The biggest problem with the burning of fossil fuels is that it produces carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas. Carbon emissions from fossil fuels are one of the biggest contributors to climate change, along with methane from animal agriculture. Carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise in spite of new climate policies. These emissions increase the risk of rising sea levels and wildfires due to global warming. Carbon capture technologies might be able to put some of these greenhouse gas emissions back into the Earth, but they aren’t developed enough yet to be fully reliable. Climate change isn’t the only way fossil fuels damage the environment. The fossil fuel industry has been responsible for major leaks and oil spills, including the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and the Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2020. As fossil fuel deposits become harder to find, energy producers have to resort to riskier methods, such as hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”), which can harm the ecosystem and contaminate groundwater supplies.