What Are So-Called "Fossil Fuels"
Environmentalists emphasize that prehistoric Earth had abundant plant and animal life. During these prehistoric times the average global temperatures were a few degrees higher. As they do today, prehistoric plants took in atmospheric carbon dioxide, and breathed out oxygen. This method of respiration by green plant life is called photosynthesis. This is the opposite of humans, which take in oxygen and then exhale carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is a greenhouse gas. These gases retain a portion of the radiant heat energy from the sun in the atmosphere. Unlike the warning of radicals, greenhouse gases do not usher in doomsday. Far from it. Without an atmosphere filled with gases that store heat energy, life on the surface of Earth would not be possible (ala Mars). These environmental radicals also rant that CO2 is the number one greenhouse gas, which is untrue. The number one greenhouse gas is water vapor!
This prehistoric plant life eventually died and was buried in the shallow regions that geologists call sedimentary layers. Over time these and other sediments solidify; hence the term sedimentary rocks. The environmentalists claim that after eons the dead plants buried in the sediments fossilized, but also chemically decomposed into a variety of hydrocarbons. As the name implies, hydrocarbons are composed of hydrogen and carbon. Like all life, plants are mostly water, but minor portions do decompose into hydrocarbons. Environmentalists claim that decomposed prehistoric plants resulted in petroleum, coal and methane. This is how environmentalists justify tagging hydrocarbons as "fossil fuels." Sorry, it's all wrong!
The Old 'Biogenic Theory' of Hydrocarbon Formation
Modern environmentalists cannot be blamed for the term "fossil fuels." In the 1870's, it was geologists that documented the existence of biological debris in the petroleum and coal deposits. They mistakenly thought that biology was the source of petroleum and coal. This is called the 'biogenic theory.'
The biogenic theory has two restrictions. First, it restricts the search for petroleum to only shallow levels of sedimentary rock. Second, the biogenic theory limits the worldwide projections of remaining reserves. Environmentalists claim that since there were limited amounts of prehistoric plant life, there can be only limited quantities of petroleum. This is not the first time that a mere theory has been used to convince you that a commodity is scarce; and therefore expensive!
Another premise of the old biogenic theory is that "fossil fuels" retain the CO2 inhaled by prehistoric plants. The theory claims that as a result of this "capturing" of the greenhouse gas CO2, Earth underwent a global cooling. The biogenic theory proposes that the prehistoric lowering of CO2 had decreased the heat storage capacity of the atmosphere. But now environmentalists claim that when humans burn "fossil fuels," especially in cars and trucks, they are "re-releasing CO2."
So here we have the biogenic theory of hydrocarbons, which is wrong; along with an unproven greenhouse theory of global warming, which points a vindictive finger at humans for the burning of "fossil fuels." For example, Stephen Schneider of Stanford University was developing quite a career by playing his computer climate video games for politicians. In 1983 he announced:
"What we're really getting back is the carbon dioxide (CO2) that was taken out of the air hundreds of millions of years ago, when plants died and sank to the bottom of swamps. And we're getting it back when we burn that coal or that oil."
This is a bunch of high-powered, highly promoted, computer-generated nonsense.