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Yes, my statement was purely scoped to emissions, and using fossil fuels for electricity generation, as well as powering vehicles. If fossil fuels weren't usefu

Yes, my statement was purely scoped to emissions, and using fossil fuels for electricity generation, as well as powering vehicles. If fossil fuels weren't useful we would of course not continue using them. Hydrocarbons will of course continue to be used in various materials. However, for everything we make in plastic, there is a potential alternative. In many cases that alternative is more expensive than plastic for its specific purpose. Much of the reason plastic is cheaper is (conjecture here) because it is subsidized by fact that we use so much oil for energy. If all (or most) cars were electric, demand and production of crude would go down, and so would the economies of scale, possibly making plastic more expensive than biodegradable alternatives. People will continue to use the materials that are cheaper. However our economy is not set up to internalize the costs to the world and to its biosphere. In that sense fossil fuels are very expensive, and we are incurring a debt. At some point its going to be time to pay the piper, and the alternatives will become cheaper by comparison.

ThomPete 7y ago
It's not a question of whether there is an alternative it's a question about what we are using plastics for. Plastic today is a highly versatile material it can be almost as hard as diamonds, it can be ultra precise like lego and so soft it's weaved into our textiles. You've seen the sorry substitutes for straws? They can't even make that. You won't find alternatives for that and again ex. wind and solar are subsidized without providing any of those benefits. You last comment is speculation and your conclusion even if it was true isn't the only alternative. There are many others. Some of them include us developing methods to deal with CO2 if it turned out to be a problem and you are forgetting the most important thing here. People who don't have access to cheap and plentiful energy are already incurring a debt to survive and paying the piper. There is a cost to NOT using fossil fuels, one very few are ready to make. I for one am not ready to exchange things like food security for the risk of some speculative consequences we dont even know and to the extent we know isn't something we can't deal with.

ThomPete 7y ago

It's not a question of whether there is an alternative it's a question about what we are using plastics for. Plastic today is a highly versatile material it can be almost as hard as diamonds, it can be ultra precise like lego and so soft it's weaved into our textiles. You've seen the sorry substitutes for straws? They can't even make that. You won't find alternatives for that and again ex. wind and solar are subsidized without providing any of those benefits. You last comment is speculation and your conclusion even if it was true isn't the only alternative. There are many others. Some of them include us developing methods to deal with CO2 if it turned out to be a problem and you are forgetting the most important thing here. People who don't have access to cheap and plentiful energy are already incurring a debt to survive and paying the piper. There is a cost to NOT using fossil fuels, one very few are ready to make. I for one am not ready to exchange things like food security for the risk of some speculative consequences we dont even know and to the extent we know isn't something we can't deal with.