While I understand this sentiment and do agree that we should have a high sense of climate urgency, oil companies aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. A big first step is simply to stop burning oil, but even if we do that we will still require a huge amount of it. All plastics, ALL of them, are oil derivatives.

Look around you, wherever you are, and you will see things that are made with plastics. And if they aren’t made out of oil derivatives, they are made by oil derivatives either as a source of energy, or the machinery to make it has plastics. The clothes you are wearing, your shoes, your hair comb, your toaster, car, glasses, pc, t-shirt, birding binoculars, camping tent, the list is never ending because it’s everyfuckingwhere. The prints on your glass, the pen with which you write or the keyboard you type on, it is so incredibly pervasive.

So we can rant at these oil companies, but an enormous chunk of the economy depends on it and that’s a simple fact. I’m not claiming to have the answers, but we can’t just get rid of oil, which is why I say that step 1 is to simply stop burning it. That will already stop the worst, the bleeding if you will.

And sure, renewables are good and to have renewable energy is infinitely better than burning oil, but they only solve the most obvious problem. The real issue is what would we use instead of plastics? And as far as I know, there is no alternative.