For sure, this show was for the dooms dayers and how we're going to end the world. So just like this discussion, it all is a form of persuasion. They were trying to sell their point. I just don't happen to believe that the human race will all be dead in 250 years.
Coal and oil have both been in use for more than just 100 years. Oil was used in Mesopotamia around 4000 B.C. for caulking for ships, settings for jewels and mosaics and as an adhesive to secure weapon handles. In Egypt is was used for embalming as well as on the pyramids. Even the Roman's used oil based lamps. The Senecas and Iroquois used crude oil for body paint and ceremonial fires. We've only been using it on a grand scale for the last few hundred years. And remember our appetite for energy has not just doubled since its large scale use started. Our energy use has grown exponentially, and it will continue. Just look at China over the last few years. They now use almost as much oil as the U.S. and are expected to surpass us in the next two to five years. Yet ten or fifteen years ago their usage was negligible.
Also what has to be taken into consideration for the 250 years of coal is that the first chunk of coal was easy to get to, the last chunk will not be. Just like we'll have oil supplies long into the future to but when we reach the half way point, meaning half of the oil reserves in the world are gone, that's when the price starts getting jacked up. Oil will start to be more and more difficult to get to. The same thing will eventually apply to coal. The expense will become very high. So just because we have 250 years of coal based on a best guess level of usage over that period of time doesn't mean it'll be economical to use.
I'm not a dooms dayer though. I think we'll be around long after 250 years. Climate change will cause some issues but will it wipe us from the earth. No I don't think so, at least not in the next 250 years. It may cause massive problems, including a lot of death but a complete loss of humanity, I don't think so. Other than microbes we are one of the few creatures on earth that live in just about every environment found on earth. Extreme cold to extreme hot, wet and dry, high altitude and low. We are an adapting, surviving species.
As far as the earth shifting, this is nothing new. The poles have completely switched a recorded three times (best guess from the science community). The switching (again according to the scientists) takes several decades to occur and there's plenty of evidence that this is happening again. When the switch does happen all hell breaks loose. Will we be wiped from the earth at that time, most likely. Will this happen tomorrow or in the next 250 years, most likely not.
If you wish to say that coal is unlimited in your life time or in a few generations life time then yes you're correct but it is not unlimited. And if humanity is going to be gone in just a little over the length of time that the United States has existed, why even try for alternate energy sources? After all the estimates are that man has been on earth for 6009 years. Science says anywhere from several hundred thousand years to several million years. So who knows when it'll all come to an end. This may be the only place where science and the bible agree - no one knows when the end is, it's all a guess on our part.