For over a hundred years, we have been generating electricity
and moving vehicles by burning fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are
the remains of dead plants and animalsexposed to intense heat
and pressure inside the Earth over millions of years. Like
fossils, they have to be dug or sucked out of the ground. When
we use them, they’re gone. They don’t replenish. They’re not
renewable. Coal, oil, and gas are the fossil fuels producing the
majority of the world’s human-generated greenhouse gases with
coal — any kind of coal — emitting the most carbon dioxide per
unit of energy. New methods, designed to reach new sources, have
caused recent, bitter controversy. Oil companies want to drill
in the Arctic because oil elsewhere is being used up but some
scientists say there are too many unanswered questions about
what happens when oil spills into the valuable Arctic ecosystem.
But people who benefit from the money fossil fuels generate
fight tirelessly to preserve every cent, often even at the
expense of the health and well