The Relationship of Fossil Fuel and Global Warming

Ever wonder why fossil fuels are being blamed for the uprising global warming issues? Coal, oil and natural gas are the three different forms of fossil fuels that are widely used. Through the process of anaerobic decomposition of organic matter under the surface of the earth, they are formed for millions of years.

It is through the industrial era that fossil fuel was discovered to be helpful and from then on being used largely.

At the present, they are the cheapest sources of energy available for the use of both household as well as commercial purposes. Petroleum is used to fuel our vehicles while coal and natural gas are used to produce electricity for our homes and offices.

How does this impact to global warming? Let us find out the relationship between fossil fuels and global warming.

The main function of the carbon dioxide present in the atmosphere is to trap the heat obtained from sunlight and do not let it go beyond the atmosphere. It is because of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that our planet is warmer than any other planet of the solar system. When there is a rise in the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air, the amount of heat captured by the carbon dioxide also increases. This in turn contributes towards overall rise in the surface temperature of the earth which is also known as global warming.

But while we are burning fossil fuels as part of everyday life in both commercial and household, various types of gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, nitrous oxide are released. A significant proportion of the carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere is by burning of the fossil fuels. Evidence obtained from various research studies suggest that since the middle of the nineteenth century, there have been at least 25 percent increase in the carbon dioxide content in the atmospheric air. This is all because of extensive use of fossil fuels across the globe.

As a result, in the last decades or so, temperatures rise and increased more than 1 degree Fahrenheit and scientists believes this could go up in the next hundred years or so. Thus our planet will be much hotter in the next century.

Thus, this will have a severe effect on our climate. The weather conditions of various places of the earth will change drastically. Droughts and floods which we are encountering now will occur more frequently in many inland areas that have extreme weather condition and will badly hit our agriculture. All the glaciers of the earth will be melting at a much faster pace. As a result, the areas nearby the water bodies like the coastal regions and the banks of the river will get submerged under water. Many deltas, islands, thickly populated cities are likely to go under water. Thus you can see that the issues of fossil fuels and global warming and climate change intertwined with each other.

Combustion of fossil fuels not only gives out carbon dioxide into the air, it also releases many other harmful acidic substances like sulfuric acid and carbonic acid and cause air pollution. When in air, these gases undergo some chemical changes and return to the surface of the earth in the form of an acid rain bringing in huge impact in the entire environment.

This affects our environment through the soil and plant life and causes pollution. Large areas of land surfaces are dug up for the purpose of extraction of fossil fuels from their deposits under the earth. After the removal, this land becomes unusable and thus causes a permanent damage to the land and causes frequent earthquakes. Fossil fuels are transported from one place to another by tankers and ships. Any leakage in these tankers causes oil spills which affects our sea and including the sea creatures and our natural resources. Our biodiversity and ecology is being affected leading to imbalance ecology.

These talks about global warming and fossil fuels have long been an overrated issue that the government, private sectors and businessmen are debating and some skeptics still believe that it has nothing to do with what we are experiencing now.

This issue just like religion issue is a very long, vague and deep issue that we need to focus on. We all have a role to play in contributing or avoiding this to happen in the future.

If we take a small step in resolving this, then we can find solution. For this, we have to reduce our huge demand for energy or find alternative ways. It is so ironic though with the way we are living now, saving energy by walking on short distances and not using vehicles helps and by simply planting some more trees and avoiding cutting trees is also a good way because trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and trees absorb water from landslides and floods.

Those are some simple ways that we can do to help save our dying planet.