Laughlin acknowledges that "a lot of responsible people" are worried about atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. This has, he says, "the potential" to modify the weather by raising average temperatures several degrees centigrade and that governments have taken " significant, although ineffective," steps to slow the warming. " On the scales of time relevant to itself, the earth doesn" t care about any of these governments or their legislation. "Someday, all the fossil fuels that used to be in the ground will be burned. After that, in about a millennium, the earth will dissolve most of the resulting carbon dioxide into the oceans. The dissolving will leave the concentration in the atmosphere only slightly higher than today" s. Then " over tens of millennia, or perhaps hundreds" the earth will transfer the excess carbon dioxide into its rocks, "eventually returning levels in the sea and air to what they were before humans arrived on the scene. " This will take an eternity as humans reckon, but a blink in geologic time.