cgg wrote:
"I certainly do not see human emissions continuing unabated for centuries (or even decades, though opinions vary)."
Vary, indeed.
It does not take a very advanced civilization to extract fossil fuels. The Greeks probably were doing it.
FF provide power, and humans are driven to maximize their own power.
As we have seen with tar sands, price is not a barrier to extracting these things. Once the price gets high enough, every dirty, low-EROEI source will be exploited.
Coal plants have been shut down, but have any still fully producing coal mines, or still rich oil wells, or gas fields been abandoned because the companies or countries decided it was bad for the planet?
I know of no such case, and I have heard of no such calls (except for new ventures, like tar sands) to shut down mines and wells that are still producing at a good rate over GW concerns.
I would be happy to be shown otherwise.
So I think it is highly likely that every molecule of extractable ff will eventually be dug up, pumped out, or fracked away, and we will see resulting gw eventually that are worse than nearly anyone is predicting at this point.
When that happens is always hard to say exactly, but things are spinning pretty rapidly out of kilter in the Arctic, and that is the area where many of the strongest feedbacks are primed to erupt.