Environmentalism Essay, Research Paper
In the last thirty years, America has witnessed an environmental revolution. New
laws like the 1963 Clean Air Act and the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act forged new
ground in political environmentalism. Social phenomena like Earth Day, organized
by Dennis Hayes in 1970, and the beginning of large-scale recycling, marked by
Oregon’s 1972 Bottle Bill, have help change the way Americans think about the
environment. As we approach the third millennium, however, we must reconsider
our place on the planet and reflect on our efforts and progress towards a
sustainable society. As global warming becomes a scientific reality, natural
disasters make monthly appearances in the headlines, and communities continue to
find their ground-water contaminated by industrial and nuclear waste, we must
ask ourselves: are we doing enough? The environmental movement in the past has
largely been a social and political phenomenon. While many of us recycle (yet
still only 35 percent of us) and take dead batteries to our town’s Hazardous
Waste Day, most Americans have not made the environment a personal issue. Very
few of us have taken the kind of personal life-changing steps that are necessary
to create an environmentally sustainable society. It is simply naive to believe
that America’s present rates of consumption, waste production, and environmental
contamination are sustainable. The kind of social change required can only
happen when we as individuals embrace the effort in our everyday lives. Only
then will corporate America and the government realize that they too must change
to maintain their customer base and public support. This kind of personal
commitment to change would also create a new social ethic based on the
environment under which people and companies who do not care for the earth would
be held socially and financially responsible. In six parts, this article will
re-examine our place in the environmental movement and investigate exactly what
changes we can make in our personal lives to bring about positive change. These
areas are transportation, energy, recycling and waste management, toxins and
pollution, food, and water. Some of the changes discussed will require
sacrifice. But, more important, these changes will often simplify our lives,
bring our families and communities closer together, and help us to better
understand, revere, and coexist with the world upon which each of us is directly
dependent. Transportation The invention of the automobile is one of history’s
greatest environmental disasters. The automobile decentralized our society.
People with cars moved out of the city and drove to work from their suburban
homes. Before the automobile, agriculture was local. Food was grown by farmers
living in what was soon to be the suburbs, and delivered fresh to markets in the
cities. Because of the short distance food had to travel, farmers didn’t need to
add preservatives or other additives to maintain freshness. Clearly, the
automobile, like other harmful inventions, makes our lives easier in many ways,
but how often do we consider the environment when weighing these benefits?
Fossil fuels account for the automobile’s most significant effect on the
environment. Not only are the emissions from cars and trucks toxic to every
air-breathing organism, but every step of the fossil fuel process, from
extraction to disposal, is bad for the environment. According to the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), millions of gallons of untreated water
contaminated by the drilling processes are dumped into waterways and oceans
annually. Once extracted, fossil fuels are frequently refined on site, burying
179 million tons of toxic waste annually. During transport, an average of 1
million gallons of oil is spilled into the ocean each month. Upon arrival,
fossil fuels are usually burned in automobiles or power plants. The average
coal-burning power plant burns about 10,000 tons of coal in a single day. With
even a low estimate of five per cent waste, that leaves 500 tons of toxic waste
produced each day by a single power plant. If used in cars, oil must be refined
further, wasting more energy and creating more toxic waste before drivers
purchase it. The combustion engines used in cars and trucks emit toxic gases
that contribute to the greenhouse effect and acid rain, deplete the ozone layer,
and create more than 50% of the smog producing toxins that city-dwellers breathe
every day. Even if we disregard the environmental damage caused by fossil fuels,
we should recognize that, as a non-renewable energy source, the earth’s reserves
will eventually run out. Hundreds of millions of years of organic decomposition
will be wiped out in a single century. Conservative estimates say we have 30 to
50 years left of oil use. With more and more developing nations rapidly
increasing their use of fossil fuels, and the continuing growth rate of fossil
fuel use at four times the population growth, our time with fossil fuels could
be significantly less. Just imagine the economic and political upheaval a major
oil shortage would cause. Simply put, the country that depends on fossil fuels
the least will be the most likely to survive the economic strife and wars
resulting from global depletion. Fossil fuel consumption is deeply entrenched in
the American mode of life. We rely on automobiles for almost all of our
transportation needs, enjoy motor boats and jet skis on our vacations, and use
gas-burning engines in most of the tools we use in the yard. (Although
electricity is another major consumer source of fossil fuel consumption, that
will be discussed in the Energy section.) Yet we can make numerous changes in
our lifestyle that will significantly decrease our personal consumption of
fossil fuels. Let’s return to America’s biggest weakness: the automobile. Simply
not driving is the best and most obvious solution to the problem of automobiles.
Americans have gotten used to their cars and seldom walk or bicycle even short
distances. Gym class became a federal requirement in the 1930s because students
were being driven or riding busses to school instead of walking. Americans have
also become significantly more overweight since we started driving. Consider
your Saturday errands around town. Most errands we make are to destinations less
than a few miles away and frequently involve dropping off or picking up
something small. These kinds of errands can just as easily be accomplished by
walking or bicycling. Your body will thank you, and so will the environment.
Public transport, if available, is also a great way to stay out of the car.
Consider an area’s public transportation system in choosing a place to live, as
some cities have significantly better systems than others. When your destination
is too far to walk or bicycle, there are still numerous ways to minimize the use
of automobiles. If you drive to work, find other people at your company or other
companies near you that live in your town and start a carpool. Even carpooling
once in a while makes a difference, so don’t get discouraged by occasional
scheduling conflicts or other obstacles. When running errands, plan ahead to
consolidate them into one trip and consider the most efficient route. If
possible, park in a central location and walk to multiple destinations. Ask a
neighbor or friend if they need to go out (everybody has to go to the grocery
store, for example), and share a ride. For every ride you share, the fuel
consumption and emissions for that trip are cut in half. There are also many
ways that your driving habits effect the fuel efficiency of your car. Try to
avoid fast accelerations, for instance. They use significantly more fuel than
gradual accelerations. Likewise, avoid driving at excessive speeds. Every car
engine has an RPM (revolutions per minute) at which optimal fuel economy is
achieved; you’ll find it in your car’s manual. Check your tachometer and try to
maintain that RPM while driving. Minimizing the work-load on your car is another
way to increase fuel economy. Remove any unnecessary heavy objects from the car,
and avoid using the air conditioner when possible. Finally, turn off your engine
if you expect to be idle for even a short while. Starting a modern fuel-injected
car uses less gas than idling for 30 seconds. Did you know that warming up your
car by letting it idle in the driveway in cold weather actually causes engine
damage? This is also when your car’s emissions are at their worst. The best and
fastest way to heat up a car is by driving it. When it’s time to buy a new car,
there are many ecological alternatives to the gas guzzling beasts typically
driven by Americans. Many compact cars on the market today achieve stunning fuel
economy. The four-wheel-drive trucks so popular in today’s market get
comparatively bad gas mileage and usually carry one person over a paved road.
Buy the smallest car you can, and don’t buy a larger car for infrequent
needs?consider buying a used trailer for infrequent cargo hauls. If you’ve
been putting off the purchase of a motorcycle as whimsical, think again. Many
motorcycles (and scooters in particular) achieve significantly better fuel
economy compared to even the most fuel-efficient cars, resulting in less
over-all consumption and emissions. Maintenance is the final step in minimizing
the environmental impact of automobiles. Modern cars have very sophisticated
emissions systems and engines that must be finely tuned to achieve maximum
efficiency. Regular check-ups for your car will protect your investment and
ensure the car is in its best possible working order. The longer you keep your
car, the more value from it you receive and the less waste is created and energy
spent in the production of a new car. If you have to commute to work every day,
consider an electric car. Electric cars have come a long way in price, distance
and efficiency, and will soon be available from large manufacturers like Ford
and Toyota. Several small companies around the country convert small gas powered
cars and trucks to electric, zero-emissions vehicles and sell them for slightly
more than a gas-powered car. As electric cars become more common and are
manufactured on a large scale, their prices will drop significantly. Many
hobbyists, with no prior automotive or electrical expertise, have created their
own electric cars from their used gas-powered vehicles. Check your local library
for one of the many conversion guides available. Today’s electric cars take
about four hours to charge, plugged into a standard outlet, and can go anywhere
from 50 to 200 miles on a single charge. While you wouldn’t want to take an
electric car across the country (though this has been done), their distance per
charge is plenty for a typical commuter to get to work and back. Most electric
car owners keep a gas-powered car around for longer trips. Owners of electric
cars generally find the increase in their electric bill minimal compared to the
amount they save in gasoline. While electric cars create no emissions
themselves, and create almost no waste (even the batteries are recyclable), the
electric company is still burning fossil fuels to create the electricity needed
to charge the car. Nevertheless, electric companies are capable of converting
fossil fuels to energy much more efficiently and with fewer emissions than a
gas-powered car. Electric cars also leave room for improvement in any method of
large-scale energy production, such as biomass, hydro, and solar (see the Energy
section). This section has focused primarily on cars, but Americans also use
many other gas-powered engines. The small engines in motor boats and lawn
equipment do not have to meet the emissions standards of cars, and thus, emit
far more toxins into the air. Consider using a quiet, powerless mulching mower
on your lawn if you have one, and an electric weed whacker rather than one that
is gas powered. If you enjoy the water, consider learning to sail rather than
motoring. Motorized water vehicles not only emit air pollution, they also
pollute the water, contribute to sound pollution, and injure fish and other
animals in the water. Energy in the Home Automobiles are not the only consumers
of fossil fuels or sources of air pollution stemming from our personal lives.
According to the EPA, furnaces, hot water heaters, and other fossil fuel burning
appliances in American homes produce 20% of all U.S. carbon dioxide, 26% of
sulfur dioxide, and 15% of nitrogen oxide emissions, the leading causes of acid
rain and global warming. Note that these figures do not take into consideration
the power our homes draw from fossil fuel-burning power plants. By making our
homes as energy-efficient as possible and minimizing our personal use of
electricity, we can significantly reduce our personal impact on the environment.
The main sources of power consumption in our homes are the heating, ventilation,
and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Maintaining, repairing, or upgrading these
systems will not only save us money, but also reduce the amount of energy needed
to run our homes on a day-to-day basis. The EPA’s Energy Star Homes program
brings environmentally aware developers and manufacturers together to build
homes that are better insulated and utilize 90% efficiency or better HVAC
systems. If you are looking to build a new home, call their toll-free hotline,
(888) STAR-YES, for literature, or save paper and visit their Internet site at
www.epa.gov for more information. Unfortunately, building new homes is not an
environmentally sound thing to do. New homes require previously undeveloped land
or disposal of the property’s old construction. Further, new wood and materials
must be used unless costly measures are taken to restore materials from an old
construction. Beyond environmentally unsound, new construction is many times
more expensive and time-consuming than renovation and repair of most existing
houses. Even if your house is too costly to upgrade, consider buying an already
renovated house or one easily renovated before building new construction. A
furnace using heating oil, natural gas, or electricity heats most American
homes. Still others use a wood or pellet stove. Of these, electricity is by far
the least efficient. One truth of energy conservation is that electricity should
not be used to produce heat, whether in a stove, water heater, or central
heating. The exception to this is the microwave, which is the most efficient way
to heat small amounts of food. Edward Harland’s book, ECO~RENOVATION: the
ecological home improvement guide, an excellent resource for anyone interested
in environmental renovations, provides this revealing chart: Fuel Kg of CO2
Emitted per Useful Kilowatt Delivered (approx.) Gas 0.27 Oil 0.35 Coal 0.40
Electricity 0.83 As you can see, electricity is more than twice as polluting as
a coal burning furnace. Electricity is even worse if you take into consideration
the amount of energy created by nuclear power, which creates nuclear waste
instead of carbon dioxide (CO2). There is also a significant amount of energy
wasted in cooling power plants and lost in the power grid, which further
degrades electricity’s viability as an environmentally sound energy source. As
the chart shows, natural gas, or methane, is the cleanest burning fuel. While
most of the natural gas used in America is drawn from non-renewable reserves, it
can be produced renewably through biomass production, a method currently used by
China. Methane is produced in massive quantities by decaying waste and
agricultural operations, so much that methane is one of the most serious
greenhouse gasses. If methane could be captured from these sources, we would be
slowing the greenhouse effect and using clean-burning renewable fuel at the same
time. For these reasons, if you have an aging or inefficient oil burning
furnace, consider converting to an efficient natural gas furnace. Wood or pellet
stoves still fuel many homes in America. Wood, if used wisely, is a renewable
and relatively clean-burning fuel. While burning wood does produce CO and CO2,
new technology allows wood stoves to reuse unspent output by re-burning it
before emission. Pellet stoves, quickly replacing log-burning stoves, use
pressed recycled paper and wood pulp that look like rabbit pellets. Pellets,
while more expensive, are more efficient to burn and take up less space during
storage. Before investing in a wood stove, however, be sure to investigate which