Brandon McCormick EGEE 101H Final Essay 24 April 2014 Before I started my time in Honors Energy and the

Environment, I had little understanding of the word energy. However, as my time progressed in the course, my understanding of the word energy grew. I began to realize how important the word was to my every day life, and its environmental, social, and political implications. In my initial essay for this course, I wrote that the word energy brought to mind two polar opposites. That is, the fiery rhetoric of climate changes deniers on one end and radical environmentalists on the other end. What I hoped to gain from taking this class was to develop a more middle of the road understanding of energy and the environment, an understanding that that was based on scientific principles and not on the opinions of individuals who are at opposite ends of the environmental spectrum. That is exactly what I learned by taking this course. During my semester spent taking Honors Energy in the Environment, I learned both the broad implications of the word energy and also learned to look at environmental problems and solutions from a scientific viewpoint. The first important lesson I learned from taking this class was that the word energy affects almost every aspect of our life. Without energy, life as we know it would be different, as our world would not exist without it. More relevant to our everyday lives is how humankind has learned to effectively collect, store, and implement different forms of energy. For example, we release the energy in fossil fuels like coal by burning it. We then use that energy to create steam and turn a turbine that, in turn, creates electricity. Without this ability to change energy from one

form to another, our everyday lives would be completely different. We would not be able to turn on the lights, use or phones, or drive our cars. It is the broad and far-reaching implications of the word energy that most people take for granted. The second important that I learned during the semester is that it is imperative that you look for solutions to the worlds environmental problems through the lens of science. The biggest application of this lesson is global climate change. A basic understanding of science shows you that if we continue to burn fossil fuels as we do today, we will face dire consequences. I also learned that the best solution to the problem of climate change is to switch from using fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as solar. By learning about renewable technologies such as photovoltaic cells and windmills, I discovered that, the barriers to the implementation of renewable fuels that could stop the runaway greenhouse effect are not technological they are political. My time in Honors Energy and the Environment fundamentally changed the way I looked at energy. I learned how energy affects every aspect of our lives and that basic scientific understanding can help solve our biggest energy problems. My biggest take-away from my time in the course is that we are at a turning point in the history of mankind. We all need to change the way we look at energy and realize that we cannot continue to use energy the way we currently do. Our current technologies would be sufficient enough to replace CO2 emitting fossil fuels, but until each and every one of us wakes up decides to take action nothing will change.