So how does burning fossil fuels affect the environment?by Dharmendra Kapri | 10-10-2014 17:20 |
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When plants are growing, they take in carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air, and when the trees in the swampy forests died and sank underground all those millions of years ago, they took lots of this carbon with them. The ancient ocean creatures that form oil and gas had lots of carbon in their tiny shells and bones, which has also been trapped underground for millions of years. Carbon burns easily, which means that we now dig up these trees and sea creatures, which have fossilized into coal, oil and gas, and burn them as fuel in our homes, in electricity power stations and factories. We also burn oil as petrol or diesel in our cars, lorries, trains, boats and planes and we use oil to make plastics, synthetic fabrics, chemicals and medicines. We are therefore using up fossil fuels faster than they can be replaced. This means that they are going to run out eventually. Also, burning fossil fuels releases the carbon dioxide and other gases back into the air,causing visible pollution like smoke and smog as well as invisible problems like acid rain and global warming. Los Angeles in the USA and Mexico City in South America are examples of cities that suffer from dirty smog from all the cars? exhausts. This not only looks horrible, but it can cause breathing problems like asthma and can irritate peoples? eyes. Acid rain occurs when the acidic CO2 in the smoke mixes with the water vapor in the air and falls as rain that is harmful to plants and fish. The Earth has a natural layer of greenhouse gases surrounding it - including water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide - rather like a blanket wrapped around the globe. If these gases weren?t there, it would be far too cold for life to survive on Earth so they are essential in certain quantities. The climate has warmed and cooled naturally and regularly over the last few million years. However, it is now almost certain that the burning of fossil fuels is upsetting the natural balance of gases in the atmosphere, causing serious, unnaturally extreme changes in the climate, often called global warming.
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