Do you think that we should stop using and even producing oil and gas, in order to save the environment and reduce air pollution ?
Let me tell you a story. Many thousands of years ago, man started depending on animals -specially horses- to be able to travel faster and for longer distances in a short time. He then realized that travel is very important for him to develop and improv his life, not only by diversifying his food sources, collecting and trading crops, vegetables, and fruits that grew in different environments, but also by learning new professions that were not known at his homeland.
Soon enough our ancestors developed their transportation and hooked up those horses to cabins and carts in order to transport more people at once and even transfer large amounts of crops and food to remote locations.
The use of horse-driven cabins and carts has expanded very fast as the population increased, by the end of the 19th century, the city of London had more than 50,000 horses that generated about 1000 tons of waste every day. This huge amount of waste in the streets was very difficult to clean, so it represented a threat to people’s health and caused the spread of diseases. The society became aware of the problem and started looking for solutions. This is when they started looking for alternatives, then many years later, coal and wood burning were offered as the cleaner fuel at that time.
Imagine if at that time, someone has suggested to get rid of horses and stop using them! On one side, it would have solved the health problems associated with the waste, however it could’ve brought the society hundreds of years back to the past as this was their only means of transportation, not to mentioned the number of jobs that would be lost due to the large number of stable workers at that time. Luckily, their solution obviously didn’t involve getting rid of horses, because we still see horses until now.
Now let’s fast forward to the present day, as we have the same problem of pollution and climate change as a result of our excessive use of petroleum in transportation and otherwise. However, we now see many people who think that we should stop using gasoline as fuel in our vehicles and even that oil companies should stop their exploration and production activities once and for all. Electric cars are now offered as a great alternative to fossil fuel, despite the fact that they still can’t compare to other cars in terms of mileage and weight, they’re still a good alternative to decrease carbon emissions into the atmosphere from passenger cars. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t need petroleum anymore, neither does it provide an alternative for the millions of jobs the oil industry provides around the world.
Knowing that almost half of the material used in any car (including EV's) is made from petroleum and petrochemical products (commonly known as plastics), so there’s no way we can have an efficient transportation like the one we have today without petroleum production.
We just have to be responsible and smart about how to use this resource in a cleaner way to serve our lives and maximize the manufacturing of petroleum into more valuable products instead of just burning it as fuel. Additionally, petroleum companies need to use advanced technology to minimize their environmental impact during exploration and production activities. This is how we could improve and evolve.
Our ancestors actually did the same thing with horses. Despite still being in use for the same purpose of pulling carts in many places in the world today, the use of horses as a natural resource has developed to support the welfare of mankind. The same horse that was pulling a cart loaded with food thousands of years ago is now being utilized for recreational and medical purposes. Many studies and experiments showed that horses could be a part of psychotherapy to treat people with certain mental illnesses.
This is how smart mankind is, and this is how much we could get out of natural resources when we optimize their use and stay mindful not to mess up the balance in our environment.
Now let me ask you the same question once more, Do you still think that we should stop using and producing petroleum in order to save the environment and reduce air pollution, or is there other ways to continue the evolution mankind ?