Glg 101 Week 9 Review Questions Essay

Overpopulation, pollution, global warming, climate change, genetic modification, ocean acidification, water/soil pollution, deforestation, acid rain, and ozone depletion are among some of the main factors that have a negative impact on the planet. Overpopulation is one the most concerning environmental issues currently. Overpopulation is defined as the human population of a specific area exceeding the carrying capacity. Overpopulation can occur from an increase in births mainly or a decline in deaths. Also, other factors that affect overpopulation can be an increase in immigration or a depletion of resources. It was stated by the United Nations that the worth has a total carrying capacity of somewhere between 4 and 16 billion. Currently we hold over 7 billion humans on Earth. As of 2017 the UN has increased their population predictions to 9.8 billion by 2050 and up to 15 billion by 2100. Pollution we hear about every day.

Senator Everett Dirksen once noted “The oilcan is mightier than the sword”. In today’s world, it is easy to see why oil can be considered the most important resource to hold. Without oil, many of the common day occurrences we take for granted would be impossible. Oil is used for almost everything; from the fuel used to drive our vehicles, to the plastics used in every facet of life, and providing the heat needed to live through the winter. In fact, the United States depends so much on oil that as a nation it uses over 20 million barrels a day. Importing oil increases the total costs because of the need to transport it from around the world. It is estimated

Some economists believe total energy independence would reduce the demand for the US dollar, as the oil trade is done is US dollars. Since oil prices are set for the total supply of oil, the global market will decide the price of oil regardless of whether the US imports oil or not. Therefore, to keep the dollar strong we should continue to import oil. However, the U.S Department of Energy claims that although US petroleum production has increased and net imports have decreased oil imports have cost our economy around $116 billion in 2014 and oil price shocks and price manipulation are to blame. The solution the US Dept. of Energy has set out is to developed more advanced and fuel efficient vehicles, and create new energy sources to replace petroleum.

Without access to fuel, industry is hindered. The time it takes to travel from point a to point b increases tremendously if there is a limit to the amount of fuel that one has access to. In the 1970’s during an “oil crisis”, gas stations limited customers to 10 gallons each. The need to stop at more gas stations more often will increase shipping time, decrease productivity, and hinder new nations in their development and entrance into the postmodern marketplace.

When a surplus of imports is brought into the US, American businesses can suffer due to increased foreign competition. A product in which there is an import surplus is oil. The Wall Street Journal in August 2011 predicted the US would experience an oil surplus. (Herron, J., 2011) Because the US had continued to import at the same levels and domestically produce at the same level, the U. S.has a surplus of oil stored. Since the article was published in late summer 2011, the US has experienced the surplus and has since decreased the amount of imported and domestically produced oil. One would expect that having a surplus of oil; consumers would benefit with lower prices of petroleum based products. As we all experience when we go to the gas pump; this is simply not the case. While this process has many more components to it, the base of it is that a surplus of an import can cause business and domestic consumers to suffer.

Some people argue that decreasing the oil we use would harm the economies of countries like Venezuela that depend on America buying their oil.  However, as third world countries grow and develop, they will also need fuel sources and the United States has no right to monopolize large portions of the available resources.  Besides, it is not the responsibility of the United States to provide markets for all companies in the world.  Markets come and go, and

Being able to increase our own supply would help the U.S. by allowing us not to be so dependent on foreign oil as we are now. Also with the population of the U.S. still growing and the increase of drivers in the states it would pay to be able to have more domestic sources for the oil we consume.

Economically, the oil industry will only pull us down as a country. Professionals believe that even though oil prices are falling, the production will start slowing and the prices will skyrocket again. The typical consumer would see that the price of oil barrels has fallen from one hundred to eighty dollars in the past year, but the consumer will not see the impact it will have outside of gas prices. Back in 2005, sixty percent of U.S. oil was imported, and the effects of a drop in prices would have been observed in the countries that we imported from. Today, however, only thirty percent of our oil is imported. With such a high amount of domestic oil, the low prices impacts the American

The US transportation industry would suffer economic hardships jobs would be lost and transportation companies would shut down due to lack of business. The United States imports sixty percent of all oil used from foreign nations (Lugar). If foreign oil was not imported, an immediate price rise would be in effect on the oil that is gathered and stored internally. Because it can take five to ten years to start up an oil processing plant, the oil reserves in the US would be depleted. The price for a gallon of gasoline would double, seriously affecting transportation: “Saudi Arabia has the largest [oil] reserve capacity followed by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates” (Lugar). If the US closed off borders to foreign imported oil, then not only would the American transportation system would disappear but thousands of American jobs would be lost. Diesel is used in the transportation of goods in America in both semi-trucks and modern trains. Not only is diesel and gas used in the transportation of goods but also in the creation of them. If the US stopped importing foreign oil, and the prices on both gasoline and diesel rose exorbitantly: so too would the cost of the products they carried and helped to create. Transporting goods state to state would become costly and eventually, would stop altogether. Closing American borders to foreign oil will cause problems for to the transportation industry as well as

One example of how the United States dependency on foreign oil affects us is the situation in Iran. Iran is building a nuclear power plant, but that goes against the world law for Iran. Iran has threatened the world with the use of nuclear weapons and the creation of a nuclear power plant could help achieve those threats. The United States is struggling to deal with the actions of Iran because of the large amounts of oil they produce and export. They United States has to act on their own because the countries within the European Union do not want to upset Iran and compromise one of their supplies of oil. Many countries are taking advantage of their access of fossil fuels and going against United States foreign policy. However, if the United States controlled their own supply of oil they would be able to handle problems in the way that best suits them and the rest of the world. Another way that would ensure the United States national security is allowing ourselves to regulate how the crude oil is refined and guarantee clean oil is provided to consumers (About the Project). We would be able to control the way the oil is refined because the Keystone XL pipeline goes from the tar sands of Alberta directly to the refineries in Steele City, Nebraska. With the most up-to-date technology the once toxic tar sand oil would be converted to the pure oil like that oil refined from the

In the modern day, technology alters our life better. That technology, such as cell-phones, cars, washing machines, microwaves make our life more efficient and comfortable. We can call or text our friends and family immediately or drive to their house whenever we want. Moreover, we do not need to wash cloths with our hands. Technology helps us to save a lot of time to do other things. On the other hand, these advantages make us more and more rely on technology. Actually, technology consumes a lot of energy or electricity every day. Nowadays, many countries choose to burn fossil fuel to generate electricity, such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas. The fossil fuels are limited. The website Ecotricity.co.uk

I think that our global population will shrink over the next 100 years because the more people there are the less non-renewable and renewable resources to go around and I think that the world will become a collection of fourth world countries before becoming second world countries again after another couple hundred years. Countries will become fourth world countries because the world will become overpopulated and then we will become second world countries as we learn to control our population growth.

One of the problems facing our world is population. It began about ten thousand years ago when the humans settled and began farming. The farming provides more food for the people thus making the population grow. Now we are about 6 billion in population and in a few years we will be around 10 to 11 billion. Therefore, our population will

Human technological advancements make it possible to sustain larger and larger population by exploiting more and more natural resources. The three revolutions in human history, agricultural, industrial and green have all been answers to overpopulation. Naturally, industrialization leads to environmental degradation. The concern with Industrialization is that it is not a long term solution to human sustainability, since it operates under the premise of the tech fix, or the idea that humans will be able to invent new technologies to ensure their own survival. These solutions, while economically advantageous, do not consider the long term impacts of this continual and escalating

At present, we are adding the population of China to this planet every decade. Feeding and supplying this population explosion are placing huge demands on the environment. And this brings us to the other, opposing trend: the environment's resources are either reaching their limit or shrinking. The result will be like two trains barreling towards each other on the same railroad track. Biologists, historians and economists all concur that whenever growing populations have met shrinking resources, the results have been pitched competition for survival. This is why the above chart sees population growth slowing over the next century.