Photo: NASABerlin: While burning coal today causes earth to overheat, about 300 million years ago, the formation of coal brought the planet close to global glaciation or a snowball like state, according to a study. The plants’ debris over time formed most of the coal that today is used as fossil fuel, they said. The amount of CO2 stored in earth’s coal reserves was once big enough to push our climate out of balance. When released by burning the coal, the CO2 is again destabilising the earth system,” Feulner said. “Raising the amount of greenhouse gases beyond that limit means pushing ourselves out of the safe operating space of Earth,” Feulner said.

Source: Mint October 10, 2017 12:00 UTC