Fossil fuels are used to provide energy for many of your daily activities.

During the first three months of 2016, Canada was the sixth largest producer of oil in the world and the fourth largest producer of natural gas in the world. In Alberta, coal is mined mainly to provide fuel for electrical power plants. These fossil fuels are important to the economy of the province and are an important part of the current lifestyle of Albertans.

The extraction processes and combustion of fossil fuels, however, have harmful effects on the environment.  You will learn about these effects in this activity.

The greenhouse effect is the way the gases in the earth's atmosphere trap heat. The combustion (or burning) of fossil fuels means that oxygen is combined with hydrocarbons (what fossil fuels are made of) to provide power or energy to run our cars, factories, power plants, and so on, while water (as steam) and carbon dioxide are released as products of that reaction. The carbon dioxide moves into the atmosphere and increases the greenhouse effect. This means that more heat gets trapped in the earth's atmosphere and the result is what scientists call global climate change.

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Another product of some fossil fuel reactions is sulfur dioxide, which is one of the causes of acid rain.

Indigenous groups in northern Canada say that the climate is changing. They report that winters are getting warmer and that the permafrost is melting.

 Also, scientists have found that glaciers and ice caps are melting faster today than they were a few decades ago.

 According to scientists, pollution related to global warming comes from the following sources:

• power plants that generate electricity (about 34%)

• transportation (about 27%)

• industry (almost 19%)

• agriculture and farming (almost 8%)

• residential (homes) (almost 8%)

• commercial (businesses) (almost 5%)

The harmful effects of the burning of fossil fuels has become more obvious as use of these fuels increases. Although it has been thousands of years since people began burning wood and later coal for fuel, it has really only been the past few hundred years that industrialization has resulted in the current demand for fossil fuels. As use of fossil fuels increases, scientists notice that the earth's temperature also increases, leading to climate change.