Comment & Debate
Kohl Linsberg. “The case against hybrid cars”. Helium – 1. The usually gasoline powered internal combustion engine still releases compounds such as Nitrogen monoxide (NO), Carbon monoxide (CO), and Carbon dioxide (CO2). These gases are dangerous in many ways. Nitrogen monoxide when released into the atmosphere will combine with water vapor. This forms Nitric acid. Later, this Nitric acid will fall with rain to wreak havoc with the environment, mostly by upsetting pH balances. Carbon monoxide is an odorless and colorless gas that is deadly to humans in any appreciable amount. The reason for this is that CO more readily bonds with the hemoglobin in our blood than oxygen. The result is that when CO and oxygen are both inhaled into the lungs, the blood that would usually rather be oxygenated becomes essentially carbon monoxidated. Your body senses nothing wrong as it believes you are still breathing normally, but the various cells in your body cannot metabolized CO in any way. The first result is that you lose consciousness because you brain is the most sensitive to oxygen deprivation. If CO continues to be inhaled then death is inevitable. The last major harmful compound that the internal combustion engine produces is Carbon dioxide. CO2 is a relatively harmless compound that makes up a small percentage of the atmosphere. But, when considering millions of cars producing decent amounts of CO2 there is a very imminent impact on the environment. CO2 is also known as the greenhouse gas, as more and more of it enters the Earth’s atmosphere more heat energy from the sun is trapped near the surface of the Earth, just as a greenhouse traps heat by using plastic or glass. Slowly, this is partly causing the phenomenon of global warming. Global warming is though to be the cause of increased violent weather in recent years and the eventually may cause melting of the ice caps which would raise the world’s oceans dramatically. The release of CO2 is one of the greatest long-term environmental threats, yet hybrid cars produce it along with many other immediately harmful gases.
Supporter of the hybrid car may argue that these claims are false and misleading. By citing advances in catalytic converters and the internal combustion engine, they claim that hybrid cars do reduce the emission of these gases, which is true. However, this reduction is relatively insignificant considering the world’s growing population and the fact the the production of any of these gases hurts the environment.