In today's global economy, energy is one of the most crucial and sought after commodities. Who supplies it and how much they supply determines how much influence they have over other countries as well as the global economy. This is why hydraulic fracturing is currently such an important and controversial topic in the United States. Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as "fracking" or hydrofracturing, is the process of using pressurized liquids to fracture rocks and release hydrocarbons such as shale gas, which burns more efficiently than coal. This booming process of energy production provides a much needed economic boost, creating jobs and providing gas energy for Americans. The efficiently burning shale gas reduces carbon emission from electricity production plants, reducing carbon footprints on the environment. However, the process of hydraulic fracturing uses millions of gallons of pressurized liquid, which contains toxic chemicals, and some of this water is left over undealt with. The air near fracking sites is often also polluted and unsafe for nearby community residents. Injecting millions of gallons of water laced with toxic chemicals into the rock thousands of feet deep can cause earthquakes, causing a safety hazards for all nearby areas. Hydraulic Fracturing makes rare natural gases easily attainable, boosting the economy and reducing carbon emissions. However, the negative side effects such as contaminated water and air, make hydraulic fracturing a process that may not be worth the benefits.
Climate change is a long term change in the earth’s climate. Climate change is attributed largely to the increased levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide produced by the use of fossil fuels. There are 328,000,000 cubic miles of seawater on the planet, covering approximately 71 percent of the earth's surface. Ninety-seven percent of all water is in the oceans. The other three percent is divided amongst the two percent ice and one percent fresh water. Making earth’s waters composed mostly of salt water. Salt water covers most of our planet indicating climate change to have a giant impact on our oceans. Taking a closer look at the ocean and our water in general can reveal several clues to the greater effects of climate change and what other ways climate change can affect our planet. (2)
Climate change in the past was caused by many natural factors. First of all, the earth was exposed by the sun which only emitted 70 percent of energy than we receive today. This phenomenon has frozen all water on the Earth but there was still liquid water. The answer to this was the faint young sun paradox that means that there was a lot more heat trapping CO2 in the atmosphere.
Climate change is “any significant change in climate including temperature, precipitation, or wind patterns that occur over an extended period of time.” (Glossary of Climate Change Terms)
Presumably, people can have a big impact on the world around them. The goods they consume or put out into the atmosphere can be harmful to the Earth and cause the climate patterns to change. “Oil provides 40 to 43 percent of all energy used by the world. Oil and coal each account for 40 percent of global warming emissions from fossil fuels worldwide. In the United States, energy use accounts for 82 percent of our global warming emissions, with oil counting for 42 percent of those emissions” (The Price of Oil). Our consumption of energy is helpful yes, but it also has a negative impact on our environment when used in large quantities. Another negative contributor of greenhouse gas emissions is vehicles.
Climate and Weather are both conditions of our atmosphere. Weather is a condition over short period of time, the degrees, if it’s raining, snowing, windy, etc. and climate is over long period of time, if you live in a more tropical place it would be more wet, humid, and hot. Climate is basically what the weather usually is the normal conditions in a place, a longer term of the average weather. Depending on where you live will determine what the climate is there and what kind of weather you will usually have and now sense there’s global warming and the colder places are getting warmer, warmer places are getting a blast of cold and polar ice caps are melting. So now It’s probably different climate and weather for many, many places than it was just four or five years ago. For examples If you live down south near the equator where it’s hot, like in Tampa, Florida your climate is humid and hot most the year and temperatures in the high 80’s and high 90’s. But if you live somewhere more up north closer to the north pole, like in Manchester, England it’s usually cold and raining most the year with temperatures of high 40’s and mid 60’s.
The earth is a complex system, which continues to evolve and change. Climate change and global warming are currently popular in the political agenda. But what does “climate” really mean? The difference between weather and climate can be conveyed in a single sentence: “Climate is what you expect; weather is what you get.” Based on research of the geologic record, we know that climate change has happened throughout Earth's history and at present, ever-increasing evidence points to the roles that humans play in altering Earth systems. The Earth and its atmosphere receive heat energy from the sun; the atmospheric heat budget of the Earth depends on the balance between incoming solar radiation and outgoing radiation from the planet; which has been constant over the last few thousand years. However present evidence seems to suggest that the recent increase in temperature has been brought about by pollution of the atmosphere, in particular the release of huge amounts of carbon dioxide, mostly through Anthropogenic Forcing (human activity) and other various internal and external factors. I...
Over the course of recent history, much concern has been raised over the industrial revolution and the potential climate changes that it might be causing. It has been stated by global warming theorist that C02 emissions caused by human technologies are causing the world to warm, which will cause negative climate changes. The Earth may be experiencing a global warming trend and climate change; however, the process of climate change is outside of human control because human activity can barely account for any of the C02 level increases. Attempts to reduce human C02 emissions is needlessly expensive, and will have a negligible role in preventing or slowing any climatic changes such as global warming or an impending ice age. People must be prepared to adapt to the climatic changes that occur, because it is unlikely that human intervention will postpone them or limit the impact of their arrival.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been dramatically increasing the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (3). Increases in greenhouse gas concentrations are thought to be the main driver behind climate change, which subsequently has a broad range of ecological impacts. Impacts differ from large to small scale, but include effects on biodiversity and phenology (1). Changes in global temperature, atmospheric gases, precipitation, wind patterns, and storm severity are thought to be the driving forces behind the ecological impacts. Carbon dynamics and anthropogenic influences are important in understanding and predicting current and future ecological responses to climate change. Although the number of ecologic impacts globally is an enormous amount, this article focuses on climate change on tropical freshwater fish, land use, and disease.
Antarctic’s ice melt and accelerating sea level rise, the growing number of large wildfires, intense heat wave shocks, severe drought and blizzards, disrupted and decreased food supply, and extreme storm events are increasing to happen in many areas world wide and these are just some of the consequences of global warming. The fossil fuel we burn for energy coal, natural gas, and oil plus the loss of forests due to disforestation, in the southern hemisphere are all contributors for climate change. In the past three decades, every single year was warmer then the previous year and the warmest 12 years were recorded since 1998. We are overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and trapping the heat and recently, the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere reached 400 pmm. Not just environmental issues are rising due to carbon dioxide increase but more and miscellaneous issues are appearing as climate change becomes more severe. For example, regional models and local analyses agree that Mongolia has become noticeably warmer and the climate change effect is damaging their millennial of historic nomadic lifestyle and even came to the peek of extinction. The Mongolian nomadic pastoralists became highly vulnerable to many an unusual climate impacts and extreme temperature fluctuation that have led to inadequate pasture land and loss of enormous number of livestock, often faces hostile environmental conditions that led o entrenched pastoral poverty. This essay focuses on how the climate change impacts the qualitative and quantitative value of indigenous culture and nomadic life style, and how the economy struggles in the magnitudes of massive migration of nomads to urban area while it fails to value t...
Climate change is one of many unresolved issues that people all around the world deal with every day. Environmentalists, along with many other scientists, worry about the rapidly growing problem of Earth’s rising temperatures due to the catastrophic effects it will have on society. Some people believe that this growing issue is man-made, while others believe that this is an irreversible problem that Mother Nature has created for us. Either way, global warming is one of society’s largest issues that remains unresolved today, resulting in what some scientists think will be, “The end of mankind, as we know it.” Global warming, by definition is, “A gradual increase in the overall temperature of the Earth's atmosphere” while climate change is, “The change in global climate patterns within our Earth” (mit.edu). Both of these issues relate to each other, and they both cause devastating effects. Industrial companies in developed nations such as China and the United States are omitting greenhouse gasses into the environment from fossil fuels. When industries and automobiles omit these gasses into the environment, they rise up into the atmosphere and act as a blanket, trapping heat within the Earth’s atmosphere. The factories and automobiles in these nations produce greenhouse gasses that are released into the atmosphere. Then the gasses damage the ozone layer, creating warmer temperatures from the sun’s heat rays. Today these warmer temperatures are resulting in a warmer planet and more violent storm systems, causing more deaths due to fierce weather catastrophes. This issue remains unresolved because the developing nations can’t afford the new technology for “greener” facilities, and the developed countries will not change their ways. Alt...
Climate change, or global warming, is a major issue affecting many species around the globe. Climate change can be caused by burning fossil fuels, breeding cattle that create methane, cutting down forests which absorb carbon dioxide, and the extra carbon dioxide in the atmosphere trapping the sunlight. These factors warm up the earth, and in the past century the earth has warmed by an average of about 1°. This doesn’t sound like much however on a global scale it’s huge and scientists predict a rise of up to 6°C in this century if greenhouse gasses are not cut drastically. Climate change is not just about the arctic sea ice melting, there are many other implications such as, severe storms, floods, and droughts; the sea becoming more acidic; rainforests dying, and drastic rise in sea levels. There are current strategies in place which are tackling climate change in general such as renewable energy and low carbon transport however there are also management strategies that are specific to species directly affected by climate change. When considering the species affected, many will think of the obvious species such as the polar bear and species living in cold habitats with snow and ice. This essay will address the impacts of climate change on an obvious species, the snow leopard, and a not so obvious species, sea turtles, and evaluate whether the current management of these species will be adequate to protect them in the future. It will also discuss alternative or additional management options that might help these species persist under a changing climate.
In the statistical distribution of weather condition and its perfect pattern in an amount of time ranging from decades to centuries to millions of years, a substantial, long-lasting and drastic change is largely known as Climate change. It may be a change in more or fewer extreme weather events or in the distribution of weather more or less the average conditions or in average weather conditions. With the usage of theoretical models and observations methods, scientists, experts and specialists in this particular field actively works in order to perfectly understand past and future climate under certain situation and circumstances.
Hydraulic Fracturing has been a hot debate topic among the energy industry and the environmental protection groups for quite some time. It has only recently started to be a main topic in the preservation of the environment and possible health risks because it was previously excluded from the laws such as the “safe drinking water act” of 1974 (Hines, 2012). Today, however, the process of Hydraulic Fracturing is central in the limelight of the energy industry as people are claiming that it poses a threat to the environment and to peoples’ health. Over the years, studies have supported a safety record of hydraulic fracturing that is nearly flawless and that rebuke the claims by environmentalists that it is a harmful process (Anthony, 2010). While hydraulic fracturing looks potentially hazardous on paper, the boost to the economy and the low environmental footprint it actually has make it a productive and an advantageous way to drill for natural gas.
Scientists have spent a great amount of time trying to discover what is causing global warming. They have looked to natural cycles and events that are known to influence the climate. However, the amount and pattern of warming that has been measured in the planet cannot be explained just by natural factors. Therefore, the best way found to explain the changing climate pattern is to include the effect of greenhouse gases emitted by humans that is endangering important and necessary things. In fact, power plants burn non-renewable sources of energy as fossil fuels to generate electricity for homes and industries all over the world.