desertification, increased pressure of the limited natural resources for sustenance. A research question will be developed to bolster conduction of the research study.
How can politicians and scientists join forces to curb the ever exacerbating rate of negative climatic change that has created an imbalance in the ecosystem?
- The ever-rising tide of negative effects of climate change can be, indeed, reverted.
- Various bodies that are responsible for protecting the natural resources can combine forces to create policies that can curb the ever-rising menace (Filho, 2009).
- Examples of these bodies are composed of politicians, meteorologists, ecologists, and astronomies, among other important groups.
- Nonetheless, the two main groups that can create policies that will have far reaching effects are all scientists that advocate for environmental conservation and the politicians.
- Scientists’ opinions about certain aspects such as the global warming are usually valid due to the extensive research they conduct prior to making a conclusion (Jacobson, 2009).
- They have raised various issues about the major factors that lead to negative climate change.
- One of them is the gradual rise in average global temperature that leads to melting of ice and snow caps (Jacobson, 2009).
- The scientists also assert that increased human activities such as a surge in deforestation have led to rise in the level of carbon dioxide as a result of the low carbon sink.
- Due to their extensive knowledge and research, scientists can contribute immensely to reducing the rate of climate change.
- They can draft policies based on their research findings that can lobby necessary authorities to implement them.
- Contrarily, the politicians are highly important in having positive contribution towards mitigating negative effects of climate change.
- They can form interstate authorities that can in turn implement policies that are drafted by the scientists.
- Moreover, politicians have power of switching to the use of advanced technologies that are sensitive towards having minimal adverse effects to the climate.
- They can form regional or global organizations that can be put in charge of monitoring human activities to make sure they conform to the required environmental ethics (De Fraiture et al., 2007).
- Moreover, such groups can be ordered to support groups that portray seriousness and commitment towards rehabilitating the environment.
- Here, they should draft policies that will ensure that their respective countries have set aside funds that can go towards funding activities of such enthusiastic groups (De Fraiture et al., 2007).
- However, the key to success in handling the climate change issues lies within the powerful and influential countries such as the United States (Rosenberg et al., 2010).
- These countries could be rendering efforts aimed towards improving the climatic conditions powerless mainly due to their skeptical nature.
- For instance, the United States is among the top emitters of dangerous industrial gases.
- In fact, the total estimate of such emissions was estimated to be 17.8% in 2012 in terms of the total production worldwide (Stott et al., 2012).
- Therefore, most Americans do not readily welcome efforts aimed at mitigating adverse climate change.
- In particular, a section of the county’s politicians are opposed to the implementation of the declaration of the “Copenhagen Climate Change Summit” (Stott et al., 2012).
- Of course, accenting to such declaration would hold them responsible and they will be required to create huge funds towards addressing the issue.
- They fear that the move may hold them more responsible making them to create more contribution towards creating a more sustainable Earth.
- Their government will end up allocating huge chunk of funds that can go towards the promotion and creation of the environmental awareness.
- They feel that the issues of adverse effects due to climate change should be viewed from a collective responsibility angle where every country must be an active participant.
- Therefore, it should not be evaluated from a skewed angle (Filho, 2009).
Pollution, Recycling, and Increased Rate of Waste Disposal
The current rate of Earth pollution has reached an alarming level where most of the important resources are suspected to great danger (Gaidajis, Angelakoglou, Aktsoglou, 2010). The increase rate of pollution has been worsened by the ever-increasing rapid rate of industrialization due to improved technology (Gaidajis et al., 2010). Industries are releasing lethal chemicals to the water, making it hard for the humans to continue consuming it (Padowski & Jawitz, 2009). Furthermore, the increased release of harmful gases such as sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide to the air has caused immense pollution. Apart from that, the soils are rendered infertile due to heavy reliance on chemicals and increased oil spillage. In short, there is an increased deposition of harmful industrial toxins and heavy metal on the Earth’s significant resources. Moreover, large multinational companies have increased their mining activities, something that is raising more questions than answers among the ecologists. The proliferation of industrial activities has also led to increase in the level of radioactive and nuclear waste, which has led to emergency of dangerous diseases such as cancer. Furthermore, the disproportionate rate of industrialization between the developed and developing countries have led to a new form of pollution (Ulezalka, 2007). The developed countries are active in depositing technological, nuclear, and plastic wastes in the water territories and inside the developing countries (Sze & Londont, 2008). Therefore, efforts are being raised towards increased awareness on waste management through principles such as effective recycling of the waste. Thus, these are some of the issues that the current proposal will seek at developing and expounding in the research study.
What are the appropriate ways that can reduce increased global pollution and which role should the developed countries play in terms of waste management such as embracing of recycling program?
- Indeed, accessing fresh potable water in the contemporary world has become a challenge in some parts of the planet (Hoekstra, Mekonnen, Chapagain, Mathews, and Richter, 2012).
- Almost 2 billion of the world human population does not have access to clean drinking water (Hoekstra et al., 2012).
- The United States is not an exception as some of its population lack access to safe water.
- The major contributor is the increase of the population mainly from the immigrants that create increased pressure making safe water scarce (Padowski & Jawitz, 2009).
- The highly populated areas are faced with safe water use regulation policies that call for adhering to strict policies concerning rationing.
- The policies make them understand that water is a precious commodity that ought to be used with extra care (Rakib, Rahman, Akter,, Ali, Huda, Bhuiyan, 2014).
- In some countries, sewage has become an important source of portable and safe water through secondary treatment (Padowski & Jawitz, 2009).
- The air has also continued to experience increased pollution where harmful substances such as secondary organic aerosol have continued being deposited.
- For instance, there is a common practice of spraying huge plantations with semi liquid chemicals that eventually end up being deposited in the air.
- Moreover, there is a surge in industries that lead to increased deposition of toxic byproducts that eventually end up in the water bodies harming the aquatic life (Gaidajis et al., 2010).
- There is an increased deposition of industrial waste materials by the developed nations into the water territories of the developing countries (Sze & Londont, 2008).
- In fact, this practice has become rampant at the wake of increased use of technology prompting to the creation of the environmental racism term.
- Developed countries have continued realizing more industrial growth and development, an aspect that has ended up creating an imbalance in terms of waste management (Ulezalka, 2007).
- They end up illegally depositing most of their industrial wastes at the water bodies of the developing countries (Rakib et al., 2014).
- Most of these wastes are composed of lethal electronic materials that are harmful to the human health.
- They may contain deadly radioactive substances that may end up in human bodies.
- As a result, there has been a surge in increase of such diseases as cancer and high blood pressure among others.
- Therefore, this trend raises serious question about the role which the developed countries must play to erase the environmental racism.
- These countries should come up with proper policies of waste deposition instead of throwing their waste illegally on other countries’ territories (Ulezalka, 2007).
- Therefore, the research study will dwell on evaluating how the Earth has continued facing various forms of pollution and will devise methods that can be used to curb them.
Natural Resources and Energy
Natural resources refer to the raw materials that are readily available on the Earth, which can be exploited for economic gain and growth (Neyrey & Marney, 2010). In the recent past, the rate of natural resources degradation has increased due to the spurring rate of exploitation (Morrison, 2007). According to Morrison (2007) the overexploitation has arisen due to the improved industrialization and technological aspects. Many technological companies have developed keen interest in natural resources that were initially seen as invaluable (Boichenko, Vovk, and Iakovlieva, 2013). Contrarily, spurring industrialization has increased energy consumption. Many new companies and sophisticated machinery are being invented inducing more demand on the energy. As a result, there has been an increased constraint on the limited resources. Therefore, conservationists face the puzzle of balancing between the current demand and the need to conserve these resources for the sake of the future needs (Morrison, 2007). Thus, this proposal will underscore on the need for embracing some of the alternative sources of energy that can help to supplement the increased demand of the natural energy resources. The research will expound whether it will be feasible to devise cheap and reliable renewable sources of energy. Therefore, the main research will be guided by the research question indicated below.
Is it feasible to increase cheap, renewable, and reliable sources of energy through scientific innovation to supplement the increased demand of energy from the limited natural resources?
- The above-mentioned question is very important especially concerning the need of developing alternative sources of energy to reduce increased pressure on the limited natural sources.
- Moreover, it will also be imperative to evaluate the implication of using such technologies towards the developing world.
- A sizeable number of these countries have huge reserves of oil and coal such as Nigeria.
- Definitely, most of them rely on sales of such resource to fund a sizeable percentage of their national budget.
- Therefore, it will be significant to determine whether imposition of alternative sources of energy will create a huge deficit in terms of financing their budgets.
- The current global demand of energy is increasing at an alarming rate.
- As a result, there has been increased pressure due to increased exploitation of the natural resources.
- Therefore, countries that have huge oil reserves and those with huge importation of it are refining multiple barrels of fuel on a daily basis due to a surge in demand (Cabrales & Hauk, 2010).
- There is over-exploitation of natural resources such as the natural gas, fossil fuels, and coals, among others.
- Of course, the trend raises more questions than answers on whether the Earth is heading in case appropriate remedies that can curb it are not set.
- Moreover, some of these natural resources have continued to be exploited due to increased technological innovation.
- New industries have emerged, which specialize in manufacturing of petrochemicals such as aromatics, olefins, and other products like propylene (Schultz, 2009).
- Therefore, the overexploitation has led to devising various counteractive strategies that can curb the exacerbating trend.
- Currently, there is an intensive promotional campaign about the use of synthetic fuel, which is also called synfuel (Boichenko et al., 2013).
- The synthetic fuel is obtained from natural resources such as the biomass, which can include renewable resources like the sugar cane and corn (Boichenko et al., 2013).
- Agricultural products are being used to produce cheap alternative sources of petroleum products, which rival those that are obtained from natural resources.
- In fact, countries such as the United States and Brazil are having mass production of the synthetic fuel.
- The most encouraging fact is that the method of fuel production is environmentally friendly as it discourages over-dependency on natural fuel, which leads to overexploitation of natural fuel reserves.
- Sugar cane and corn are agricultural products that are renewable; hence, they can be produced on an annual basis.
- Therefore, there is no threat of extinction as they provide sustainable sources of raw materials for the fuel production.
- The method gives rise to the production of fuel components such as the blue petroleum, which is excellent in reducing the rate of carbon emission.
- Therefore, it contributes significantly to reducing the rate of harmful gases deposition on the air.
- Apart from that, the developed countries such as Germany have been advocated for the use of green energy such as wind and solar energy (Schultz, 2009).
- In fact, they have set big firms that manage the development of green energy mostly in developing countries to boost their ever increasing demand (Cabrales & Hauk, 2010).
- While the move is seen as a positive step towards devising sustainable sources of energy, critics argue that this move can jeopardize efforts aimed towards reducing poverty disparity between the developed and developing countries (Cabrales & Hauk, 2010).
- Most of the oil and other natural resources used to produce fuel products are found in middle and low income earning countries.
- Therefore, renewable sources of energy will rival the natural sources, thus, interfering with its production.
- The trend has the potential of hurting the economies of such countries in the future as the majorities rely on such resources to boost their economies.
- Furthermore, they lack sufficient innovative capacity leaving them out of the bracket in participating in synthetic fuel production (Cabrales & Hauk, 2010).
- Consequently, the move may only enrich the developed countries as they will be the main beneficiaries.
- As a result, the issue raises more dilemmas, which the research study will seek at unearthing and evaluating alternative ways of solving the feasible challenges concerning natural resources that may arise.