Your Planet Needs You RI 3.2

Our Planet Is in Trouble 
For thousands of years our planet has given us energy, lots of energy! But in the process, we’ve put our planet under stress and now it needs our help. If we want to keep our planet healthy, we must find better ways of getting and using energy. Join ENERGY STAR1 in our fight to save our planet by becoming energy efficient. 

What Is Energy Anyway? Energy is the ability to do work. Energy is found everywhere in the world and comes in many forms:
 • light
 • heat
 • electricity 
• sound
 • motion 

Think of energy as the stuff that makes things happen. Without energy, your body wouldn’t grow, your car wouldn’t move, the lights in your house wouldn’t work, and that’s just to name a few. We need energy for everything we do in life, and we need lots of it! 

Where Does Energy Come From?
 Energy is all around us. It’s in the light we see, it’s in the food we eat, and it’s in the ground we walk on. In fact, energy is everywhere! The problem is, we can’t always use energy. If we want to use energy, we have to first make some changes. 

The electricity in your house comes from different types of fuels. This energy is often produced far away and is sent along wires into your home.

• Our bodies can change the food we eat into energy. 
• Plants can change sunlight into useful energy, which makes them grow! 
• Things like cars, airplanes, and buildings use a kind of food we call fuel.  Gasoline, coal, and wood are all types of fuel, but there are many more. Think of fuel as stuff that has energy inside, just waiting to get out to do something.

Types of Energy
The energy we use to power things, like our cars and homes, comes in two different types: renewable energy and nonrenewable energy.

• Renewable energy comes from things that won’t run out—wind, water, sunlight, plants, and more. These are things we can reuse over and over again. These methods of producing energy are often cleaner and better for our environment than nonrenewable ones. 

• Nonrenewable energy comes from things that will run out one day—oil, coal, natural gas, and uranium. Oil, coal, and natural gas are known as fossil fuels. These fuels are produced from animal and plant material that’s millions of years old

What Can Happen? 
Energy allows us to do so many things that make our lives better. But energy isn’t free, and there are several prices to be paid. 

• Energy costs money. So, the less energy you use, the more you save! One way to do this is to buy energy-efficient products, like the ones with the ENERGY STAR label.

• Using too much of certain types of energy, like fossil fuels, can pollute our environment and possibly lead to global warming.2  Often, the electricity in your home is produced at power plants using fossil fuels, like coal. The less energy we use, the less impact we have on our environment, and that means our planet stays clean and healthy. 

• We have to remember that there’s a limited supply of things that give us energy, like coal and oil. They won’t last forever, so it’s important to use what we have left wisely.

Saving Energy 
So, how do we use less energy? That’s another good question. If you want to stay warm, you need energy. If you want to light your house, you need energy. If you want to drive to the store, you need energy. It seems like you need more, not less energy! That’s just the problem. More and more, every day we all need more energy, which is why energy efficiency is so important. When we’re energy efficient, we use less energy to do something as well as before or better. We have to remember there are a limited number of nonrenewable fuel sources, such as coal and gas. Even if we don’t run out of fuel, we can damage our environment by using too much and wasting energy.


1ENERGY STAR: a program that allows businesses to find ways to save energy

2global warming: a recent increase in the temperature of the atmosphere

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