How has the combustion of fossil fuels altered the natural balance of the Environment?

Answer 1

Totally for the Worse.

A:A direct result of the combustion of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas) has been the addition of polluting greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. For example, carbon dioxide and methane (from mining) have had negative impacts on the air we breathe, and therefore, human health, and on the climate and other species.

The ways we collect these fuels may even have a far greater impact that is largely negative. The BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was obviously a disaster that will affect fishing in the area for years and the marine life for even longer.

Coal is another fossil fuel that causes greenhouse gases. Strip mining of areas for coal has left mountains barren and ecosystems destroyed. Underground mine fires in Pennsylvania smolder into the environment and still take houses on occasion. This is not confined to the US and Western nations, either, the air from dirty coal burning plants in China is so bad, students wear masks to school.

Combustion of fuel has certainly added polluting gases into our environment. The current emphasis should be on how we end the use of fossil fuels effectively and with minimal impacts.

A:The natural carbon cycle has kept the balance of the atmosphere at a suitable level for human health and life. Carbon dioxide moves in and out of the oceans and the air, the land and the plants and animals.

Vegetation and land add about 439 gigatons of carbon dioxide yearly to the atmosphere, and they remove about 450 gigatons. The oceans add 332 gigatons a year, and remove 338 gigatons. Fossil fuel burning adds about 29 gigatons a year. About 40% of this is absorbed again by land, vegetation and oceans, but the rest remains in the atmosphere and is building up every year.

This is how the combustion of fossil fuels has altered the natural balance of the environment.