Global warming, the event of average global temperature rising uncontrollably, has been a problem for a long time. This increase in global temperature can be linked mostly to carbon dioxide emissions; this gas causes global temperatures to rise as it creates a ‘blanket’ over our precious Earth, causing heat to be unable to escape. Carbon dioxide is released into the atmosphere in a lot of places. Some you might be aware of every day, such as your car, when you burn wood, and many others. But do you know that every trickle of electricity that you used in your life has a probability of coming from a cause that is destroying our planet?

This is caused by burning oil, gas, coal, and other things. However, seemingly everything we do these days needs electricity: You are probably reading this document right now on an electric powered device (e.g. a phone, tablet, computer, etc.). Is there anything we can do to save the Blue Marble in space that we call home while still using electricity?

You have probably heard of the term green or renewable energy. This is one of the most important steps to stopping global warming. Green energy is collected from renewable sources, such as the sun, wind, water, or other things. You might’ve even driven past some solar panels, or tall, majestic, wind turbines. These are the bright future, but sadly only 11% of America’s energy is renewable: another 88% release the dreaded CO2. We can almost fix global warming just by switching to renewable energy. So why aren’t we doing it?

The first obstacle is simply that people don’t want to take the switch. Consider this: You are a person benefiting from fossil fuels, and all your profit is coming from this unhealthy source of energy. People are now wanting to switch to a better alternative, and they are saying that your markets are now going to be shut down. You don’t want to shut down your market; it’s what you benefit from. If people turn away from you, then you might go from a wealthy person to a person that no one would spend a cent for. This problem might be one of the huge reasons that people have been opposing renewable sources; one solution to this is to simply relocate the people who previously profited from fossil fuels to one who profits from greener sources: This solution is a win-win for the world and those who want money—more people working in the green industry, more profit goes there, and the more profit the employees get back.

Another obstacle that a lot of people are worried about is that renewable energies are intermittent. Take solar panels, which work by converting the energy from the sun into usable electricity. A good example of the mentioned problem is when night falls and there won’t be any power available anymore. Also consider wind turbines, which converts the energy from the wind to electricity. When the wind is too weak or powerful, no electricity is generated.

I personally think that losing power due to renewable sources is just a paranoid theory, but for the people who are wondering: Green power is generally less expensive than current leading power sources, such as coal or fossil fuels. One solution is that with the money that the government would have remaining, they could simply build more green generators, and store up the energy. Another interesting point about this is that there is simply no way that all the world is going to be powered by just one type of generator. If you have solar, hydroelectric, and wind powered generators, then what are the chances that all of these sources would fail at once?

Finally, many people who are opposing green energy are arguing that it also releases carbon dioxide, similar to burning coal, gas, or other terrible energy sources. This is technically true. Sometimes the sources that generate green energy, such as solar panels, wind turbines, etc. release carbon dioxide because of the construction, repairs, and removing processes involved in it’s life. However, in the process of running the generators, there is little to no bad stuff released, and compared to a non-green energy plant, there is a lot less carbon dioxide emitted—this is virtually no reason whatsoever to call out the renewable energy sources. Some solar panels, when created, release an equal amount of CO2 as if you run it for 50g of CO2 per kWh for 3 years… then that’s all the carbon dioxide it would need to produce, if not for repairs and removal.

According to all of that, obviously our Blue Planet still has a chance to be saved. It’s just a matter of actually saving it. People have already set up the basis of starting, but because of all that are opposing the greener sources of energy, we cannot move forward. Help the world, and promote better sources of electricity, and maybe—just maybe—in the future, global warming will not come back to haunt us. This plan may take years, maybe even decades to execute, but if we work together, and not oppose what is obviously right, then we might still be able to save our beautiful home before it’s too late.