Fossil Fuels And Its Impacts On Society

Sustainability relates to the ongoing capacity of Earth to maintain all life, which means developing ways to ensure that all resources on Earth are used and managed responsibly so they can be maintained for future generations.

In the year 2013, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the United States consumed a staggering 6.89 billion barrels of oil (U.S.EIA). Which in fact, equates to 18.89 million barrels being consumed every single day. That is a vast amount of petroleum products being consumed on a daily national level. If the calculation is made, based on a barrel equaling forty two gallons, it would come out to 289,583,700,000 gallons per year, or 793,380,000 gallons per day. The amount is incredible, almost unbelievable. If the United States continues its use of oil at this rate, the supply will only last another forty years. With more and more cars being on the road and operating machinery performing tasks, the supply of petroleum will not be able to meet demand forever. As our use of fossil fuels increases, so does our need for a new source of renewable energy.

Sustainability is a concern, which has only been arising from the impact we humans have done in the past couple of decades. The word sustainability means how long you can continue doing what you are doing without coming to an end (Sustainability 2015).

So what is sustainability? It is the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance.

In the United States, a sustainable society is desired by virtually every citizen, especially the ones informed of the consequences caused by our wanton use of fossil fuels and the detrimental methods used to extract them from the earth. Nevertheless, despite almost universal acceptance of the need to turn away from nonrenewable and polluting energy sources, there are forces preventing that switch. One of those forces is the megalith that is our current energy paradigm, or the existing energy production/consumption infrastructure that we’ve built which runs largely on nonrenewable resources. Yet, as daunting as a transition to a world run on renewable energies like solar, an energy source with significant growth-potential, may seem from a technological and logistical standpoint, it is eminently feasible. The most problematic hurdle the United States faces is, in truth, political stagnation. While intense lobbying efforts from the fossil fuel industry and public utilities don’t help, the gridlock caused by the inherent framework of the U.S. political system is principally to blame for governmental malaise when it comes to investing in green technology. However, with increasing concerns over environmental degradation and impending climate change, progress has been made. The U.S. Department of Energy (USDE) has appointed 25 cities across the country to be part of its “Solar America City” initiative, including Philadelphia. Philadelphia, which aims to become the leading city in

Fossil fuels are a major source of energy in America and throughout the world. The three major fossil fuels are oil, natural gas, and coal. While these three fossil fuels account for most of the energy used in most countries and they are able to provide energy for places around the world at a cheap price, they also account for things like pollution and the climate changes. Each of the fossil fuels has a long process to be prepared for consumer use that causes many environmental problems. The major draw to using fossil fuels is the money that they generate for the economy. Fossil fuels have made people’s lives easier and more dependent on technology.

Sustainability to me is a systems ability to continue to operate using its own resources. Most often this word seems to be used when discussing the environment. For example, soil sustainability. Modern farming techniques are literally sucking the nutrients out of our soil. The second law of thermodynamic states energy is neither created or destroyed in a system. Specifically, an isolated system such as our planet. There is and was a certain amount of energy in every field. When that energy is gone its gone until replenished. This can happen by organic matter decomposing on it, rain can bring nutrients, etc. The point I’m getting at is or planet cannot be abused. The things we have are limited. (I just wanted to add nothing in this paragraph was taken from any citable sources. This information has been learned during my time in science courses. I only added this so there was no confusion about plagiarism).

What most people in our society lack to notice is how our country 's continuous use of fossil fuels is endangering to nature and the wildlife it inhabits as well as the environment that we live in. Our society seems to think that fossil fuels we use in excess today will last forever but actuality will one day be depleted to unrepairable measures, which is why we need a cleaner more environmentally friendly substitute. With that said my paper is going to underline how our society would be able to transfer from fossil fuels to cleaner energies which are beneficial to our earth and existence.

Sustainability is a simple term with a fairly simple definition, a way of doing something that can be continued rather than having a finite limit. However, the much more difficult part is defining what things are actually meet the definition of sustainable. As a concept, we all understand it, but the great challenge is figuring out what it will look like in the real world and, perhaps even more difficult, putting the idea into

Sustainability is a topic that has become very important in recent years. Sustainability is defined as, “the ability to continue a defined behavior indefinitely.” ("Finding and Resolving the Root Causes of the Sustainability Problem", 2014)

Good afternoon, Citizen of Oregon. It is the year 2062 and your state, the nation, and the entire planet face catastrophe. The analysts and hippies were right – not only is human induced climate change in full effect, it is bringing life on Earth as we know it to an end. Yes, you should have listened to the environmental scientists (and the “hippies”) about the detrimental impacts of fossil fuel consumption, but you did not. Now you are here: the continued use of fossil fuels has released ridiculous amounts of greenhouse gasses into the air. Just as you were warned, the ice caps melt, oceans levels continue to rise, the weather grows more extreme, and changes in all of Earth’s ecosystems persist – water reservoirs deplete, countless animals go extinct, and the mass migration of humans has begun. Worse yet, unannounced positive feedback loops accelerate the process even further. Your once beloved Portland, Oregon is now home to hundreds-of-thousands of refugees – and this is the least of your problems.

Sustainable energy, also know as renewable energy, is energy that can be replaced. It can be made from the sun, the wind, plants and more. Unfortunately, sustainable energy is like foot note in the global energy plan, which is largely made of up of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels, are power sources like, oil, gas, coal, these all come from the earth and are in limited supply (ie. can run out). Also the extraction of such fuels can have devastating effects on the workers extracting the fuel and the environment the fuel is found in. It is because of the limited supply and ecologically damaging side effects of fossil fuels is why there is a large interest in sustainable energy, especially sustainable electric energy (Selin, Rafferty, & Pallardy, 2008).

Oil reserves are found all over the world. Some reserves produced more oil than others. Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, Iran, and China are the top oil producing countries (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). Petroleum is produced in 31 states throughout the United States (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). Texas, Alaska, California, Louisiana, and Oklahoma are the states that produce the most petroleum (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). It is used to fuel most cars in the United States, but petroleum is also used to make many more products that we use on a daily basis (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). A majority of petroleum is turned into an energy source. Petroleum can be used to make heating oil, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and propane, in addition to making gasoline (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). It can also be turned into petrochemical feedstock, which is derived from petroleum principally for the manufacturing of chemicals, synthetic rubber, and plastics (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013). It is used to make many common household products, such as crayons, dishwashing liquids, deodorant, eyeglasses, tires, and ammonia (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013).

When you think about the word sustainable, what comes to mind? Eco friendly, green, Earth, dirt, recycle, reuse, reduce. It is a word that is being thrown out there a lot. But, what is it really? The real dictionary definition of sustainability is: capable of being sustained, of, relating to, or being a method of harvesting or using a resource so that the resource is not depleted or permanently damaged. In other words, and ones you will actually understand, to be sustainable means that you take out of a system the same amount of energy as you put in, with no pollution or waste. Or quite literally the ability to sustain. For example, if you take down a tree, you must make sure to plant one or even two in its place, and you must do it by

Before we tackle environmental sustainability, we must first focus to what sustainability means. Sustainability according to the Merriam Webster website, is being able to use without being completely used up or able to last for a long time. In other words, it simply means to preserve it and strengthen it rather than break it down. Environmental sustainability is simply just that; it involves actions that involve protecting and preserving our environment so that it can further improve