Greenhouse gasses make up a remarkable amount of our atmosphere. With each passing year, our situation gets more and more dire. Carbon dioxide accounts for 80% of all greenhouse gas emitted in 2020, while methane and nitrous oxide round off the last 20%. Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels, and is removed through trees and forests through photosynthesis. In our climate crisis, we’ve seen this in the uptick in forest fires and rising sea levels.
Hydrofluorocarbons as well as other gasses serve as a permanent problem to the health of our planet. They exist in our atmosphere for up to thousands of years, and are a byproduct of advancements made possible by the Industrial Revolution. The age-old question of industrial labor seems to exist in opposition to our natural environments. There is no simple solution.
The Environmental Protection Agency reports that, “In 2020, carbon dioxide accounted for about 79% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from human activities.” Human activity adds much more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and affects soil and forests’ ability to remove and store carbon dioxide. These natural storage units are key to nature’s balancing act of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and illustrate the importance of planting trees in densely urban environments.
Within the canister of fossil fuels there are two major suspects. Gasoline and diesel powered transportation accounted for 33% of greenhouse gas emissions in 2020, while electricity takes second place with 25%. Methane is commonly produced by the digestive system of sheep and cattle, as well as clearing land for agricultural use. Landfills and wastewater treatment, wildfires and wetlands: all of these environmental staples produce methane. The automotive and textile industry consume huge amounts of electricity, much more than a single family would produce in a lifetime. This distinction is essential because the blame cannot be put on the individual. It’s us, as a community, who are responsible.
The deeper question remains in how we can balance capitalistic innovation with environmental catastrophe. In our lifetime, we’ve seen animals go extinct at alarming rates, headline after headline warning us of disaster looming just around the corner. To stop profit from being the main incentive and motivator would require brainwashing most of the working-class population. As people go on with their day-to-day lives, they are rarely, if ever, thinking of greenhouse gasses. They are rarely thinking of what their future will look like for their children. The people in power use the complacent, present-obsessed citizen to their advantage, simply put. With every fiscal quarter they get richer. With every fiscal quarter our environment dwindles.
Nitrous oxide seems small and insignificant yet is just as deadly. One pound of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere is about three hundred times as potent as one pound of carbon dioxide. Much of the similar culprits (agriculture, waste management) are essential to nitrous oxide production, and it’s removed from the atmosphere through bacteria breaking down nitrogen.
Steph Brody, an Environmental Science major, tells me how corporations have used lobbying to make it much harder for legislative laws to pass which would protect our environment from these fumes. “They lobby and they lobby and they send politicians kickbacks to receive their support against environmental laws: and they do this over and over and over again.”
Solutions include heavily investing in renewable energy sources as well as reducing fossil fuel consumption. Electric vehicles and appliances, as well as turning off lights when you’re not using them, are personal and productive methods to decrease carbon emissions. Thinking long-term is not one of humanity’s greatest talking points, but planning for the future helps us realize what we put into the atmosphere will affect everyone’s tomorrow. Without Earth, there is no home or politics or happiness. The hole in the ozone layer, which was a major issue in the 1980s, has been filled because of the elimination of chlorofluorocarbons due to government regulation and oversight.
It is easy to submit to powerlessness. It is even easier to submit to ignorance. Without knowledge and understanding, we can’t begin to learn how we can change things. Greenhouses gasses seem obtuse and difficult to understand at first reading, but taking a step back and analyzing the problem leads scientists to better understand how we can counteract it. With renewable energy, understanding, and community based cooperation, we can convince corporations to use more sustainable resources and shift fossil fuel industries to use renewable energy.
Sources:
- Environmental Protection Agency. (n.d.). EPA. Retrieved April 3, 2023, from https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/overview-greenhouse-gases
- Text — H.R.1–111th congress (2009–2010): American Recovery and … (n.d.). Retrieved April 4, 2023, from https://www.congress.gov/bill/111th-congress/house-bill/1/text
- Mulligan, J., Ellison, G., Levin, K., Lebling, K., Rudee, A., & Leslie-Bole, H. (2023, March 17). 6 ways to remove carbon pollution from the atmosphere. World Resources Institute. Retrieved April 5, 2023, from https://www.wri.org/insights/6-ways-remove-carbon-pollution-sky
