Coal, oil and natural gas are  fossil fuels .   When they are burned, they  change the Earth's atmosphere.  How is that possible?       C oal  is a good example.    Coal was formed  hundreds of millions of years ago .   Geologists say that a three-metre (10-foot) coal seam took between  12,000 and 60,000 years  to form .     Ancient trees and other plants lived, died and were fossilised.   All those plants took  carbon dioxide  out of the atmosphere.     Some larger coal seams are, for example, 10 metres thick.  They took around  40,000 years to form,  but have been mined and burned in a little over  100 years.   The fastest rise of CO 2  in the air seen in   the ice core record (800,000 years)  is  20 ppm in 1000 years.    The CO 2  level in the atmosphere is now rising at around  20 ppm per decade .    The  carbon  joins up with  oxygen  when it burns.      Eac...