Science Common Sense
1841 - Why are fossil fuels, which are currently the most widely used and important energy source, facing limitations in their availability and negative impact on the global carbon cycle balance?
Imagine you're using a big box of candles. Each candle (fossil fuel) has a limited amount of wax (energy) that will eventually run out.
Fossil fuels like coal, oil, and gas are like these candles. They're made from plants and animals that died a long, long time ago (even before dinosaurs) and were buried deep in the earth.
The problems are:
- Limited supply: These fossil fuels will eventually run out, just like the candles. We can't make more, and it takes millions of years for new ones to form.
- Pollution and climate change: When we burn fossil fuels, they release bad stuff into the air, called greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide. This makes the Earth get warmer and causes problems like super-strong storms, melting ice caps, and rising sea levels.
- Imbalance in the carbon cycle: The Earth has a natural balance of carbon in the air, water, and soil. When we burn fossil fuels, we're releasing extra carbon into the air, which upsets this balance and makes it harder for the Earth to stay healthy.
So, we need to think about using other energy sources, like solar, wind, and hydro power, that don't run out and don't harm the Earth.