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Oil is not naturally occurring on the surface of the earth. If it didn't naturally seep out of the ground, humans never would have discovered it and started us
by nitrogen 5y ago
Oil is not naturally occurring on the surface of the earth.
If it didn't naturally seep out of the ground, humans never would have discovered it and started using it. See this comment thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28740261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28740261
- Maursault 5y agoThis apparently popular argument of the form "hey, it's natural, so it doesn't matter! Hah, hypocritical environmentalists!" is utterly absurd, not only false equivalence, but a brain dead employment of an appeal to nature fallacy. That some amount of seepage is naturally occurring does not remotely excuse the obnoxious, mind-boggling amount of death to nature caused by oil spills due to the economic activity of humans. Every single year in the history of the oil industry there have been major spills. That's 162 years worth of major oil spills. Sure seepage is natural; oil spills are not.