Today we live in large industrial world that depends heavily on the extraction of natural resources and its mass consumption. Through technological development, nations can thrive in the economic field when exporting natural resources but there are negative factors that hurt the atmosphere. In the U.S. 60% of americas live in high polluted areas, with rising high levels of natural resource consumptions. The levels of pollution in the world is rising and the U.S. is in the middle of the development.
In the reading by the Union of Concerned Scientists, concluded that every 10,000 U.S. homes powered with with natural gas instead of coal avoids the annual emissions of 1,900 tons of NOx, 3,900 tons of SO2, and 5,200 tons of particulates. There are renewable energy that is present and can be used by governments and private industries, but the business aspects of natural resources creates a challenge switching energy consumptions methods.
The removal of natural resources from the environment often creates bad living conditions for locals to to make a living. Many countries in Latin America are suffering from the exploitation from corporations that remove the natural resources without concern for the negative effects. Latin America is responsible for 974.6 million metric tons of CO2 emissions from fuel combustion, with high rates in the manufacturing, and transporting sectors. They are responsible for a large factor of the rise in pollution because of the exploitation of the natural resources.
Countries like Brazil that are abundant in nature resources tends to have high rates of air pollution due to its industrialization. The cost of air pollution to the health sector is estimated to be more than $670 million and causes more than 4,000 premature deaths each year. The negative effects of pollution are continually increasing but the solution is alternative energies, which are slowly being implemented into society.
I really liked how you wrote about Latin America. It was also great that you were able to provide statistics, which provided prospective. You wrote in your first paragraph about the rising resource consumptions, do you know the rate of increase? Also, has your article motivated you to reflect on your carbon footprint? if so how?
I enjoyed reading your post because it focused both on the United States as well as nations around the world, particularly Latin and South America. I think that sometimes we get too caught up in focusing on American emissions, and we forget about the extent to which it is a global problem and crisis. I would ask, though, how do Latin and South America compare to other continents in terms of their emissions? Additionally, what would you suggest that the developing countries of Latin and South America, who are dependent on natural resources and fossil fuel use to grow and maintain their economies, do to reduce their carbon footprint and emissions?
I find it interesting that you say that Latin America is such a large contributor to CO2 emissions. I believe Sam who is also in this group wrote that China is a large culprit of CO2 emissions. It would be interesting to have data on different countries in Latin America as well as China to compare the differing levels in CO2 emissions and also to see what exactly within the countries is such a large contributor to CO2 emissions (ex. industrialization, deforestation, etc.).