PETROLEUM

PETROLEUM

FOSSIL FUELS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING

Please use our A-Z INDEX to navigate this site where pages may link to other sites

IT KILLS US & THE PLANET - Oil prospecting is traditionally a dangerous occupation after the Deepwater Horizon incident, but long term exposure to carcinogenic emission kills many more people.

Petroleum is a fossil fuel that is used to power cars and vans using internal combustion engines.

This high energy fuel allowed the development of motor cars (such as the Ford Model T) and vans that are safe and reliable, taking us from the horse-drawn carriage and Red Flag Acts, to the development of tarmac roads and motorways.

This gave us freedom to travel at reasonable prices and work in towns and cities while commuting home some miles away, except that nobody is paying to offset the damage they are doing to the natural world by driving such vehicles.

While petrol was a convenient stop-gap, in any sustainable society burning fuels that pollute our atmosphere with greenhouse gases and cause acid rain, should be banned when used for routine transport.

Clean electric or other alternative forms of transport give us a workable solution, except that we have know about such pollution for years, but have done nothing substantive to provide the supporting network to allow EVs to flourish.

This is the fault of the electorate for voting in politicians who are effectively working for the oil companies and car makers - who obviously do not want change to clean air fuels all the while they can drill for oil without penalties for exploiting dirty technology, instead of investing in a clean future for our children.

In terms of climate change, petrol engines should be replaced with electric motors that are driven by generated electricity supplies such as solar and wind renewables.

In particular, cities like London, are dangerous places to live with carcinogenic emissions from public transportation. It will be possible to replace petrol powered vehicles with smart service stations that carry standardized battery (or hydrogen fuel cell) cartridges.

Fossil fuels kick started our industrial revolution, powered steam ships and generated electricity as we released the energy in coal and later oil, to make things happen at a faster pace. Cars and aircraft being an example of things we now take for granted that pollute big time.

But it was a brilliant time for engineers and town planners who thought they could rely of this energy source without any consequences. Because after all the world is a big place. Surely humans could not alter the delicate ecological balance of planet earth just by driving a few cars and lighting a few home fires. Then came central heating. Sh*#%

Sadly, we can. We did and we still are, even though we now know how dangerous our excesses are to other species - and we are also set for extinction if we do nothing to swap fossil fuels for clean renewable energy sources.

HIGH END USER ADDICTION

By way of an example, the United States has less than 5% of the world's population, but uses more than 25% of the world's supply of fossil fuels derived from oil. As the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, CO2 from fossil fuel combustion, accounted for 80 percent of [its] weighted emissions in 1998. Combustion of fossil fuels also produces other air pollutants, such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals. The more developed a country in 2019, the harder it will be to kick the fossil fuel habit. Going cold-turkey is not an option. President Donald Trump and other G20 world leaders are sure to be considering ways of curing their nation's addiction to oil, before they overdose.

....

LINKS & REFERENCE

https://www.britannica.com/science/global-warming

CONTINUED USE OF FOSSIL FUELS WILL CAUSE EARTH'S TEMPERATURE TO RISE AND EXTINCTION