What did oil ever do to you?

We’re here to murder an industry, but murder requires passion and that can come from several places. Consider these Agatha Christie-style motives. Which is yours? Maybe all three?

The environment

The environment is changing - and not in a good way. The air isn’t getting cleaner and coral reefs are getting un-bleachier. If you’re a believer in man-made climate change, you see the signs and they’re all pretty bad. The refining and burning of hydrocarbons (or the whimsically alliterative, though factually inaccurate “fossil fuels”) produces some pretty dangerous stuff: Carbon dioxide, which is known to be a greenhouse gas, and carbon monoxide, which is “the last sleeping aid you’ll ever use”. Pumping poison into the air was a mediocre strategy in World War One and is a pretty lousy strategy today.

Geopolitics

Every time you check a screen it’s war here, human rights violations there, a cabal of nations using their vast oil wealth to bully or kill their citizens and neighbors. Pretty sickening stuff, but why are these guys such dicks? Fareed Zakaria calls the nations with great oil resources "Trust fund countries". Since they need not rely on the goodwill of their citizens for tax income, they neither cultivate nor care for their people. Unchecked by the will of the people, it shouldn’t come a surprise that these “leaders” like to wreck million-dollar cars and rent all of Marseilles for a birthday party but can’t seem to find the money for a water purification project. Down with these jerks.

A love of technology

No question. Nerds shape the future and have done so for generations. A new energy economy will absolutely happen, but it will be the people who love new tech that will bring it on quickly. There will be breakthroughs and disappointments, major successes and embarrassing bits where you’re introducing a new operating system live and get the BSOD. The tech that will drive this revolution is new, unrefined, and not completely discovered yet. A playground for the modern inventor.

Oil and coal fueled the industrial revolution and can be credited with improving the lives of millions of people. Today, though, they only fuel global instability, a creeping climate crisis, and inventive stagnation. It’s time to move on and create something new.