What is wrong with the burning of fossil fuels?

Question

This is recycling at its best. The carbon, in the coal and oil, came from the atmosphere and is being returned there. Ideal.

Answer 1

With respect to coal, it is contaminated with radioactive Uranium and Thorium. When coal is burned Uranium and Thorium are released to the environment.

Also millions of tons of ash are created that are contaminated with Uranium and Thorium. This is actually deadly radioactive waste that is created.

The coal ash releases far more radioactive Uranium, Thorium and Radon gas to the environment than nuclear power plants!

Answer 2

Nothing. All life on earth is carbon based, that the more there is the more life flourishes. Only 6% of yearly CO2 production comes from human intervention. Global warming is a natural occurance, Arctic ice may be receding slightly, but Antarctic ice is growing. The earth mean surface temp in the dark ages was 3 deg. warmer than it is today. A single volcanic eruption put more poison gas and CO2 into the atmosphere than man does in 10 years. This global warming scare is a ruse to get people to try and conserve more energy, if it was truely a threat to mankind, there would have been something like the Montreal Accord already signed. Space based monitoring systems have recorded a negliglable temp increase. Earth based monitoring systems are very unreliable, but give favorable results to fear mongers. Do ytou bit to recycle, reduce energy consumption, and pollution, but don't buy into the global warming scare mongering. Anybody who believes Al Gore, a politician (LIARS & THEIVES) is a gullible idoit!

Answer 3

You're correct. This is a natural cycle. If we pump too much carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, more plants will grow (they like CO2). The plants will convert the CO2 to oxygen. Over millions of years, the dead plants will convert back to fossil fuels. The problem is that the cycles takes a VERY long time.

Answer 4

The carbon,coal and oil were formed over millions of years and carbondioxide was pulled from the atmosphere at a higher rate than at present as there were many more plants and trees. We are 'returning' the carbon back to the atmosphere at an atronomical rate and is overwhelming the ecological balance

Answer 5

The problem is that the carbon was extracted slowly in small quantities from the atmosphere over many thousands of years and we're returning it extremely rapidly, in huge quantities. The Earth can't deal with that.

There is a natural "carbon cycle" that recycles CO2. But it's a delicate balance and we're messing it up.

Look at this graph.

http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/graphics_gallery/mauna_loa_record/mlo_record.html

The little squiggles are nature doing its' thing. CO2 falls a bit during summer when plants are active, and rises during the winter. The huge increase is us, burning fossil fuels. The scientists can actually show that the increased CO2 in the air comes from burning fossil fuels by using "isotopic ratios" to identify that CO2. The natural carbon cycle buried carbon in fossil fuels over a very long time, little bit by little bit. We dig them up and burn them, real fast. That's a problem.

Man is upsetting the balance of nature. We need to fix that.

Answer 6

Nothing is wrong with burning it at this time. Fossil fuels are rich in energy. Solar, wind and other Green technology power generating sources are still in their infancy, and at best can only supply a faction of the power needs of humans. nuclear fission,with all its faults is the only source that can replace fossil fuels at this time.Conservation is the key right now in using fossil fuels. Until technology catches up with our need for energy,oil/gas or nuclear is a must and hopefully we,as a planet, won't run out first.

Answer 7

Right, right, right. And you breath in and live off of CO2....NOT! You will be a dead person(along with every other animal), returned back to the carbon based molecules from whence you came....so the plants can feed off of you to make oxygen to start oxygen breathing life again.
The whole idea behind "we need this energy to exist" does not wash(but the oil companies would have you believe otherwise). We lived without computers, we can live without cars,plastics, paved roads, and other petrochemical products in the past.(otherwise we wouldn't be here). Besides, when you go camping, don't you deprive yourself of many of these things?

Answer 8

In addition to Bob's answer, there are also local air pollution effects - for example the photochemical smogs of Los Angeles/Mexico City, and visibility effects from fine particles in the atmosphere. These lead to all sorts of respiratory diseases and associated deaths.

Fossil fuels drive a lot of conflict in the world - Iraq, Iran, Grozny, Falklands, Nigeria, to name a few, and civilians bear the brunt of war hardships in order for us to fill our cars and leave the lights on all day. I find it hard to justify the frivolous use of a resource gained in such a manner.

Oil companies profits thrive on conflict, with instability in the oil market increasing prices, they make more money than lots of countries (e.g. Exxon ~$8.4bn profit per quarter). it must be hard for poor countries to refuse access or make demands for working practises on the companies involved.

I am disappointed and (but not surprised) that the oil companies are already looking into exploration in the north pole region for the time when the ice melts and fail to see or acknowledge the irony in their actions. To pollute yet another region in pursuit of oil is another step in our pursuit of blind self-termination.

So in light of these and climate effects there are lots of reasons why the burning of fossil fuels is wrong. But of course the difference between right and wrong depends only how and what you justify to yourself based on your own moral compass and filtering of information.

Answer 9

It's a non-sustainable lifestyle. By the way, I think you might be a latent environmentalist. Yeah! Not unlike other people with latent tendencies, the constant attack on anyone or anything even remotely green is a dead giveaway.
Trying to fool us with all your talk about tree huggin' fascists and nuclear power. I almost believed it!

Answer 10

fossil fuels have been under the earth for milloins of years. when people burn them, to much carbon goes into the air and heats up the earth causing enviromental problems such as the ice caps melting.