“You wouldn’t think you could kill an ocean, would you? But we’ll do it one day. That’s how negligent we are.”
It’s the month of November and I am currently residing in a cloud of smoke. Being from a metropolitan city, I have always come across different climatic or weather catastrophes taking place due to global warming and pollution. The city especially becomes a living hell after Diwali, but Delhi right now is no less than a gas chamber. Since we were kids, our parents have always reminded us to turn off the lights and fans when we are not using them. In school, we have been taught the same. After seeing the climatic effects that our activities have caused, the importance as to why we need to conserve electricity or use solar energy, wind energy or hydroelectricity instead of non-renewable sources of energy is inferred.
According to statistics, air pollution from fossil fuel caused $2.9 trillion in health and economic costs and about $8 billion in a day in the year 2018. If we switch to renewable sources of energy, it can also contribute to climate change and help in controlling air pollution and health. We are overloading our atmosphere with carbon dioxide and other emissions, which create a blanket that traps heat. This overloading is resulting in significant and harmful impacts, creating more climatic disasters such as frequent storms, drought, sea level rise and extinction. Additionally, as a result of coal and natural gas plants breathing problems, neurological damage, heart attacks, premature death and a lot of other serious health problems are prevalent.
However, most renewable energy sources produce little to no pollution. Increasing the usage of renewable sources of energy will allow us to replace carbon-intensive energy sources and reduce global warming emissions. The heatwave that gripped India in May this year became a global concern where the temperature in the capital of the country settled 5 degrees above the average 43.5 degrees in the month of April itself.
Another concerning issue was addressed around this time where Delhi’s power Minister Satyender Jain appealed to the centre to ensure continuous coal supply as there were coal reserves of only one day left in all the power plants in Delhi. This is another reason why we need to switch to non renewable energy sources. Additionally, this category has various advantages like reusability, for example through solar and wind energy, they are easily available, equally distributed on the planet, and are environment friendly as they are produced naturally and do not emit harmful gases that can cause damage to the environment.
Therefore, its about time that we start using non renewable sources of energy to make our world better and leave a much more liveable space for future generations.
-Yakta Hassan
