New national science standards that make the teaching of global warming part of the public school curriculum are slated to be released this month, potentially ending an era in which climate skepticism has been allowed to seep into the nation's classrooms.

The Next Generation Science Standards were developed by the National Research Council, the National Science Teachers Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the nonprofit Achieve and more than two dozen states. The latest draft recommends that educators teach the evidence for man-made climate change starting as early as elementary school and incorporate it into all science classes, ranging from earth science to chemistry. By eighth grade, students should understand that "human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming)," the standards say.

They're "revolutionary," said Mark McCaffrey, programs and policy director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a nonprofit that defends evolution and climate education and opposes the teaching of religious views as science.

The 26 states that helped write the standards are expected to adopt them. Another 15 or so have indicated they may accept them—meaning climate change instruction could make its way into classrooms in 40-plus states.

President Obama's expected choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency is Gina McCarthy, who as an assistant EPA administrator has shaped some of the agency's most contentious rules, including greenhouse gas regulations for new cars and power plants and air pollution standards for oil and gas drilling.

McCarthy, 58, hasn't made any public statements about what she would do if confirmed as EPA administrator, and the Office of Air and Radiation—which she currently heads—didn't return a request for comment. To get an idea of how she might lead the agency, we examined some of the speeches she's given over the past four years.

McCarthy's record shows she's a strong supporter of climate action. In 2009, when Congress was debating a carbon cap-and-trade bill (which died in 2010), she told a group of Connecticut energy experts that the country needs a "comprehensive energy bill moving forward that provides a cap-and-trade system" to deal with climate change.

WASHINGTON—With a couple of lines tucked into his State of the Union speech this month, President Obama pitched the tent for a three-ring circus starring advocates with competing agendas: controlling greenhouse gases, expanding fossil fuel development and conserving open spaces.

The idea Obama proposed would siphon $2 billion from the swelling oil and gas royalties the government expects to collect over the next decade and devote it to federally sponsored clean-car research that has been starved for cash. The question is what he will have to give up in negotiations to get what he wants.

"Much of our new-found energy is drawn from lands and waters that we, the public, own together," he said in the speech. "So tonight, I propose we use some of our oil and gas revenues to fund an Energy Security Trust that will drive new research and technology to shift our cars and trucks off oil for good."

The average "energy returned on investment," or EROI, for conventional oil is roughly 25:1. In other words, 25 units of oil-based energy are obtained for every one unit of other energy that is invested to extract it. 

But tar sands oil is in a category all its own.

Tar sands retrieved by surface mining has an EROI of only about 5:1, according to research released Tuesday. Tar sands retrieved from deeper beneath the earth, through steam injection, fares even worse, with a maximum average ratio of just 2.9 to 1. That means one unit of natural gas is needed to create less than three units of oil-based energy.

"They have to use a lot of natural gas to upgrade this heavy, sticky, gooky almost tar-like stuff to make it fluid enough to use," said Charles Hall, a professor at the State University of New York's College of Environmental Science and Forestry. Hydrogen from gas heats the tar sands so the viscous form of petroleum it contains, known as bitumen, can be liquefied and pumped out of the ground. In this way, Hall said, gas helps turn tar sands "into something a bit closer to what we call oil."