Written report:

Tracing the root causes of some of the myriad of ecological problems arising in
the Anthropocenic Era: A short informal dissertation | by: Group I

Chemistry for Engineers | CHEM20024

Submitted to Prof. Ofelia Villamor

March 27, 2019
I. PROBLEMS:
The problems can be summarized into:

• Energy from non-renewable sources

• Depleting energy reserves
• Deforestation
• Dangerous effects of the current energy generation techniques
• Inefficiency and overexploitation of resources
• Ignorance

Why we have these problems?

W hat is the reason why we keep doing things that endangers the very earth we live in?
The answer is simple: greed for a larger profit. For example, since electricity is essential in
today’s modern living, it is a great “business” to invest in, control and gain profit from.
And since non-renewable resource-sourced electricity like that from a coal power plant is
significantly cheaper to produce and sold for less to a local distributor, while renewable resources-
sourced energy yields less electricity at a higher cost thus translates to less profit, there is no reason to
choose the latter. With a greed-based economic model dominating the world, what can we expect?
The best describing maxim of capitalism is that “greed is good.” People running big corporations see
their job as to maximize profits, even if maximising profit means causing irreparable damage to the
world’s ecosystem. What’s more, they think they should be free to get on with maximising profits
without any interference from anyone as long as it is their property.
Another cause is how we fetishize something for a reason other than its practical value. We
over- mine mountains to obtain diamonds and we dig the into the very veins of the Earth for gold just
so it can be made into a ring and be worn on a finger. To build our cities, we also do massive
deforestations. We are comfortable with our cars, refrigerators, and watching TV sitting in our
mahogany chairs and our feet in bear fur carpet, meanwhile, cities boil in more than 40-degrees heat,
the Arctic thaws, and biodiversity loss is reaching terrifying levels with animals going extinct at about
1,000 times the natural rate. It was even predicted that by 2050, if the current economic systems
remain the same, the world resources will be in danger of depletion.
With increased production also arises increased amount of waste. Industries, along with fossil
fuels, can pollute air through the reaction of nitrates and sulfides produced during the combustion of
organic and carbon-based fuels. This leads to bad environmental effects like acid rain that can acidify
soil, or weaken structures and collapse them.

Acid rain:

2 SO2 + O2 2 SO3 (Sulphur dioxide reaches the atmosphere, it oxidizes to first form a sulphate
ion.)
(The sulphate ion joins with hydrigen atoms in the air and becomes sulphuric
SO3 + H2O H2SO4 acid. This then falls back down to earth as "acid rain")

Combustion reactions:

In these reactions using different sources of fuels, we can see their reactions and we can notice
that these reactions always yield the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide

𝑪(𝒔) + 𝑶𝟐 → 𝑪𝑶𝟐 (By burning coal (C) which is the primary raw material of electricity
generation ie. coal powerplants)
 𝑪𝑯𝟒 + 𝟐𝑶𝟐 → 𝑪𝑶𝟐 + 𝟐𝑯𝟐 𝑶 (By burning natural gases)
𝟐𝑪𝟖 𝑯𝟏𝟖 + 𝟐𝟓𝑶𝟐 → 𝟏𝟔𝑪𝑶𝟐 + 𝟏𝟖𝑯𝟐 𝑶 (By burning hydrocarbons, in this example gasoline.)

The catch is if these reactions occur with the the lack of oxygen in the process, it will yield a
more dangerous and more poisonous gas, carbon monoxide.

Other air pollutants:

𝟒𝑭𝒆𝑺𝟐 + 𝟏𝟏𝑶𝟐 → 𝟐𝑭𝒆𝟐 𝑶𝟑 + 𝟖𝑺𝑶𝟐 (Sulfur dioxide and related sulfur oxides (SOx) are
primary pollutants that are created when coal
containing high amounts of iron sulfide is burned.)

(Atmospheric oxygen reacts with iron sulfide to form

𝑺𝑶𝟑 + 𝑯𝟐 𝑶 → 𝑯𝟐 𝑺𝑶𝟒
iron oxide and sulfur dioxide.)

These gases (sulfur oxides) are secondary air pollutants and are also related to the acid raid
reaction aforementioned.

Nitrogen oxides:
𝑵𝟐 + 𝑶𝟐 → 𝟐𝑵𝑶 (Nitrogen Dioxide and related nitrogen oxides (NOx)
are primary pollutants produced when fuel is burned
𝟐𝑵𝑶 + 𝑶𝟐 → 𝟐𝑵𝑶𝟐 AT VERY HIGH TEMPERATURES to form nitric oxide, a
colorless gas. The high temperature processes occur
𝑵𝑶𝟐 + 𝑯𝟐 𝑶 → 𝑯𝑵𝑶𝟑
in power plants or in the combustion chambers of
engines)
 Once in the atmosphere, nitric oxide reacts with additional oxygen to form nitrogen dioxide, a
red-brown toxic gas that causes irritation to the eyes and respiratory system. It is also a secondary
air pollutant.

We can see the effects of this as these chemical products work together and combines with the air
that we breathe everyday. Some of these products have detrimental effect to the body if exposed
in long term. Short term of exposure of high amount, for example of carbon oxides can be fatal as
we can hear from news where people have died just from being caught in a traffic inside the car.
This concoction of chemicals also are dangerous:

𝑯𝒚𝒅𝒓𝒐𝒄𝒂𝒓𝒃𝒐𝒏𝒔 + 𝑺𝒖𝒏𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕 + 𝑶𝟐 + 𝑪𝑶 + 𝑵𝑶𝒙 + 𝑶𝒓𝒈𝒂𝒏𝒊𝒄 𝒄𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒅𝒔 + 𝑪𝑶𝟐 + 𝑯𝟐 𝑶

Specially when combined with greenhouse effect. In green house effect, as we have taught by our
beautiful professors, these compounds work together in the lower atmosphere and traps heat
leading to global warming.

One of the process that does this aside from this is the formation of ozone in the lower
atmosphere which is dangerous (O. Villamor, 2019). This can be visualized in the chemical
reaction below:
(Through a process called neutron irradiation, NO2
𝑵𝑶𝟐 →(𝒔𝒖𝒏𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕) 𝑵𝑶 + 𝑶
breaks down to NO and a reactive form of non-
𝑶 + 𝑶𝟐 → 𝑶𝟑 (This free oxygen)
diatomic oxygen combines in diatomic oxygen to
form ozone, and form lower ozone layer (in contrast
with the benificial high ozone, low ozone layer is
dangerous because it doesn’t allow heat to escape
the atmosphere (Villamor, 2019))).

We are blinded of the idea of the capitalist notion of progress and popular trend in beauty and
fashion that we sell the very nature that tended us, and the only Earth we live in to the devil for it.
Surprisingly, majority of us know about this phenomena, but we turn a blind eye on it; maybe
bacause everyone is doing it, or we are too focused on what it can provide us in the short-term that we
are forgetting that we will not be the only ones that will live this earth.

II. THEIR EFFECTS:

• Wasted products, garbage, and pollution
• A United Nations scientific paper suggests Capitalism has to change in order for the planet to be
saved
• Early depletion of resources
III. POSSIBLE SOLUTION:
In macro level (in a wide perspective, heavily relies on politics):

• Captalism has to atleast change, if not to die

- We can replace market competition with collaboration

• Our local government has to fund science research

- China’s government hugely invests and funds science and they are expected to surpass
U.S technology (Forbes, 2018) in 2020. They are also experimenting in renewable
materials nuclear fusion.

• US intervention has to die

- Like in the present Venezuela which attempts to shift to a Marxist hybrid economy, they
impose embargo to force them to preserve capitalism. Countries must have full control of
how they govern their countries without imperial forces intervening.

In micro level (what we can do as individuals, apolitical):

• We need to lessen the use of the technologies/things that can affect our planet negatively
• Scrubbing
▪ In the process of “scrubbing” the gas emissions of industrial combustion processes,
sulfur dioxide gas is removed by using an aqueous solution of calcium hydroxide, also
called limewater. The sulfur dioxide reacts with the limewater to form solid calcium
sulfite. Scrub bers that utilize this “wet” scrubbing method can remove up to 95% of
sulfur oxides.
𝑆𝑂2 + 𝐶𝑎(𝑂𝐻)2 → 𝐶𝑎𝑆𝑂3 + 𝐻2 𝑂

• We should not just talk of what is happening, but what we can do.
- Since our elementary days we have heared of “global warming”, “climate change”,
“ozone depletion”, “polution”, “deforestation.” We are already aware of what’s
happening. But
- Science doesn’t need to be confined in laboratories. Education shoud not be limited to
rooms and in schools, college, and our university buildings. Education should not be
limited to mere concepts or ideas. It must be practically applied.
-
Solutions in the present/in development:
- Vacuum for the atmosphere

“Scientists say they have invented a machine that can suck carbon dioxide out of the air –
potentially creating a vital weapon in the war against global warming.
The blueprint for the CO2 'scrubber' raises the prospect of a generation of machines which
would help reduce the billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases being pumped into the
atmosphere by the use of fossil fuels.
The team of US scientists now plans to build a prototype which would capture one tonne of
CO2 from the air every day.” (From www.dailymail.co.uk)

- More efficient and less waste battery of the future:

“Researchers at the University of Surrey say they have made a scientific breakthrough in this
regard. They say they have discovered new materials offering an alternative to battery power
 and proven to be between 1,000-10,000 times more powerful than the existing battery
alternative, a supercapacitor.” (From www.weforum.org)

- Electric cars – cars that uses batteries and electric motors instead of fossil-driven ones.
There is even a model that can charge with solar electricity while driving

- Nuclear fusion-reactors

produces more efficient elctricity without the radioactive products by fusing lighter
elements that is abundant and we have virtually unlimited supply of like Hydrogen and
Lithium (happens just like what happens in the Sun’s core), instead of splitting rare deep
earth radioactive heavy metals like Uranium and Plutonium that produces dangerous
radioactive products.
IV. CONCLUSION
If we want to save earth, we have to make compromises. We have to make sacrifices knowing
that what we are doing it for our planet to be able to support more generations of our species. We have to
make sacrifices not tomorrow, but today. Today that we are still using syropore to trap heat and keep our
beverages hor or cold that can damage the environment when burned and even takes hundreds of years to
decompose in soil. Today that we still use freon in refrigeration. Today that 70% of world’s electricity
source is non-renewable. Today that we haven’t discovered another planet that can support organic life,
we have no choice; we only have this planet as of today. We need to balance ecology and utilization of
these technologies that can harm our environment. The good news is, as we all know, science is ever
advancing. I’m sure that this sacrifice would only be for a brief. We just need to ensure that the people
who will discover the solution to these problems would still have the chance to be born.

Reporters:

• George Anthony Nuarin

• Kurt Adrian Wynfred Cristobal
• Dharvin Antonio Borilla
• Nico Del Rosario
• Ernesto Dela Cruz
• Cassandra Joy Caibigan
• Ronald Catibag

Sources:

http://www.globalconstructionreview.com/news/china-build-wo8r6l8ds-first-fissionfusion-react203/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/nitrogen-dioxide

https://climate.nasa.gov/effects/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28888862