I’m 13 and even I know oil is finite

I am a 13-year-old student.

After school recently, I was waiting for my bus, watching the multitude of cars that surrounded me, the vast majority of which ran on petrol or diesel, when another bus stopped.

I was standing by the rear of the double-decker bus. Suddenly, the bus’s large diesel engine emitted foul-smelling fumes, which overwhelmed my senses and forced me to cough.

Unfortunately, the greenhouse-gas carbon dioxide was a part of this pungent mixture.

In fact, science has revealed it is emitted whenever fossil fuels are burnt. Not only do fossil fuels damage the environment, they are also in short supply, despite an ever-increasing demand.

In an era in which technological devices are progressing further and further, I cannot understand how it can be that we are still using finite, CO2-emitting fossil fuels to power our vehicles.

We have known for long enough about the negative effects of our over-reliance on fossil fuels, but we are still dependent on these finite energy sources. Hydrogen-powered cars, solar-powered cars, cars that run on biofuels and electric cars are all viable alternatives.

However, eco-friendly ‘band A’ vehicle motor taxes increased in the 2012 Budget. Despite this lack of encouragement from our own government, one would expect that, by now, a renewable alternative would have been endorsed around the world.

I wonder whether we are waiting for car manufacturers and oil-field owners to make every last cent that can be earned from the oil industry, and for the price of oil to rise to an even more outlandish and unaffordable level, while oil supplies continue to decline just as climate change continues to worsen?

So, what is preventing this from happening? Perhaps we are to blame. Maybe we do not really recognise how much of a problem is posed by our over-dependence on fossil fuels; maybe we just want to ignore climate-change reports and dream about fast cars and powerful engines.

Whatever the reason, we cannot afford to wait until the earth’s finite oil reserves have run out and the Earth has been ravaged beyond repair by the effects of climate change.

It is essential that we move beyond ‘research and development’ and find a practical, realistic, renewable energy source which can, once and for all, replace oil and finally achieve global, eco-friendly transport.

But what would a 13-year-old know?

Ultan Doherty

Hollystown

Dublin 15