TOWARD ENERGY GEOSCIENCE LITERACY PRINCIPLES

Whether energy prices are spiking or tanking, America is now at a crossroads of energy policy. Investments made during the new administration will help determine the mix of fossil fuel, nuclear, and renewable energy for decades to come. Geoscience knowledge could help guide these investments, but the public remains poorly informed about geoscience in general and energy aspects in particular.

Within the last two years, concise statements of Earth systems principles have been developed that can guide teaching about energy. The NOAA document, Climate Literacy, and the document by the NSF-funded Earth Science Literacy Initiative each contain relevant statements. Additional principles are proposed that would further help the public weigh factors such as the future of cheap oil and gas, the costs of unabated greenhouse gas emissions, the challenges of sequestering such emissions underground, the environmental effects of extraction technologies, and the risks of long term nuclear waste storage.