When I first took an environmental science class, I didn’t quite get why energy got its own section. Because in a lot of ways, energy feels so detached from the environment. In order to produce and move energy, we dig deep into the ground for fuel, we burn that fuel to create electricity, and we clear trees to make room for power lines. It all seemed in opposition to the environment. And in a lot of ways, it is, most energy production is entirely extractive. The extraction, and the resulting pollution from most energy sources has an immense impact on the environment, and that’s why we’ve got to talk about energy in the context of environmental science.