An interesting notion. While I don't debate that there are certainly merits to the theory that petroleum comes from an abiotic (please note that this is entirely different than inorganic, as was stated in the previous article) source, there are some gaping holes in the latter part of the article.
I'm not going to go through them ad-nauseum, however, a couple that stuck out were his opposition to the "environmentalists" theory of carbonate precipitation due to a lack of increasing level of carbonates in old rocks. While I don't subscribe to this theory, the problem with his "evidence" is that there are very few places where very old - read Earth's youth - rocks can be found, only in obducted ocean plates (which are rare) and even these can only be so old. So it's very hard to gather evidence of what happened that long ago. Case in point, there are at least 9 theories on why the dinosaurs went extict (OT, but at least 3 of them involve volcanism). All have their own merits and shortfalls. Anytime someone is discussing anything in the time scale of millions of years ago, understand that these are just theories - and there are data supporting and opposing. The farther back you go, the more tenuous the theories.
Second, plants do take in C-13 CO2, just at a lower ratio that C-12 CO2. I haven't studied the uptake, but I have studied the release of methyl chloride (CH3Cl), and plants are very active in producing this compound, and they do produce C-13 CH3Cl, just in much smaller quantities than they product C-12 CH3Cl. By conservation of mass, they must be taking up C-13 CO2.
Other than that, I do find the article's use of the term "environmentalist" derogatory, which - in my mind - always weakens the case. This would be equally true if the article had been saying "capitalists", "right-wing nut jobs", or what have you. If your case is strong, you don't need to attack a group on the basis of their theory - we ban people from these forums for the same style of argument - the relative strengths and weaknesses of various theories can be critically reviewed without attacks on the groups which hold to those theories.
More importantly, the appropriate manner in which to present your theory is to state the theory, the points which support it, and the points which do not. If one wishes to compare their theory to a pre-existing one then the two should state in what manner their theory is superior - namely why the current theory is more consistent with the data than the previous - and in what manner the new theory is weaker. The fact that there was a pre-existing theory means that there is evidence supporting it. The article made a passing attempt to follow these guidelines, but ultimately resorted to politics. As such, I have a little difficulty giving the author much credit. Note, though, that my attack is on the person reviewing, not on the author of the book. While I haven't read the book, I suspect the Gold was a little more thorough and unbiased in presenting his case. At least, I hope so.
