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The world's coal and oil supplies represent millions of years of carbon absorption. If we burn through it in a thousand years, we've likely put more carbon int
by enomar 17y ago
The world's coal and oil supplies represent millions of years of carbon absorption. If we burn through it in a thousand years, we've likely put more carbon into the atmosphere than has ever been there before (at one time).
- jibiki 17y agoDoing the calculations is a major pain, but I really don't think that's true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#Earliest_atmosphere http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleoclimatology#Earliest_atmos... Wikipedia says that the earth's earliest atmosphere was a stunning 10% C02. Total coal reserves are 930 billion (non-metric?) tons: http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/coal.html http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/coal.html But the earth's atmosphere is 5 quadrillion metric tons: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Density_and_mass http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Earth#Density_and... So getting to 10% is impossible. Adding in oil, bitumen, and natural gas probably won't get you past 1% (which is still pretty bad: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity .)