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Climate change affects cars industry
Climate change effects from greenhouse gas emissions
The impact of fossil fuels on our Planet
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Fuel, SUV's and Global Warming
During the last decade, the automotive industry and many environmental agencies, such as the EPA and Friends of the Earth, have been involved in a heated debate over the regulation of emissions standards from light-duty trucks (SUV’s). While the Friends of the Earth, an international environmental activist organization that uses grassroots techniques, has worked hard to get the federal government to raise fuel economies and emission standards for SUV’s, the automotive industry has been more than willing to produce mass quantities of gas guzzling machines. According to the EPA and other environmentally concerned groups, without tighter federal government regulation of greenhouse gas emissions from SUV’s and other light-duty vehicles, global warming will quickly ensue and lead to such major environmental issues as global climate change. As a result, automakers must weigh their decision between meeting the ever-increasing demand for light-duty trucks or realizing the imminent threat that their products have on the environment, and doing something about it.
It is important to define greenhouse gases and describe which gases are emitted from light-duty trucks and SUV’s. According to the EPA’s Global Warming Website on emissions¹, some greenhouse gases are naturally occurring, such as water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. Some unnaturally occurring greenhouse gases include hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), perfluorocarbons (PFCs), and sulfur hexafluoride (SF6), which come from other industrial processes(1). All of these gases are capable of absorbing heat from the earth’s atmosphere, but some gases have a much greater propensity to trap heat in the atmosphere than others, result...
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5U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Atmospheric Programs. Excerpts from Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2000. EPA 430-R-02-003, [April 2002; cited 2004 March 30]. Available fromwww.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/emissions.
6.6U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [Internet]. Uncertainties: What’s Known for Certain? [updated 2002; cited 2004 March 30]. Available fromhttp://yosemite.epa.gov/oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/climateuncertainties.html
7.7Difiglio Carmen, Fulton Lewis. How to reduce US automobile greenhouse gas emissions. Science Direct. Vol. 25, Issue 7. July 2000; 657-673.
8.8The Office of Automotive Affairs. CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) [Internet] [updated Feb.12 2004; cited April 1 2004]. Available fromhttp://www.ita.doc.gov/td/auto/cafe.html
The tradeoffs of using gasoline for cars are large emission of carbon dioxide and required large amount of chemical t...
Bezdek, Roger H., and Robert M. Wendling. "Fuel Efficiency And The Economy." American Scientist 93.2 (2005): 132-139. Academic Search Premier. Web. 26 Nov. 2011.
Howard, Brian. “New Climate Change Report Warns of Dire Consequences.” National Geographic Mar 2014: Web. 3 Apr 2014.
Houghton, J. T., et al. 2001. Climate change 2001: The scientific basis. Contribution of Working
Revkin, Andrew C., and Katharine Q. Seelye, ?Report by the E.P.A. Leaves Out Data on Climate Change,? New York Times, 6/19/2003, Vol. 152 Issue 52519, pA1, 0p.
The future American commuter will undoubtedly have to transition from the use of fossil fuels to new alternatives due to the diminishing availability of the nation’s oil resources. How will America respond to this upcoming issue? It is difficult to predict which alternative fuel source America will ultimately choose, but with the premier of Nissan’s electric powered Leaf and other companies; such as Tesla Motors and Chevy, with their electric cars ready for market, the electric car may be winning the race to become the new standard for the gasoline alternative. Electric cars resolve long standing environmental issues, but it will need to maneuver around many roadblocks to become a marketable consideration for the general public. The cost of electric cars, currently on the market, makes them an impractical purchase for the average consumer. If cost is not the growing concern in today’s economy which prevents the consumer from considering this option; they may deny the technological advance due to battery storage capabilities and the inadequate infrastructure in place to refuel and provide for them.
In this day and age, our world is being consumed by the rapid growth of the world’s population. From the beginnings of time with cave men thousands of years ago up until the Industrial Revolution, the number of people living on this planet never passed a billion, and was always growing at a slow pace. When the Industrial Revolution hit the population skyrocketed to over 7 billion people. The growth of population has not slowed down since then, and more technological advances are popping up everyday to help balance the rapid growth. The amount of people in the world is literally growing each and every day. As the population grows we put more demands on our planet to provide for the billions and billions of people inhabiting it. The world cannot change to provide for these large populations and huge demands, so we must start being more efficient to sustain ourselves. This means doing everything we can from producing food more efficiently to mining materials in a smarter and better way. If we are not able to make simple changes to become more efficient we will over use our planet’s resources and create drastic issues in the future. One way people have been trying to cut back and be more efficient is through a recent technological development in the car industry. New vehicles have been created with more efficient uses of earth’s resources such as ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEV) like hybrids, and zero emission vehicles (ZEV) like hydrogen fuel cell electrics. Major breakthroughs and development of these new generation of vehicles has immensely grown in the past twenty years.
The topic of global warming has been looming over our guilty shoulders since the early 1900’s. Transportation is the top contributor of greenhouse gas emissions which forms a barrier in the ozone, trapping in heat and heating our planet to unforeseen temperatures, much like a greenhouse. Over 225 billion gallons of gasoline is burned for transportation in the United States alone (CNN 2013.) All the harmful emissions from vehicles are starting to add up and scientists are watching the ice caps...
With all this success, the auto industry in America is still facing some environmental challenges. These environmental challenges include global competition,
Environmental Challenges of the American Auto Industry Since it rose in the 1900s, the American auto industry has been one of the leading industries in the US, and has flourished and matured over time. Ford, General Motors, and Chrysler became the biggest names in the industry, and their mass produced automobiles turned into the primary way that Americans get from place to place. In fact, from my experience, the automotive culture is still more active in the US than any other country I've been to. People rely on their personal cars to get anywhere, even in many big cities.
People all around the world use cars and trucks to transport themselves and their goods from place to place, so analyzing the auto industry gives insight into hundreds of millions consumers worldwide. Since there are cars in nearly every country, the supply and demand of automobiles greatly increases each year, as people want a faster, more convenient way of travelling. At the same time, emissions from automobiles add to the growing pollution in the environment, which also affects people around the world. Since environmental change and automobile use are directly linked, the environment and climate change, as well as ideas to pursue new regulations, have a strong impact on the auto industry.
Halper, Louise, A. ?Overview? Environment January/February 1994: 2-5 Illinois University. ?Greenhouse Effects?, (America Online) Excite. ?Global Warming?, (America Online)
Collectively, cars and trucks account for nearly one-fifth of all US emissions, emitting around 24 pounds of carbon dioxide and other global-warming gases for every gallon of gas. About five pounds comes from the extraction, production, and delivery of the fuel, while the great bulk of heat-trapping emissions—more than 19 pounds per gallon—comes right out of a car’s tailpipe.(www.ucsusa.org) Burning fossil fuels is also a really big cause in global warming. Burning coal,gasoline etc. because these thing when we burn them they go up into the atmosphere and cause a hole in the ozone layer.
United States. U.S. Army. Strategic Studies Institute. Global Climate Change: National Security Implications. By Carolyn W. Pumphrey. May 2008. Accessed May 3, 2014. http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/pub862.pdf.
Global warming occurs when greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, ozone, and other pollutants collect in the atmosphere and absorb solar radiation that has reflected off the Earth’s surface. This leads to what is most commonly known as the greenhouse effect, as well as radiative forcing. In the United States, the burning of fossil fuels for electricity accounts for most of the heat trapping pollution in our atmosphere, creating nearly two billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. The second largest source of heat trapping pollution is caused by modes transportation such as automobiles, creating nearly 1.7 billion tons of emissions per year. In an attempt to reduce the amount of pollution caused by vehicle emissions, cities such as Chicago, Illinois require emissions testing before license plates can be renewed. With the global population growing, the demand for energy is growing as well. We can expect to see an increase in pollution unless action is taken to reduce it (MacMillan,