Essay #1-Cause/Effect-Fuel: It won’t be here forever

When it’s thirty below outside, getting into a frigid car doesn’t sound to appealing.  Hitting that auto-start button would be the easiest option at that point, but is it the healthiest?  Should the comfort of the individual out weigh the needs of the world?  Every time a car is turned on it emits deadly toxins into the Earth’s atmosphere.  Fuel will not be around forever, and neither will the Earth if we keep beating it up.  Although getting into a warm car in the winter is a pleasurable experience, excessive idling causes immense harm to the environment because this squanders this non-renewable resource, the resulting carbon monoxide emissions have a toxic effect on animals, humans, and the earth’s atmosphere, and unnecessary gasoline usage perpetuates the U.S.’s reliance on oil as a primary source of energy.

Gasoline is classified as a fossil fuel.  “Fossil fuels are found within the rocks of the Earth’s surface. They are called fossil fuels because they are thought to have been formed many millions of years ago by geological processes acting on dead animals and plants, just like fossils”(Hitch). In the United States we depend greatly on gasoline, therefore it would be intelligent for us to try and conserve it.  Gas is defined as a non-renewable resource because of the fact that is takes years to regenerate, meaning, once we are out, it will be a long time before we have anymore.   “It is thought that the current resources under the North Sea will last about another 20 years and the world resources will last for about 70 years”(Hitch).  The scary thing is is that this in our lifetime, this is not one of those things that we can just say “oh well this won’t affect me”.  Think about not being able to just hop in your car and head down to the supermarket, we would have to resort back to prehistoric modes of transportation.  “For every two minutes a car is idling, it uses about the same amount of fuel it takes to go about one mile” (Consumer Energy). As a matter of self-sustainment, citizens should be thinking about what will happen when our fossil fuels run out.  Excessive idling of vehicles accelerates the eventuality of this day which, as explained above, can happen in our lifetime and certainly will happen in the lifetime of our children.

If people aren’t worried about saving the environment they should at least be worried about the amount of gas they are wasting, which means money out of their own pockets!  Not only are people wasting their gas when they idle the car, but they are directly polluting the environment with a toxic fume called “carbon monoxide”. Carbon monoxide is an odorless, colorless, toxic gas and, for these reasons, it is hard to detect when it is sneaking into your system. That is why it is called the “silent killer”.  If carbon monoxide can have this big of an impact on human health, then it must be very detrimental to our environment.  When carbon monoxide is released into the air and bonds with loose oxygen molecules, it turns into the chemical compound we all know as “carbon dioxide” or “CO2”.  Earth’s atmosphere is blanketed by components called greenhouse gasses,  without these gases reflecting and absorbing heat Earth would be too cold for human habitation.  Over the past 300 years the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased dramatically, due to the amount of gas we are using.  We call the abundance of CO2 in the air with not enough trees to absorb it, the Greenhouse  Effect.  The Greenhouse Effect is the gradual rise of temperature in Earth’s atmosphere which will eventually lead to the melting of ice caps and rising of oceans. 

Our citizens currently acknowledge our over dependence on oil.  Excessive idling of our vehicles only exacerbates this dependency.  The difficulty is that it is hard for an individual to equate the idling of one vehicle to the huge problem of environmental protection and the sustainability of our culture as we’ve come to know it.  How can we come to realize that, collectively, we are creating the problem but that, one by one, we can help solve it? One of the first steps we can take, individually, is to take responsibility for our personal consumption of gasoline.  At the same time, we must recognize the value of and support the research and development of alternative sources of energy.  Only when we have diversified our energy resources can we feel secure that our children’s future will be a safe and comfortable environment.

It is everyones small actions not one big event; it is an individual choice not a government dictate that should propel the changes needed to protect our world. This problem cannot be solved unless we all join the cause.  Conserving gas is not only beneficial to the Earth but it will also help you keep some change in your pocket. It is the responsibility of wealthy countries, such as the United States, to serve as role models, and also to provide financial assistance to third world countries who rely on toxic energy sources and do not have the resources to research and develop any environmentally friendly alternatives.  

Ekwurzel, B. (2009, May 1). Why does CO2 get most of the attention when there 

     are so many other heat-trapping gases (greenhouse gases)? In Union of 

     Concerned Scientists [informative facts]. Retrieved February 26, 2010, from 

     University of Washington website: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/ 

     science_and_impacts/science/CO2-and-global-warming-faq.html

Hitch, M. (n.d.). Non-renewable energy resources. In Science [Informative 

     facts]. Retrieved February 25, 2010, from http://www.scienceonline.co.uk/ 

     energy/nonrenewable.html

SHOULD I SHUT OFF THE MOTOR WHEN I’M IDLING MY CAR? (2006, February). 

     California Energy Commission [informative fact sheet]. Retrieved 

     February 25, 2010, from http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/myths/ 

     idling.html

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