Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
food industry expands the variety of unhealthy artifi cial products they
produce to fi ll the supermarkets. The unhealthy processed foods pro-
duced by American manufacturers are the main cause of the nation's
obesity epidemic. The sugars, fats, and oils added to their products to
increase taste and boost salability provide 42 percent of the average
American's daily calories.
Beyond the world's shorelines, only a few large carnivorous fi sh are
left in the sea, and it has proven diffi cult to resurrect their numbers.
Arguably the worst aspect of our lack of environmental concern is the
misuse of fossil fuels. It is the main reason the United States placed low
in the ranking of environmental performance already noted. We produce
a large percentage of the world's industrial and agricultural products,
and until the nation changes from using fossil fuels to using nonpolluting
energy sources, we will continue to rank low on the list of environmen-
tally responsible nations. The harm that the burning of coal and oil does
to water and air is obvious and clear to all Americans, but the industry
that produces coal and the oil refi neries that produce refi ned petroleum
products seem concerned only with preserving the unacceptable status
quo, regardless of its cost to public health. They have fought the devel-
opment of alternative energy sources for many decades and are only now
being dragged kicking and screaming into the twenty-fi rst century. It will
be many decades, and perhaps the end of the century, before the use of
hydrocarbons is phased out, as it must be eventually.
The use of nuclear power as a source of energy should be relegated
to the dustbin of history. Its dangers are obvious, but it may take a few
more disasters or some terrorist attacks on nuclear installations or on-site
storage facilities by the world's fanatics for governments to shut down
existing nuclear plants. The increased incidences of cancer and related
maladies among nuclear plant workers, their families, and those who
live near the plants do not seem to have penetrated public consciousness.
Wind power, solar power, geothermal power, and other resources yet
to be developed are less expensive than nuclear power, do not pollute,
and are more than adequate to serve as energy sources for industrial
civilization today and beyond.
Climate change is real and cannot be stopped during the lifetime of
anyone now living, whether or not humans are partly or completely
responsible for it. The world's emissions of carbon dioxide are still
increasing, show no signs of abating in the foreseeable future, and have
an atmospheric lifetime of at least hundreds of years. If the changing
climate is partly due to astronomical factors, it is even more out of
