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Extremely unlikely any of us alive now will be alive to see it. Oil is just far too useful for us to be able to replace easily, and choosing not to replace it w

Extremely unlikely any of us alive now will be alive to see it. Oil is just far too useful for us to be able to replace easily, and choosing not to replace it would take our lifestyles back hundreds of years. Hardly anyone wants that.

sureaboutthis 7y ago
Oil may be the easiest solution to the original problem. If there were no oil, would there have been a different solution that might have been as easy?
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Up until the sixties or seventies asbestos was just far too useful to be replaced easily. It was used everywhere - as filler, as insulation, as fire retardant, and was so cheap it even got used as bulking agent, as fake snow for Xmas and in packaging. We got rid of it in new applications in just a few years once it was realised that the health cost was far in excess of its utility. It costs thousands to rip out some of the old insulation in buildings, especially where it's part of the fabric of the building. Lead in petrol was far to useful to be replaced, etc etc... I just think it's part of the new innovation debt coming due. It's only now coming due for plastics and oil and the extreme cost of profligate unconstrained use is starting to be realised.
- JulianMorrison 7y ago
  It's basically a hubristic mistake to take "this substance is useful!" as sufficient justification to introduce it as a novelty in huge amounts without considering its whole lifetime flow through the world's cycles, physical and biological. It comes from thinking of the planet as infinite and able to absorb anything thrown into it, rather than a closed cycle life support system.
  - growlist 7y ago
    I'm not justifying anything and probably agree with you and NeedMoreTea in general. That said, asbestos and lead are barely comparable. Virtually every aspect of modern life is currently dependent on oil. You live in houses built with oil, wash yourself in water cleaned and transported in no small part with oil, drive on roads built with oil, wear clothes created with oil in one way or another, and eat food grown with oil. To think that we can unwind the phenomenally deep and complex interweaving of oil into the global economy in short order without massive disruption is not realistic. I'm no fan of oil either, but let's not get carried away.
    - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
      The 1900s were deeply enmeshed with horses. The 1900s - 1950s with coal. A house need not depend on oil - bricks can still be fired and glass made from carbon neutral electricity, pipes can be copper, and drainage use ceramic like was used until the 80s. Similar for transport, water treatment etc. Perhaps a few specialised uses of PVC and other plastics will remain and the rest go - regulated or priced from existence. Now 95% of coal and horses aren't around we still keep stables for fun, some still enjoy horse racing, steam trains run at weekends and museums run a few steam engines. Thing is the assumption that the planet could take everything thrown at it used to work - now population has grown so much that no longer applies. JulianMorrison has a point that "it's useful" can no longer be enough - stuff isn't only used by a few wealthy types any more, on a planet with under 1bn, whilst most of those engage in agriculture. We have to learn to consider damage control and restriction far sooner than was necessary even in the 1930s. My worry is the modern dogma to not want to impact business at all costs. Governments avoid strong regulation, requiring consideration of the land a business occupy, the pollution and waste they cause or the people whose needs they should serve. Essentially they became subservient to multinationals. It will make changing that much harder and fought against much more - not least by those oil interests. Not easy, but not impossible either. There is precedent after all. :)
      - growlist 7y ago
        Again - I don't disagree we need to change, but I think we need to be honest about the scale of the disruption involved. Think about the amount of debt in the world, and imagine that that was created with the foundation of an oil based economy, and then imagine what would happen if that foundation were removed. We are talking potentially catastrophic economic crisis, with all the problems that would bring. The final thing I would say is that if those in control are sincere about tackling climate change, an open borders immigration policy is a very strange thing for them to be promoting. Instead of supporting people to live good lives where they are - in low carbon countries - we are encouraging them to move to high carbon countries, and effectively creating a reason to generate massive amounts of carbon through house building, infrastructure etc. This is one of the main reasons I am sceptical about the messages that come down from on high, and even more so given that the stock response to this issue is accusations of racism etc.
sliken 7y ago
Seems crazy pessimistic. We could use HUGELY less plastic without a major impact. Start with clothes, get rid of all nylon, polyester, and plastic based materials. World changing? Hardly. Get rid of plastic forks, spoons, knives, and straws... again no big deal. Get rid of plastic used in food. Milk jugs, processed food, tv dinners, plastic bags of lemons/potatoes/etc. Kill off water bottles (which are a waste anyways), soda packages in plastic, cheap boxed wine, etc. Sure there's some harder things, like say fertilizer, car interiors, toys, keyboards, mice, watches, network cables, etc. But still we could hugely reduce are use of oil. Sadly the world was just starting to move away from oil a bit, then USA went from a large oil importer, to a huge exporter and the prices dropped.

sureaboutthis 7y ago

Oil may be the easiest solution to the original problem. If there were no oil, would there have been a different solution that might have been as easy?

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Up until the sixties or seventies asbestos was just far too useful to be replaced easily. It was used everywhere - as filler, as insulation, as fire retardant, and was so cheap it even got used as bulking agent, as fake snow for Xmas and in packaging. We got rid of it in new applications in just a few years once it was realised that the health cost was far in excess of its utility. It costs thousands to rip out some of the old insulation in buildings, especially where it's part of the fabric of the building. Lead in petrol was far to useful to be replaced, etc etc... I just think it's part of the new innovation debt coming due. It's only now coming due for plastics and oil and the extreme cost of profligate unconstrained use is starting to be realised.

JulianMorrison 7y ago
It's basically a hubristic mistake to take "this substance is useful!" as sufficient justification to introduce it as a novelty in huge amounts without considering its whole lifetime flow through the world's cycles, physical and biological. It comes from thinking of the planet as infinite and able to absorb anything thrown into it, rather than a closed cycle life support system.
- growlist 7y ago
  I'm not justifying anything and probably agree with you and NeedMoreTea in general. That said, asbestos and lead are barely comparable. Virtually every aspect of modern life is currently dependent on oil. You live in houses built with oil, wash yourself in water cleaned and transported in no small part with oil, drive on roads built with oil, wear clothes created with oil in one way or another, and eat food grown with oil. To think that we can unwind the phenomenally deep and complex interweaving of oil into the global economy in short order without massive disruption is not realistic. I'm no fan of oil either, but let's not get carried away.
  - NeedMoreTea 7y ago
    The 1900s were deeply enmeshed with horses. The 1900s - 1950s with coal. A house need not depend on oil - bricks can still be fired and glass made from carbon neutral electricity, pipes can be copper, and drainage use ceramic like was used until the 80s. Similar for transport, water treatment etc. Perhaps a few specialised uses of PVC and other plastics will remain and the rest go - regulated or priced from existence. Now 95% of coal and horses aren't around we still keep stables for fun, some still enjoy horse racing, steam trains run at weekends and museums run a few steam engines. Thing is the assumption that the planet could take everything thrown at it used to work - now population has grown so much that no longer applies. JulianMorrison has a point that "it's useful" can no longer be enough - stuff isn't only used by a few wealthy types any more, on a planet with under 1bn, whilst most of those engage in agriculture. We have to learn to consider damage control and restriction far sooner than was necessary even in the 1930s. My worry is the modern dogma to not want to impact business at all costs. Governments avoid strong regulation, requiring consideration of the land a business occupy, the pollution and waste they cause or the people whose needs they should serve. Essentially they became subservient to multinationals. It will make changing that much harder and fought against much more - not least by those oil interests. Not easy, but not impossible either. There is precedent after all. :)
    - growlist 7y ago
      Again - I don't disagree we need to change, but I think we need to be honest about the scale of the disruption involved. Think about the amount of debt in the world, and imagine that that was created with the foundation of an oil based economy, and then imagine what would happen if that foundation were removed. We are talking potentially catastrophic economic crisis, with all the problems that would bring. The final thing I would say is that if those in control are sincere about tackling climate change, an open borders immigration policy is a very strange thing for them to be promoting. Instead of supporting people to live good lives where they are - in low carbon countries - we are encouraging them to move to high carbon countries, and effectively creating a reason to generate massive amounts of carbon through house building, infrastructure etc. This is one of the main reasons I am sceptical about the messages that come down from on high, and even more so given that the stock response to this issue is accusations of racism etc.

sliken 7y ago

Seems crazy pessimistic. We could use HUGELY less plastic without a major impact. Start with clothes, get rid of all nylon, polyester, and plastic based materials. World changing? Hardly. Get rid of plastic forks, spoons, knives, and straws... again no big deal. Get rid of plastic used in food. Milk jugs, processed food, tv dinners, plastic bags of lemons/potatoes/etc. Kill off water bottles (which are a waste anyways), soda packages in plastic, cheap boxed wine, etc. Sure there's some harder things, like say fertilizer, car interiors, toys, keyboards, mice, watches, network cables, etc. But still we could hugely reduce are use of oil. Sadly the world was just starting to move away from oil a bit, then USA went from a large oil importer, to a huge exporter and the prices dropped.