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Originally posted by M5Power
Does oil not come from carbon-based life forms?
Does it stand to reason that as long as there are carbon-based life forms such as humans dying on Earth, we will never run out of fossil fuels? Screw those predictions. We've got an infinite amount of time.
But we, as a carbon based life form, use oil faster than it is created. And as the human poluation grows unfettered, fossil fuel use will, too. I can't back this up but I'm going to guess that each day we use more fossil fuels than are produced in the same day. Hence, we do not have an infinite amount of time. Exactly how long I can't say but it probably won't be in any of our lifetimes.
There are very compelling reasons to abandon fossil fuels for purposes such as cars and heat. The poisoning of the atmosphere being one, and the unnatural acceleration of the greenhouse effect being another. There are also aesthetic reasons like the brown cloud over the city where I live.
It boils down to money. If somebody could get filthy rich on windmills, hydrogen fuel cells, or solar power, the conversion would've happened already. There is a monstrously expensive infrastructure in place for fossil fuels. Humanity will use it until it becomes cost prohibitive. Sadly, that seems to be the primary motivation for any change in contemporary western civilization, whatever the outcome.