What does burning Fossil Fuels do to our community?
Fossil fuels are from coal, petroleum, and natural gas. We are using fossil fuels if we use gasoline in our cars, natural gas in our homes, and if we use electricity from a source that burns coal or other fossil fuels. We use fossil fuels because we don’t have a lot of other choices. If we want to go somewhere, our cars use fossil fuels, as do planes, trains, buses, trucks, boats, … If we use electricity in our homes, we usually don’t have any choice as to where we get the electricity. There is usually just one company that serves an area. If that power company burns coal, then we don’t have any choice about it. Actually, we have the choice of using as little electricity as possible. Using fossil fuels causes: 1. environmental damage from mining, oil wells, and so on 2. possibility of pollution from transporting oil 3. air pollution from burning the fuels 4. groundwater and surface water contamination from leaks, oil drips, … 5.
