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The Effects Of Fossil Fuels During The Industrial Revolution

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The dangerous era of fossil fuels began with the start of the Industrial Revolution over two hundred years ago. Fossil fuels existed long before the Industrial Revolution, but people did not use them excessively. Society’s over use of fossil fuels is what generated the unnatural rate of climate change that the world is experiencing today (Freedman, Duncan, & Lerner, 2014). Human induced climate change and global warming began impacting the environment during the Industrial Revolution due to the industrialization of many major cities in the United States (Freedman et al., 2014). Fossil fuels were incorporated into the new technologies that gave the Industrial Revolution its name. Whole entire factories were run on black coal. When a person …show more content…

Scientists are constantly discovering new effects that were not predicted in the climate models. In a 2012 study, atmospheric scientists Jennifer A. Francis and Stephen J. Vavrus observed that changes in arctic seawater temperatures have already slowed the jet stream, a high, rapidly moving flow of air that affects global weather patterns. As a result, weather conditions can remain in certain areas for longer periods of time (Miller & Spoolman, 2015). Rain weather can hold its positions long enough to cause flooding, and dry weather can cause droughts. According to a 2010 report by NOAA scientist James Overland, a slower jet stream would sink southward and bring colder air to Europe, eastern North America, and eastern Asia (Miller & Spoolman, 2015). On the bright side, this can be prevented. If carbon dioxide emissions are lowered, then Earth will not heat up at such a rapid rate. If action is not taken, the losses and damages caused by natural disasters will continue to rise (Schiermeier, 2011). People just have to work together to combat climate change. Setting short term goals is vital to the productivity of acting against climate change (Hoberg & Meadowcroft, 2015). Slowing climate change is a multistep process. One of the most important steps to slowing climate change is having hope. There is still hope for the Earth’s wellness. If people stopped burning fossil fuels right now the Earth would continue to heat for a little while, but then it would start to level off and cool again. Once the cooling process starts the arctic ice sheets would start to reform (Sevens, 2016). There is hope for the future because we can fix some of the effects of climate change if people take action

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