Feelings on a fossil fuel free environment

i have always been huge on mininalizing our daily fossil fuel usage. but after an interesting conversation with my uncle and father i realized that not an answer at all...
i work for a subcontractor who relies almost 90% percent of their profit from oil refineries and and coal power plants. that if a large sway in the economy away from fossil fuels that my career and livelihood would be effected. than there would be another almost 400 employees per refinery that would be effected... and during a shutdown an upward of 2500 people would be effected. if you eliminate those plants what work is left for those people (myself included)?

i guess what im getting at is that saving the environment by reducing fossil fuel usage is all well and good, but the economy would definitely take a hit. esp since big corp owns america and the total elimination of fossil fuels is absurd to think of at this time. so its sort of a double edge sword... the system, that may have worked in the past, is now nothing but driving force to an economical collapse.
even by restricting the pollution outtake with the clean air act maked an effect. with that act in place i for one being a subcontractor profited very well. with new waste release regulations means new piping configs and new more environment friendly units, which in short means a bunch more work. and plants (ie sunoco) compensated for time and material and adjusted barrel cost of fuel (also the now hefty taxes by the government and state on each barrel).
the situation reminds me of the talk about banning cigarettes... cigarettes too also make a large enough impact in the economy.

this thread sort of turned into a rant but i think the purpose is still there. and if your confused, what im asking is:
what the f*ck are we gonna do, cause what we got is working enough to get by the next 10 or so years, but nothing that i know of is a good solution to answer the environment and economy issues.

p.s this thread does pretty much refer to the american economy... im not too familiar with foreign affairs.

Looking at it from the larger picture though, the unemployment in one field is going to have at least some counterbalancing as the employment rate from the other energy sources kicks in. It doesn't balance out completely, but it isn't as bad as it sounds. Besides, unemployment seldom lasts more than four or five years.

the economic collapse resulting from the coastal flooding due to global warming causing thermal expansion of sea water (not ice cap melting as people think) will be exponentially more damaging than the change from fossil fuels to sustainable energy so the economic argument is unsound

many countries have changed from almost entirely heavy industry based to more service, less skilled based work without huge and long lasting economic problems..the UK done it when manufacturing, ship building and the like were wiped out and these industries employed a far larger % of the population than the oil industry does in the US

i could really care less. It isnt as though the gas would be any cheaper. The fuel would still be distributed by some money hungry company. I dont believe we, as humans are responsible for global warming and i am excited and anxious to see economic chaos. So, i am indifferent when it comes to fuel sources. If you dont want to pay for gas, buy a bio-diesel engine and use veggie oil.

I'm not convinced by the human-caused global warming argument either.

However, if I WAS convinced, this would be no barrier. Moving away from fossil fuels would become a matter of global survival, against which an economic argument makes no sense. Besides, plenty of industries over time have been sunk due to technological development rendering them obsolete. It is called progress- and whilst progress has its cost, you are a fool to ignore it. Eventually progress will supercede you and the jobs would go anyway.

Originally posted by ragesRemorse
i could really care less. It isnt as though the gas would be any cheaper. The fuel would still be distributed by some money hungry company. I dont believe we, as humans are responsible for global warming and i am excited and anxious to see economic chaos. So, i am indifferent when it comes to fuel sources. If you dont want to pay for gas, buy a bio-diesel engine and use veggie oil.

biofuels are causing more problems than they are solving as the land being cleared to produce the crops to produce the fuel is usually in poor countries and is usually rainforest that gets the chop

besides...the vast majority of fossil fuel goes to power stations rather than in cars via petrol/gas

I'm with Ush on this. But I believe human behaviour plays a role in global warming.

Yes, If we decide to abandon fossil fuels thousands of people will lose their jobs. But it has been like that in many other sectors who became obsolete in the past as well. Over here thousands lost their jobs in the years after world war II when 'vlas', a base product for linen (textile), became too expensive to grow effectively.

I just think solar powered cars would be great on the wallet. Sure they might be expensive and they might not go very fast, but I really don't need a car that goes faster than 80mph. It'll pay itself off in the end. Also, you can now convert diesel cars to run on used vegetable oil. I worked with a guy who did that and he'd go to certain restaurants and gather their used oil for free, yeah, he doesn't pay for fuel!! As far as people losing their jobs, and this was probably already touched on by someone, their would be new jobs created by the conversion and the oil companies could spearhead this conversion and fill the position with their people. It sounds so easy, but I'm sure it's not.

Originally posted by Ushgarak
I'm not convinced by the human-caused global warming argument either.

However, if I WAS convinced, this would be no barrier. Moving away from fossil fuels would become a matter of global survival, against which an economic argument makes no sense. Besides, plenty of industries over time have been sunk due to technological development rendering them obsolete. It is called progress- and whilst progress has its cost, you are a fool to ignore it. Eventually progress will supercede you and the jobs would go anyway.

Well, an economic argument would still make sense. Unless you subscribe to a "WE WILL ALL DIE IF WE DON'T STOP USING OIL" type of Global Warming theory...which, I believe, no reasonable person does.

not to be too tangental, but wouldn't the fact that most oil comes from places that are at best unfriendly to the western world be a reason why we should be looking for plausible alternatives?

Sure, save the world, but how about, lets not give the same people who would like nothing better than to see our downfall billions of dollars of our money to build their armies and oppress their people, while at the same time, make us dependent upon their export for our society to function.

That said, human contribution to global warming is essentially unequivocal, unless one believes everything they see on YouTube. The scientific debate is about degrees, and better evidence and studies tend to yield a higher degree.

not to be too tangental, but wouldn't the fact that most oil comes from places that are at best unfriendly to the western world be a reason why we should be looking for plausible alternatives?

This is why we need to encourage space travel.

We then can exploit the resources of other planets.

yeah use vegtable oil to launch those space ships

My ship takes it ...likes it too.......zou just put it in the back side.

Originally posted by anaconda
more than the middle east that are huge oil producers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OPEC

http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/10/5/215316/408

how interesting it is that I didn't say middle east, and coincidentally, that the middle east wasn't the only region I was talking about.

how interesting it is that I didn't say middle east, and coincidentally, that the middle east wasn't the only region I was talking about

zep

http://picodopetroleo.net/temp/exporters/Exporters.png

Saudi Arabia - 24% anti-western
Former Soviet Union (Including Russia)- 21% neutral at best, some more pro than others
Norway - 8% pro
Venezuela - 7% anti
Iran - 7% anti
UAE - 7% pro
Kuwait - 7% pro

http://picodopetroleo.net/temp/exporters/ExportsAll.png

By 2020 it is probably safe to say at least 50% of world oil will come from states who are explicitly anti-western.

I also added the fact that our oil money going to despotic pro-western regimes would be used to oppress the people living there, which will do a lot to make the population anti-western, much like Iran pre-revolution.

Iran, UAE, Quatar, Kuwait, Algeria, mexico and many former soviet countries have huge dichotomies between the rich and the poor, made worse by western oil profits. Doing business with these countries, while not directly funding those who would take up arms against us, foments the ideology of resistance among those not privy to the revenues.

Essentially, the only reliable oil exporters in the top 11 may come from the former USSR, norway and Canada, who don't have the resources to float the world market. Oil dependance is counter productive to national security and sovereignty.

I met this guy who fixes computers and he does house calls. What he does is buy old ambulances at auctions for incredibly cheap prices. He then converts their diesel engines to run on vegetable oil, which requires hardly anything, and then uses the ambulances for his house calls. He can even use the stretchers to transport equipment to and from the houses. He's thinking outside the box and that's what more people need to do. He's not only recycling, but he's saving money on fuel.

One funny thing is that when I drove behind his ambulance, it smelled like French fries.

Venezuela aint anti westen world just USA, Russia knows where the money lies and they rely on western technology to extract their oil fields Political they are anti NATO and the military alliances in Europe but economically and business they are pro west