CHAPTER 1 History Renewable Energy Environmentalism is a big word But its meaning is simple Practicing environmentalism means being a friend of Earth and all its creatures Environmentalists want to keep our air healthy our land clean and our water fresh They want to take care of our plants and animals by making sure our planet remains a safe place to live Some environmentalists focus on encouraging people to stop polluting Others encourage people to recycle One of the most important environmental jobs is to encourage everyone to use renewable resources as their energy sources The Story of Renewable Energy Using renewable energy is an example of environmentalism
Many residents in California and Arizona use solar energy to power their homes
Biomass is a popular source of renewable energy in Europe
This is energy from sources that can never be used up such as the sun and the wind Most of the world’s population uses nonrenewable resources like oil coal and gas to power their cars heat their homes and charge their electronic devices But environmentalists around the world are working every day to change this Before the 19th century all the energy we used was renewable Biomass used to make fire is one of the first and oldest forms of renewable energy Biomass is materials from trees and plants It is considered renewable because we can always grow more of it Wind was also an early form of renewable energy We used wind to power our ships thousands of years ago Machines Changed Everything The Industrial Revolution in the 1800s changed the way we use energy This was when we started using machines to make things These machines ran on nonrenewable resources called fossil fuels Fossil fuels can be found below Earth’s surface Digging and drilling for them can harm the environment Sometimes forests have to be cut down in order to find fossil fuels When this happens wild animals lose their homes
