"Man – despite his artistic pretensions, his sophistication, and his many accomplishments – owes his existence to a six inch layer of topsoil and the fact that it rains." - Paul Harvey
nothing is as easy as it seems
If you took oil out of the meta, it’s not like humanity would die off. It’d just be very different. We’d still be thriving. We’d still likely have scientific breakthroughs that increase quality of life. It’d just be so very different.
Obviously this is a ridiculously complex thing to project, but the reason I’m skeptical is that without fossil fuels, there’s still far more energy available than we need.
Perhaps an argument could be made that fossil fuels are a distraction and we would have been naturally forced towards more sustainable options. …or we just get super good at burning trees.