Tuesday, January 05, 2010

If There Was No Mass Extinction Of The Dinosaurs Would We Still Have Fossil Fuels?

We all know that that fossil fuels come from dead animals and plants from millions of years ago. But I'd like to pose the following question, which just popped into my head, "If there was no mass extinction of the dinosaurs would we still have fossil fuels?"

Maybe we would have oil still but not in the great concentrated quantities that it is currently found. If so, what would that mean to human existence? If we hadn't discovered oil and made use of its properties would we be a lot further behind in the progress we have made with power generation, vehicles, plastics, etc?

Or would we have a greener planet as we may have made earlier and better use of solar, wind and wave power?

Thoughts welcome.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

You can make oil out of plastics and anything that is recyclable plastic. This could create a great deal of jobs.

Iris Flavia said...

I suppose we´d lead a hard life living with dinosaurs... But that was not the question, I know ;-)
Guess "we"´d found some substitute that enables us to have a comfy life. Greener? Maybe, but you can only guess of that if the environment is in threat, no?

Hammy said...

Was it Edison who said that "Necessity is the mother of invention"? No, Plato according to another site - http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/33942.html

Cows thrive in India because they are sacred. They thrive in the West because they are necessary. I guess if we didn't have oil then some other form of energy would have been utilised but would we be as advanced as we are now?

James said...

The human race has the abilty to adapt to their environment. We would have learnt to utilise the resources that were available at the time. The technology for fossil fuels was only developed because they were in plentiful supply, and society has grown around that mindset. If it wasn't around the technological line would have taken a different path. So you would see more advanced forms of solar tech and the like. If solar tech was first developed when the combustible engine was, imagine how far advanced it would be today.

Hammy said...

Excellent point James. If we hadn't become so reliable on oil then the oil companies wouldn't have been able to stifle competition for so long and other technologies, especially solar, would have come to the fore much earlier and be so much stronger today. Gotta learn from history though and not so much begrudge it.

Anonymous said...

They can also knock down old houses and sell the scrap metal ect.. to make things plus use the funds. It is a big money maker.

Anonymous said...

Fossil fuels are created from plants, not animals, so mass extinction of the dinos is irrelevant. Layers upon layers off dead plant matter condense and heat to form coal, and I believe oil is primarily created from fossil algae.

Hammy said...

Ok, I'm learning something here. Perhaps it wasn't so stupid to pose a stupid question. Thanks guys.