Why Electric Cars Are Essential for a Cleaner Future

Introduction

The importance of considering alternative energy forms cannot be overstated. One of the most consequential choices we can make in that regard is the shift to electric automobiles instead of continuing to use the fuel-dependent vehicles that have defined transportation for more than a century. The primary reason this shift is necessary is that the burning of fossil fuels produces hydrocarbons that are deadly to the ecology of this planet.

This topic carries great personal significance. In the city where I was born, air pollution was so severe that many people who never smoked died from lung cancer and other respiratory illnesses caused solely by environmental exposure to man-made pollutants. One of those people was my grandmother, who suffered horribly from respiratory disability for years before she died. In her final years, she was dependent on a mechanical breathing apparatus just to breathe.

The History of Fossil Fuels and Industrial Pollution

Carbon monoxide and other forms of air pollution have already damaged the environments of many American cities, much as the first generation of post-Industrial Revolution-era factories deposited soot everywhere in 19th-century industrial cities (Kirsch). Before the Industrial Revolution, there was no such thing as major pollution of the atmosphere caused by human activity. Once the discovery was made that burning coal could produce usable energy, human-caused pollution exploded (Kirsch).

Ironically, electric cars were once more popular than gasoline-burning vehicles. Before Henry Ford perfected the internal combustion engine, electrically powered cars were actually preferred when automobiles first began replacing travel by horseback. The evolution of the gasoline engine illustrates what will be necessary for electric cars to become widely adopted. Specifically, gasoline engines already existed at the turn of the century, but there was no infrastructure of gas stations available to refuel them. However, as soon as that infrastructure developed, it immediately resulted in the widespread adoption of gasoline-powered vehicles.

The damage to the environment occurring today is on a global scale and carries the very real potential to destroy biological life on Earth. Even as we grapple with the implications of global climate change in the West, China is rapidly undergoing the same type of industrialization in many regions that the West experienced a century ago. If the entire population of China embraces fossil-fuel-burning automobiles the way the West did in the last century, environmental damage will accelerate at a tremendous rate rather than decreasing. Precisely because of this risk, China and the United States are jointly funding the development of electric vehicles.

Global Climate Change and Environmental Consequences

Scientists have already determined that the effects of burning fossil fuels have caused global climate change that is eroding Arctic territories and causing the melting of massive glaciers that have remained frozen since the last ice age. Some of the consequences of this destruction threaten the very existence of species native to that region, such as the Arctic polar bear, which may become entirely extinct within the next fifty years due to the destruction of its natural habitat by human activity.

The other major reason we must reduce our dependence on foreign oil is that it keeps us tied to Middle Eastern nations, some of which harbor ill will toward this country. It also requires costly involvement in that region of the world — involvement that would be unnecessary but for our dependence on Middle Eastern oil. We are now at the point where the next generation of Americans, or the one immediately following, will experience the complete depletion of the world's available oil reserves.

Even before oil finally runs out, its price will increase so substantially — due to the economic laws of supply and demand — that remaining dependent on foreign oil could bankrupt this country. Even now, our economy is tied to oil in ways that are damaging to our welfare, and some of the nations to whom we pay billions of dollars annually may actually support extremist terrorists who seek to destroy the way of life in the United States and the Western world. Aside from ecological, geopolitical, and public health concerns, the principal reason that a shift to electric energy is absolutely essential is simply that, unlike fossil fuels, electric power is an entirely renewable source of energy (National Academy of Engineering).

Conclusion

We are currently facing a tremendous crisis of global proportions. Man-made pollution is rapidly causing significant harm to the global environment. Global climate change has already produced significant ecological damage, erosion of the physical environment, and the extinction of animal species. Thousands of human beings suffer unnecessarily and die every year because of man-made pollution. In addition, our dependence on foreign oil keeps us entangled in Middle Eastern affairs and has the potential to damage our economy severely. Eventually, natural oil reserves will run out entirely, and that is likely to happen within the next century.