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Environmental impact of petroleum industry – Cause and solution
18 December 2019, 1:12 AM
The petroleum industry has been thriving for many years as the demand for fossil fuel is increasing. However, not only is fossil fuel energy is limited and non-renewable but it is also harmful to the environment. This particular information is very alarming since our planet’s health is rapidly deteriorating. One of the main concerns of using fossil fuel energy is the emission of harmful particles to the environment. Particularly a certain pollutant called carbon dioxide. The excessive amount of carbon dioxide released to the air has had negative effects on the environment even more than what we had anticipated. For a given situation, carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas where excessive emission will cause greenhouse effect. Greenhouse effect is where carbon dioxide traps sun radiation inside the Earth’s atmosphere, not allowing the hot air to escape outside the atmosphere thus causing the Earth’s temperature to rise. When the atmosphere’s temperature rises, global warming will occur and polar ice caps will melt. When polar ice caps melt, the water level will rise and can cause massive floods throughout the entire world. Other than emission of carbon dioxide, fossil fuel also releases other harmful pollutants such as nitrogen oxide and black carbon. These harmful pollutants being released to the air caused the increase in occurrence of acid rain. Acid rain can cause the disruption of our eco system as it can destroy our rainforests and contaminate our clean water. This will undoubtedly increase our health cost as more and more people will be infected with diseases, old and new.
With all these hard evidences that further consumption of fossil fuel will destroy our planet, we still have not learnt our lesson and have no intention of switching to a much cleaner, safer source of energy. The only way we can reduce the negative impacts and prevent the destruction of our planet is by switching to a clean renewable source of energy. Many researchers and scientist have voiced out the idea of switching to hydrogen energy. Hydrogen energy is deprived from water and is emission pollutant free although the process is difficult and expensive. However, in the long run it may be a lot cheaper than the current sale of fossil fuel if we can cover the supply and demand. Researchers have stated that if we switch fossil fuel vehicles with hydrogen cell vehicles, we can reduce air pollution by more than half. Switching to electric cars or hybrids can also contribute to a cleaner environment as it has less harmful chemicals being emitted. Using an alternative and cleaner energy not only proves that it is relatively safer to the environment but it is also cost efficient. Researchers have proved that our health cost will be reduced by more than 60% and our climate cost will also decrease by half. Although switching our main source of energy to a cleaner source of energy is not easy as it involves political issues and occurrences of economic crisis, we have to look further into or future. Where will humanity be for the next hundred years to come? Will we destroy ourselves due to our selfish greed and lack of concern for the environment? Or will we want to make a better future by changing our ways in the present? In the end, the decision has always been in our hands, but will we make the right one?
23 December 2019, 9:38 PM
Nice Research, your call will be heard and the right choice will be made as well. Thank you!
26 December 2019, 7:22 PM
Food for thought:
What are petroleum powerhouses doing about this? Petronas, Exxonmobil and Shell?
To resolve the problem, we treat it right at the root - where the source is uprooted. The switch is not overnight, but what exit plans are they working on, if any? Or are they still celebrating by the breakthrough of how deep their technology can drill into the core of our future generations' home? (notice a particular banner by one of the above mentioned powerhouse as you return from any trip back to KLIA2)!
Also, we can do more than be keyboard warriors, the least we should have heard about is Greta Thunberg, but to my knowledge, in 100 people I spoke to in the above powerhouses circles, not 1 have heard about her.