With all the fossil fuels used everyday is the earth becoming lighter, and what may this have on the earth?

Answer 1

None.

Although the mass of fossil fuel being moved from below the earth surface and changed into other forms, including gaseous Carbon dioxide, the relative mass is very very small compared to the total mass of the earth.

Adding the manufacture of cement and burning of forest to clear land, less tha 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide is add to the atmosphere each year from human activity. This is about 6 x 10^6 kg.

The mass of the earth is about 6.0 x 10^24 kg, or 10^18 times more (this is one with 18 zeros after it).

Answer 2

this may sound like a really hokey, earthy hippie-princess answer, but some people believe (like older tribes of myans for example) that the burning of fossil fuels is releasing a lot of pent up energy and actually sort of speeding up time, if you will. Sort of the explanation for that is that the fossil fuels have taken millions of years to decompose from carbon and organic matter and we have tapped into more or less half of this resource since the industrial revolution. So that doesn't answer if the earth will get lighter, but is it speeding up time perhaps?

Answer 3

An interesting point is that the carbon in fossil fuels came to be there as plants removed Carbon dioxide from the primeval earth's atmosphere.
All we are doing is restoring the atmosphere to its original state.
As this is so why didn't the earth get ever hotter?
RoyS.

Answer 4

The earth is not becoming lighter. The carbon dioxide and water formed from the combustion of fossil fuels is still around on earth -- it didn't escape into space.

Answer 5

The components of the fossil fuels, hydrogen, carbon and incombustible impurities which form ash all remain on Earth so there is no change in the weight of the Earth when the fuels are burned. Fossil fuels are mostly hydrocarbon compounds which burn to form water, carbon dioxide and carbon(soot) due to incomplete combustion, but all remain on Earth or in the atmosphere.

Answer 6

Conservation of mass, although the fuel is burn "used" this means it is being burned, or oxidized, the fuels are not disappearing, simply being changed into another compound, in "gas" this would mean mostly CO@ and H2O, with pollutants like CO and any fuel that was not burned just gets spit out as an inefficient waste.

As for someone's comment about balance with the human population increasing, this is another form of conservation of mass. People are the sum of what they consume, and to produce another human means that the foods, oxygen, etc that the mother takes in as well as her egg, and the man's much smaller contribution (according to mass and energy provided) are what makes a human. This all means that for every human that sustains life, they must be consuming resources, in all in dwindles to no net change due to any of these process, were are simply participating, or causing chemical reactions that release energy (that we use) causing useful compounds to change into less useful compounds (to us).

So given the above there is NO net change in earth's mass, BUT as mentioned by a few others, yes the planet is a large mass with gravitation that pulls other debris from space in, or gets hit by it, which adds to the earth’s mass. It takes a great deal of energy to overcome earth's gravitational field, ex: all that rocket fuel burned to get the space shuttle up, so this means that earth is always getting heavier due to gravity, but not because of what us humans do on the surface of earth.

All the humans do is consume resources, the plants which revert some of our waste like CO2 back into useful oxygen, which we need to breath, well we are multiplying faster then they are, and are destroying their population as we increase ours, so yes eventually we will destroy the natural organisms of this planet which we need to survive, and yes that means we will eventually kill out our own race. Nice huh. Go humans.

Answer 7

No effect what so ever, as a matter of fact the earth keeps getting heavier each day due to being bombarded from space

Answer 8

The fuels are just broken down into their chemical elements, some elements re-combine to form other substances.

The mass of the earth is increasing. believe it or not there are tons of space dust and small metiorites being absorbed into the earth.

Answer 9

Yes, but thankfully americans get fatter and restore the natural balance.

Answer 10

Yes, thank God. With all of the extra people and population explosion over the last century, the Earth was starting to "sag" in its orbit. Go burn another tankful to save our planet. Please, please, study harder in school and get the greatest value from the free education you are being given.

Answer 11

Nice thought and one that should get the scientists shuffling in their seats