Fossil Fuel Extraction

Fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas) are a non-renewable, finite source of energy, formed from the remains of ancient plants and animals that lived up to 300 million years ago. These fuels power cars, mass transit systems, and electrical grids, plus provide the raw material for plastics and other consumer items. Most of the world’s energy demands are met by the combustion of fossil fuels.

To release their stored energy, fossil fuels must be burned. During this combustion process, a variety of emissions and particulates, including ash, sulfur, nitrogen, and carbon, are released into the atmosphere. These emissions pose a human health risk, and harm the environment by combining with water vapor in the air to form acid rain. Burning fossil fuels also releases carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas that scientists have shown to be the key factor behind global climate change.

Birds are impacted by fossil fuel extraction and use in a wide variety of ways. Climate change is one of today’s greatest threats to bird habitats, migration patterns, and nesting success. Oil extraction facilities and storage pits also pose a serious threat to birds, destroying and degrading suitable habitat, and often directly causing significant mortality through spills, poisoning, collisions, and destruction of food sources. Mining destroys forest and other habitat to reach underground deposits and is also a major threat to birds. The most harmful form of coal mining is mountaintop removal/valley fill, whereby entire mountaintops are removed and dumped in surrounding valleys, destroying thousands of acres of forest and stream habitat.