The earth has seen and witnessed a lot of catastrophic events ranging from a tsunami, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and hurricanes. None of these anytime we have an occurrence leaves us in a happy mood.
People are killed, buildings and structures damaged, and the environment at large is destabilized. What we generally do not give so much thought to, when these occurrences take place are the trees and other organisms both macro and micro that are displaced and invariably killed.
All these as the biologists will say make up the ecosystem and there is no doubt about it, they play very significant and vital roles in the equilibrium of nature.
We need to tell ourselves the hard truth and that is that most of these catastrophic events are initiated by us through some of the actions we carry out.
Such actions like gas flaring, greenhouse gas emission, discharge of toxic wastes into the atmosphere, and exploration of crude oil contribute in no small measures towards the heating up of the earth and the attendant global warming.
These actions of ours have been banging nature from right, left, and center. When nature can no longer take the bangs, and as the physicist will tell us that there is a reaction for every action, what we get is one form of catastrophe or the other.
The joy though a little belated, however, is that we are awakening to the inherent dangers our activities are causing and we are making some efforts towards redressing the situation.
It is not a hidden fact that the greatest source of greenhouse gases are the vehicles that ply our roads on a daily basis.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed a fact sheet which showed that CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline are 8,887 grams CO2/ gallon, while that of diesel is 10,180 grams CO2/ gallon.
EPA also reported that a typical passenger vehicle emits about 4.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year.
If the report that 263.6 million cars were registered in the United States in 2015, and the forecast that the number of cars worldwide would reach 2.5 billion by 2050, are used as indices then we don’t need a rocket scientist to fashion out the quantity of CO2 we are injecting into the atmosphere and the inherent danger of our actions.
The reports from some countries that electric vehicles will take over the roads are something of joy.
France’s target at ending the sale of gasoline and diesel cars by 2040, though less ambitious than those of Norway and India, is, however, significant having come from a major car-producing country.
The question I’m sure you will want to ask is “how are electric cars going to help in nature’s equilibrium?”
The basic advantage of electric cars is the absence of tailpipe emissions, which is the source of carbon dioxide as a result of a series of messy, chaotic, and minor explosions happening inside the engine of a gasoline car.
There is every need to make mention of the fact that noise pollution that is associated with gasoline cars is completely non-occurring in electric cars as an added advantage.
Another advantage of the electric car is the energy efficiency which by all standards will translate into a cheaper rate of driving and maintaining a car and generally a better standard of living.
Be as it may that we may not completely rule out pockets of emissions possibly during the manufacturing of electric cars which is also the case with gasoline cars and also that the battery must be charged by a source of electricity, which the process of its generation may not be an all “green” affair.
The emissions from these sources will definitely be a far cry from the 4.7 metric tons of carbon dioxide per a gasoline vehicle in a year.
Since the emissions encountered in the generation of electricity is mainly from the use of coal as a primary source of generation, other sources like hydro-based generation can be improved on to bring about the much desired “green” process.
It may take some time but if we are able to incorporate the electric car, there is no gainsaying the fact that we are much closer to attaining nature’s equilibrium and reducing the global warming effects with the attendant catastrophic occurrences.
