INTRODUCTION: Fossil fuels are formed from the organic remains of prehistoric organisms, such as plants and animals. All fossil fuels take millions of years to fully transform into a usable energy source; and this is where the problem begins. Since the first use of fossil fuels in the late 1850s, the demand for fossil fuels has skyrocketed to astronomical proportions. Since the industrial revolution, fossil fuels have been used to power almost everything. Fossil fuels were used to power trains to make up for the lack of firewood and coal. This was also the time when automobiles were to become more accessible to the public, so the demand for fuel continued to increase. As time went on, demand for fossil fuels skyrocketed, leading to further digging for coal and oil deposits. The use of fossil fuels has led to the world we live in now, but due to our overbearing dependence on them it has left the world with a serious problem; When we run out of fossil fuels, what will we do? Another big problem with using fossil fuels is the overall pollution that is produced as a byproduct. In 2011 alone, all the nations of the world released over 38.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The continued use of only fossil fuels has trapped so much carbon in our atmosphere, that it has formed a “greenhouse effect” that has trapped the sun's UVA rays and continually warms the planet, which has led to global climate change, and even the melting of the polar ice caps. This caused ocean water levels to rise, which, in turn, began to cause even more problems. FOSSIL FUELS 3 It was Svante Arrhenius who proposed the effects of carbon monoxide on our atmosphere. Arrhenius calcu......middle of paper......to fuel our daily things increased. Fossil fuels have done a lot for us in the past, but the question still remains open; what do we do when the planet runs out. In addition to building our world on a limited resource, fossil fuels have also caused serious problems for our environment. Due to the pollution emitted from burning fossil fuels, these have led to severe melting of the polar ice caps and rising water levels by half a foot. In addition to destroying the ocean, people have gone to extremes to extract coal and oil. People destroyed forests and mountains to extract what they were looking for, but they did nothing but further destroy the atmosphere. Data collected over the last 100 years shows that the average global temperature has steadily increased. As temperatures rose, so did the demand for fossil fuels.