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As a complete layman, with no study in this area, his description of a reservoir made be think of oil. Our current technological progress is heavily dependant on oil - not just for cars, but more importantly cargo ships, trains and aircraft. At some point hundreds of years perhaps from now, it will run out. And that may change the equation somewhat.

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We are currently running out of atmosphere to dump the CO2 from burning the oil into.

That's an interesting way to phrase it. If the atmosphere were going to saturate in a way that would prevent combustion from even happening that would be a very interesting scenario.

if you are thinking along the lines of atmosphere saturation to a point of not being able to support combustion, then i guess "living" organisms who depend on oxygen would be long gone by then

The CO2 content of the athmosphere is actually not that high, nor will it be at the end of the century even if we don't reduce global emissions. The problem is that it is quite enough already to cause climate change. Which would also not be such a big deal if not coupled with large-scale destruction of ecosystems and our dependence on non-renewable resources.

I didn't literally mean the atmosphere had a limited capacity to hold this much CO2 and no more.

Please add "without existential-level consequences", which was the implied meaning.

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