by Aristotle

Created on: March 04, 2010

Earth was created 4 billion years ago, back then it was a great mass being bombarded by debris from space. Eventually it cooled down and water appeared, soon causing life to appear. Millions of years passed, millions of species were completely wiped out from the earth, millions of there remains were left in the ground. Some of these early life forms left fossils; these fossils were then transformed by humans into oil or petrol. Petrol is what keeps the world running today; millions of tons of it is burned every year. This extremely large amount of petrol being burned is transformed into Carbon Dioxide, so much Carbon Dioxide is now in the Earth’s atmosphere that it is causing a green house effect. Carbon Dioxide effectively traps heat, causing Earth’s temperature to rise greatly, thus causing ocean temperatures to rise, which in turn causes the glaciers in the Arctic to melt. With these melting it causes the ocean water levels to rise, thus allowing for the ocean to flood many areas of the world near the coast. Droughts are also caused by this increase in world temperature.

So what can be done to stop global warming? Nothing really, global warming has already gone too far, however it can be slowed down, and eventually (within several centuries) it can be reversed. If humans do not stop polluting the atmosphere with all these toxins in the next decade, the results could be catastrophic. The answer to all this is alternate energy sources.

Probably the most efficient alternate energy source out in the world today would be nuclear energy. While many people are scared of the potential leaks that could occur from nuclear energy, their fears are a little too extreme. As long as you place the nuclear reactors in a desolate area, even if there is a leak it would not damage the environment that much. Nuclear energy is also virtually free of Carbon Dioxide emissions, making it a very good alternate energy source. The only downside is the cost it takes to build a reactor, usually they are very expensive.

Another alternate energy source that is commonly used today are solar panels. These take in light from the sun and convert the light into electricity. The only downside to this method is the fact that the sun only shines for half the day, sometimes not appearing at all, this alternate energy source could not be depended on 100% in the future making it not as appealing. One possible method for getting around the problem of the sun not shining for 24 hours would be to send a solar powered satellite with the sole purpose of getting electricity, the sun shines for 24 hours in space so that’s not a problem. The problem lies in the cost of such an endeavor which would be in the hundreds of billions or trillions.

Wind power is also a useful energy source, by harnessing the power of the wind with windmills, electricity is made. The problem with this lies in the fact that the wind is not predictable and the electricity made each day would not be a constant factor.

If all of these alternate energy sources are combined, they could easily replace fossil fuels, which in turn would slow down global warming.

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