Although this may not be obvious at first glance, decreasing our energy consumption plays a major role in saving the environment. The consumption of energy involves various processes, which lead to the emission of green house gases, where the energy being used is transformed to harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and methane amongst others. For example, burning gasoline in a car leads to the emission of carbon dioxide and other gases directly into the atmosphere. Another good example is the use of electricity. This is probably one major use of energy which people tend to take for granted mainly due to the fact that the effect of generating electricity can not be seen by the end user who receives the electricity. In many cases, coal power plants are used to generate electricity for a large consumer base. The process by which the electricity is produced involves the emission of massive amounts of green house gases. On the other hand there are alternative methods of producing electricity, which do not produce green house gases such as hydroelectric power plants and wind power generators. Nonetheless, the materials that are used to create these alternative power plants in the first place are made in facilities that release greenhouse gases. Therefore, a lower demand for energy by the implication of energy-saving measures would lead to less demand for the creation of new power plants hence resulting in a decrease in the emission of harmful gases.
Greenhouse gases such as CO2 being the chief cause of global warming further prioritizes the need to decrease our energy consumption. Greenhouse gases having the ability to capture and trap heat energy from the sun means that more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere leads to increasing temperatures due to a hotter atmosphere. Reducing the use of energy that produces greenhouse gases would help better the environment we live in.
Apart from greenhouse gases, there are other different ways that energy production is harmful to the environment. These could be in the form of chemical runoff and spills from energy plants, which penetrate into the environment harming animals, in particular the aquatic life such as fish. The heat produced by the energy plants near the rivers leads to an increase in water temperatures, which could be injurious to the aquatic life. Air pollution could lead to acid rain, which affects animals and plant life, hence causing damage to the ecosystem.
The efforts of a few people of limiting our energy consumption can only lead to a marginal impact. Can you imagine the impact that could be made if there was a society-wide shift toward less energy use? It would be quite significant and phenomenal.
0 comments