Burning a fossil fuel doesn’t get rid of it – it just gets converted into water, carbon dioxide and ash.
Aside from the tiny fraction of hydrogen made from natural gas that subsequently escapes from the atmosphere, and the even tinier fraction that’s used as fuel to power rockets in deep space, all of the mass remains here on Earth.
In any case, the roughly 1.5 trillion tonnes of fossil fuel reserves represent less than one ten-billionth of one per cent of Earth’s mass.
Proportionally, you lose 500 times more of your body weight each time you shed an eyelash.
This article is an answer to the question (asked by Sudirman, Malaysia) 'If we extracted and used all of the fossil fuels on Earth, would the planet become lighter?'
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