Coal: The Deadly Option

“Coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, is the crack cocaine of the developing world.”(Zarembo 1). Yet coal use is not only an addiction of the developing world; this cheap and abundant fuel is also addicting to industrialized countries such as the United States of America. The United States has been using this fuel constantly since the 1740’s where coal use started in Virginia. But coal has a much deeper history with the human race as a whole; coal has been proven to have been used by the Romans in England since 100-200 AD during their occupation of the island. Mankinds addiction enmass really started during late 18th and early 19th centuries, with the Industrial Revolution, when it powered the machines that allowed western countries to modernize. Coal use had been decreasing in use since its peak in the Industrial Revolution thanks to gas and oil, but since the 1970’s coal is seeing a comeback across the world thanks to a lessening of oil and gas reserves. The threat of global warming and the consequences it will bring, as well as the deaths caused by the burning of coal, only presents more pressure to stop coal’s use. Still these effects are not the only ones, coal also hurts the environment through its mining and burning. Strip mining causes erosion, loss of habitat, and dust pollution to name a few(Environmental Literacy Council). Even after all these harmful effects some people still feel that coal has positives that gives coal its desire to be used. This use of coal and especially its increase cannot continue because coal is a direct cause of global warming; and a threat in other ways which outweighs its benefits. Therefore we should not consider coal as an option to be used as a resource and instead turn to nuclear power a much-feared alternative that is actually much better.

Global warming has been defined as a gradual warming of the earth’s atmosphere and has been attributed to two different causes: one side believing humans are the cause and the other that this is naturally caused. The side that believes that humans are the cause of global warming is the majority. The majority of the scientific community, which met to discuss this issue Feb 2, 2007 in Paris, supports this position. The conclusion this conference came to was that “global warming is “unequivocal” and that human activity is the main driver” (“NY Times”). It has been proven that since the industrial revolution there has been an increase in the temperature of the earth’s lower atmosphere (Global Warming Pg. 1). The industrial revolution was the first time that mankind had released enough carbon (Ms. Ward), necessary to create a sizeable change in the atmosphere of the earth. From the Industrial Revolution the release of CO2 only increased.