All we are doing, in burning fossil fuels, is releasing the carbon back into the earth’s atmosphere where it came from in the first place. All the carbon fuels we burn were created by plants who take in Carbon and Water, create carbohydrates, and release oxygen. Since all the carbohydrate derivatives we are burning were created by plants, using carbon from the atmosphere, we are just, slowly, putting a little bit of it back each day. If all organic matter on the earth were to be urned/oxidized, then we will have arrived back at the carbon levels that were in the earth’s atmosphere before life began. Who is to say which level of atmospheric concentration is “right” given the full range of concentrations that have been in our atmosphere since forever. That said, I favor nuclear power. Clean. French. Nice.