drwood;

It is not as simple as that. The most desirable and cheapest to
dig out has what has been used up till now.
It will get increasingly more expensive and of not so popular types.
This will effect its usage.
BTW, it now seems that there is not enough coal and oil to cause global
warming to become much worse.

A slightly of topic question I have is;
In the past when CO2 levels have risen it has been after
temperature rise. Not the other way around. Why is it so ?

The temperature changes (due to global orbit "wobble" over time) affects the oceanic CO2 uptake, and the Co2 follows about 600 to 800 years later. Even though this at first seems to contradict Global Warming, leading climatologist already understand this process and mainly use that graph to illustrate how much higher humanity has pumped CO2 levels than all previous ages (that we can measure anyway).

But as others have said, there may not be enough oil, gas, and coal to fuel Global Warming.

By the way, this review of Crude tomorrow night states:

"The world revealed to us by this doco is wasteful, mass-consuming, ignorant and real. It's a wake-up call that leaves you wondering exactly what you can do, and whether it's too late. This is perfect viewing for those interested in the state of the environment, petrol prices, and the end of the modern world as we know it."

http://www.yourtv.com.au/reviews/index.cfm?i=11875

Bazz:

Coal getting more expensive to mine and use will affect how much net energy it produces but will not affect how CO2 is produced.

Oil peaking at around the present will mean that the rest of its use will contibute to global warming by a similar amount as it has so far (the Hubbert curve is symmetric). The figures in the Energy Watch Report suggest that "Business As Usual" is still likely to lead to temperatures stabilising at over 4 degrees higher than average. Fossil fuel scarcity may lead to less emissions than in some of the IPCC SRES scenarios, but there is nowhere near enough scarcity to stop dangerous climate change. The likely effects of a 4 degree temperature rise are described on Page 294 of the Stern Review.

It is more likely than not that sanity will prevail and we won't have a business as usual scenario. For both environmental and energy security reasons we need to reduce emissions faster than will be caused by scaricity, and that will require have a significant price on carbon.

Alzo and co, I have read some of the links presented here, and some are written by Professors and people who have spent years at uni studying this stuff, are you saying they are all idiots and they are wasting their time. Would you close dowmn universities and shoot the academics this would seem a logical extensions of your attitude, as you have have no repect for their work. Thats what Pol Pot did, now that was raging success.
The only thing you have come up with is a book by a oil company representive, now how much credibility would he have?.
You seem to think this party can go on forever, have a look at the fishing industy 36 out of 39 of the worlds great fisheries are finished and are showing very little or no signs of recovery, these include Newfoundland Banks, Dover Banks, North Sea the worlds great fisheries that they thought were inexhaustable and they are finished.

Her with the day job looking over my shoulder now said "I might as well read comics".

Sure OLO is amusing but can anyone guess who I was reading at the time?

Btw this old pc was down for a day or so with run time errors on W so no pretence in between

Eclipse says
"The temperature changes (due to global orbit "wobble" over time) affects the oceanic CO2 uptake, and the Co2 follows about 600 to 800 years later."

So what he alludes to is that CO2 has much less effect on temperature than natural factors. The Earth's sensitivity to CO2 is vastly overestimated.

The Stern review is largely discredited as it uses every worst case scenario possible. Makes the IPCC report look very mild in comparison. Come on it was written by an economist, what would he know. Four degree temperature rises are at the high end of IPCC estimates and that relies largely on estimated feedbacks.

alanpoi says:
"some are written by Professors and people who have spent years at uni studying this stuff, are you saying they are all idiots and they are wasting their time"
Only the ones from the "New College of California". You can probably buy your degrees from there. Most of the links cited are written by lunatic fringe dwellers.

alanpoi says:
"Would you close dowmn universities and shoot the academics this would seem a logical extensions of your attitude, as you have have no repect for their work."
Absolutely not alan. If people want to waste their money getting a degree from one of these universities it is their right. However if they keep publishing bunkum in public forums, then they will not get respect.

For the record, I don't think fossil fuels are inexhaustible. Yes they will run out obviously. Coal peaking in 15 to 20 years?....you wish.