Jun 23, 2021

A Look Back

In a previous blog, energy was defined as the capacity to do work and was categorized as either potential or kinetic energy. Potential energy being stored energy and kinetic energy being energy in motion. In this blog, the relationship between energy and climate change is established.

Climate Change Is Nothing New

To begin, it is important to understand that climate change is not new to the Earth. Quite the contrary. According to accepted science, our Earth is 4.5 billion years old and in the last 650,000 years, there have been numerous climate change cycles. And the core reason why the climate has changed throughout the millennia is due to changes in amount of energy the Earth receives from the Sun.

A New Energy Source

Up until the 1860’s, the Earth’s energy was primarily from the Sun and running water (which stems from solar energy). In search of a substitute for whale oil for illumination, Edwin Drake drilled the first commercial oil well in Titusville Pennsylvania in 1859 and with it, a new energy source was discovered in the form of fossil fuels (aka crude oil, natural gas, and coal). They are called fossil fuels because they come from the remains of simple organisms and plant material. Fossil fuels consists primarily of carbon and hydrogen. 

Fossil fuels represents potential energy. It is converted to kinetic energy when it is burned and converted to heat. Along with heat, the conversion also produces carbon dioxide. That carbon dioxide is in addition to the carbon dioxide being produced by naturally occurring processes driven by solar energy and managed by the Earth’s carbon life cycle. The carbon life cycle represents movement of carbon dioxide through various components of our world (e.g. the air, the soil, the oceans, the plants).

Energy and Climate Change Relationship

The core to the relationship between fossil fuels and climate change is how the carbon life cycle deals with the additional carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.

One way it is dealt with is by placing more carbon dioxide in the carbon life cycle components. The US government agency responsible for understanding and tracking climate and weather (NOAA) publishes data and graphs showing the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over time. (Note how the increase starts just after the Drake's well.) The increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide traps more of the heat we get from the Sun which in turn increases the Earth’s temperature. The higher temperatures melt the ice at the polar regions of the Earth which raises sea levels. This has a huge impact on human populations that live on the coastal areas of each continent. The higher temperatures also modify storm behaviors(rain, snow, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc) in terms of their location, their frequency, and intensity. In addition, more carbon dioxide is dissolved in our oceans. This acidifies the oceans changing the environment for aquatic life. These are only a few of the many and far reaching impacts associated with the additional CO2 coming from the burning of fossil fuels.

So, there is a direct link between fossil fuels, our major primary energy source, and climate change. In future blogs, I’ll go into the removal of fossil fuels from our energy mix - the decarbonization of our energy mix.