Certificate of Achievement
has completed the following course:
Energy, the Environment and Our Future
The Pennsylvania State University
This course explored where we get our energy from today and why we need to change our energy system now, to avoid future changes to our climate.
5 weeks, 3 hours per week
Richard Alley, Ph.D.
Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences and Associate of the Earth and Environmental Systems Institute, The Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University
Transcript
Learning outcomes
- Identify both natural and human-driven systems and processes that produce energy and affect the environment
- Explain basic scientific concepts related to energy in language that non-scientists can understand
- Discuss how global warming from fossil-fuel use has arisen historically
- Summarize how the climate has always changed and how humans are driving the ongoing changes, which will have large and long-lasting impacts if we don’t shift our energy system
Syllabus
- Stories of our ancestors showing the immense value, but real difficulties of energy use including burning trees and whale oil
- Creative ways our ancestors dealt with drought and how rain impacted population
- How we talk about energy, what is it, and how much of it we use
- The long process of how the Earth makes fossil fuels
- US Energy use and the US economy
- The formation and origins of fossil fuels (oil, coal and gas)
- The physics of global warming and the history of carbon dioxide
- Climate models using natural and anthropogenic forcings
- The history of global warming including The Great Dying, PETM and the Ice Ages
- The Projection Project and the impacts of increased CO2 on the planet
Issued on 19th May 2017
The person named on this certificate has completed the activities in the transcript above. For more information about Certificates of Achievement and the effort required to become eligible, visit futurelearn.com/proof-of-learning/certificate-of-achievement.
This certificate represents proof of learning. It is not a formal qualification, degree, or part of a degree.