Deozaan I really think you need to stop getting second hand information-Davidtheo
By that logic I can't trust anything unless I personally witness it. That includes everything you say, since you are also secondhand information to me.
Those points may be true BUT it doesn't mean that the resource isn't limited and dwindling. There may even be undiscovered reserves of fossil fuel but there are a number of things that follow:
- Whether or not new reserves are found they are finite. Coal, oil and natural gas are the bedrock of modern society and few people in the world would disagree that at best recovering these resources is getting harder and harder as time goes on to the poijnt where some resources are deemed economically unviable. Ultimately people may find cheaper ways of tapping these resources but ultimately limited.
- The fact that new resources are found doesn't necessarily mean that it is morally acceptable to exploit them to the detriment of rare landscape and other species.
- Political games to maintain high profits (as currently exists in OPEC) is not an argument that resources are unlimited. OPEC ONLY exists to maximize profit for a cartel of producers. In any other sphere of international trade this behaviour would be considered illegal in most countries but because the countries have oil reserves they get away with it.
The final point also works in terms of international agricultural agreements. Back in the 80s the EU had policies to maintain high food prices. Basically they built food surpluses that were ultimately destroyed rather than sell them at a lower price to the starving millions in Africa. It wasn't that we really had excess food it was just profit orientated manipulation.
OPEC knows that their oil reserves are limited and use that fact to blackmail the world into giving them the maximum amount of money. Heaven help us all when the oil runs out ... that is when WWI and WWII will look like local skirmishes!-Carol Haynes
Sure, oil and fossil fuels have a technical limitation, but are there practical limits? Are we going to depend so much on oil in 100 years as we do today? 100 years ago one of the biggest environmental concerns was all the horse manure in the streets. People were worried about the "limitations" of how much manure the streets could hold before thing got too bad to handle. Then the car was invented and the manure problem went away naturally. So again, how do any of us know that in 100 years from now we'll still be using up oil like we do today? History has shown that natural and technological progress (the ingenuity of humanity!) will solve the problem.
I'm guessing that this part is about the oil in Alaska:
The fact that new resources are found doesn't necessarily mean that it is morally acceptable to exploit them to the detriment of rare landscape and other species.
My family lived in Alaska (though I was an infant at the time) and from what I hear (uh oh, more second-hand information!) from my family is that it is debatable as to whether or not drilling for oil in that tiny part (less than 0.4%) of Alaska is actually a detriment to "rare landscape" or wildlife. Ask people who actually possess the land in Alaska and see what they think about it. The majority of people who live in Alaska and have first-hand experience/information on the topic want to drill for oil, but they're held back by environmentalists who have never been there and have no idea what they're talking about.
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