They are not the answer to peak oil. Latest:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4720104.stm

The worst-case scenario would see global and regional warming, raising the world's average surface temperature by 15C and lifting sea levels by more than 11m.

...Barbara Young, the chief executive of the Environment Agency, commented: "We are running out of road on decision-making - unless we dramatically change the use of fossil fuels then we will be committing future generations to the most severe impacts of climate change."

Admittedly it's a very inexact science to look
as far ahead as 3000. But there are other
reports on the madness of methane type
hydrades, e.g.:

===============

John Atcheson, a geologist, has held a variety of policy positions in
several federal government agencies.

Published on Thursday, December 16, 2004 by Baltimore Sun

Methane Burps: Ticking Time Bomb

by John Atcheson

The Arctic Council's recent report on the effects of global warming in
the far north paints a grim picture: global floods, extinction of
polar
bears and other marine mammals, collapsed fisheries. But it ignored a
ticking time bomb buried in the Arctic tundra.

There are enormous quantities of naturally occurring greenhouse gasses
trapped in ice-like structures in the cold northern muds and at the
bottom of the seas. These ices, called clathrates, contain 3,000 times
as much methane as is in the atmosphere. Methane is more than 20 times
as strong a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide.

Now here's the scary part. A temperature increase of merely a few
degrees would cause these gases to volatilize and "burp" into the
atmosphere, which would further raise temperatures, which would
release
yet more methane, heating the Earth and seas further, and so on.
There's 400 gigatons of methane locked in the frozen arctic tundra -
enough to start this chain reaction - and the kind of warming the
Arctic Council predicts is sufficient to melt the clathrates and
release these greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Once triggered, this cycle could result in runaway global warming the
likes of which even the most pessimistic doomsayers aren't talking
about.

An apocalyptic fantasy concocted by hysterical environmentalists?
Unfortunately, no. Strong geologic evidence suggests something similar
has happened at least twice before.

The most recent of these catastrophes occurred about 55 million years
ago in what geologists call the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
(PETM), when methane burps caused rapid warming and massive die-offs,
disrupting the climate for more than 100,000 years.

The granddaddy of these catastrophes occurred 251 million years ago,
at
the end of the Permian period, when a series of methane burps came
close to wiping out all life on Earth.

More than 94 percent of the marine species present in the fossil
record
disappeared suddenly as oxygen levels plummeted and life teetered on
the verge of extinction. Over the ensuing 500,000 years, a few species
struggled to gain a foothold in the hostile environment. It took 20
million to 30 million years for even rudimentary coral reefs to
re-establish themselves and for forests to regrow. In some areas, it
took more than 100 million years for ecosystems to reach their former
healthy diversity.

Geologist Michael J. Benton lays out the scientific evidence for this
epochal tragedy in a recent book, When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest
Mass Extinction of All Time. As with the PETM, greenhouse gases,
mostly
carbon dioxide from increased volcanic activity, warmed the earth and
seas enough to release massive amounts of methane from these sensitive
clathrates, setting off a runaway greenhouse effect.

The cause of all this havoc?

In both cases, a temperature increase of about 10.8 degrees
Fahrenheit, about the upper range for the average global increase
today's models predict can be expected from burning fossil fuels by
2100. But these models could be the tail wagging the dog since they
don't add in the effect of burps from warming gas hydrates. Worse, as
the Arctic Council found, the highest temperature increases from human
greenhouse gas emissions will occur in the arctic regions - an area
rich in these unstable clathrates.

If we trigger this runaway release of methane, there's no turning
back. No do-overs. Once it starts, it's likely to play out all the
way.

Humans appear to be capable of emitting carbon dioxide in quantities
comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain
reactions. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, burning fossil
fuels releases more than 150 times the amount of carbon dioxide
emitted by volcanoes
-
the equivalent of nearly 17,000 additional volcanoes the size of
Hawaii's Kilauea.

And that is the time bomb the Arctic Council ignored.

How likely is it that humans will cause methane burps by burning
fossil fuels? No one knows. But it is somewhere between possible and
likely at this point, and it becomes more likely with each passing
year that we fail to act.

So forget rising sea levels, melting ice caps, more intense storms,
more floods, destruction of habitats and the extinction of polar
bears. Forget warnings that global warming might turn some of the
world's major agricultural areas into deserts and increase the range
of tropical diseases, even though this is the stuff we're pretty sure
will happen.

Instead, let's just get with the Bush administration's policy of
pre-emption.

We can't afford to have the first sign of a failed energy policy be
the mass extinction of life on Earth. We have to act now.

John Atcheson, a geologist, has held a variety of policy positions in
several federal government agencies.

(c) 2004 Baltimore Sun

Baltimore Sun article is archived here:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1215-24.htm
=============

DON'T MOURN, ACT! WEBSITES FOR ACTION:

http://www.earthshare.org/get_involved/involved.html
http://www.gristmagazine.com/dogood/climate.asp
http://www.greenhousenet.org/
http://www.solarcatalyst.com/

Overview and local actions you can take: http://www.PostCarbon.org
=============