Rstuart
I will go an have a read. A comment I will make now before I
read what you suggested is that the amount of fossil fuels available
seems to be the catch. At what price are those tonnages available ?
If the oil gets expensive it will not be burned and the same with
coal.
To say it is available, (at any price ?) seems to be meaningless.

Bazz: "I will go an have a read."

It isn't a read. It is a rather pleasant series of videos. But it is quite a commitment: 16 hours. I suggest keeping one eye on it while you do something else. The first 3 or 4 lectures cover the basic physics - quantum mechanics, hot bodies, temperature and the like. They have nothing to do with the climate. I found them interesting as it allowed me to re-visit old ground, but they were superfluous. Personally I think he was just padding the course out so it would fill an entire semester.

I do hope you look at it BTW. If you make it lecture 5 or so, you will be hooked.

Bazz: "To say it is available, (at any price ?) seems to be meaningless."

Actually, what they say is the 100Gt of oil will have stuff all effect regardless of when it is used, so they ignore it entirely. In other words (and I am sure you will like this bit) there is so little of it oil left using it won't effect the climate. Turns out it is only coal that matters.

The picture changes if we start using shale or CTL, of course. I think there is 500Gt of shale lying around, and we would have to use it pretty quickly because we burn huge amounts of it to get the oil out.

Rstuart.
Said;Actually, what they say is the 100Gt of oil will have stuff all
>effect regardless of when it is used, so they ignore it entirely.
> In other words (and I am sure you will like this bit) there is so
>little of it oil left using it won't effect the climate.

But, But, what is all the fuss about cars and petrol then ?
The campaigners go on about our use of cars etc etc and don't tell me
that any of them have heard of peak oil.

Something very odd there.

Downloaded the chapter about oil & coal. Its big 330 Mb.
It is MP4 but I don't seem to have a player for that.

Bazz: "But, But, what is all the fuss about cars and petrol then ?"

Buggered if I know. It isn't coming from the science. I think it comes under the same category as "turning off your TV at night saves heaps of money". It is almost a waste of time, but makes a great sound bite. So you hear this useless advice repeated over and over again on TV. Hearing it gives me the irrites.

Still, unlike the TV thing "use less oil" is a misapprehension I am more than happy to let continue. I am sure you understand the reasons.

Bazz: "Downloaded the chapter about oil & coal. Its big 330 Mb."

Yes. There is 6.6G of it in total. There are a lot of things you can do with the internet if you have the bandwidth and speed available.

Bazz: "It is MP4 but I don't seem to have a player for that."

One of these two will do the trick:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/3ivx.htm
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDshow.htm