I'm not sure it would be different. Every new invention that has revolutionized our way of life in this world has had a less popular adversary [i.e. wood burning to heat homes circa early 20th century to electricity/gas circa late 20/early 21 century]. I think it has less to do with the material used to manufacture the product than it does with the idea behind the material which the inventor used to create it. For example, Tupperware. I imagine the person who invented it thought. ';What could I use to create a container that is flexible, reusable, and long-lasting....through this line of thought came plastic as a solution. If oil and thus plastic never existed another material that possessed the above mentioned qualities would have been used instead.If crude oil never existed, how would the world be different today?
I believe that we would've found some other product for use of energy some of which we are finding now (solar power, wind power,etc.). One of this alternate fuel sources we may find and use in later years if not discovered yet. If these unknown fuel sources were plentiful it would probably be less useful and we might not have as much technology that is available today. Planes, Cars, Trains, and even war machines would look different because of the change needed to make the vehicle run on this unknown fuel.
But the biggest benefactor of not having crude oil would be Greenhouse gases, pollution all the negatives you hear about on the Internet and on TV. The world would probably be a much healthier planet then it is now.
I'm assuming that we can lump (sorry for the pun) coal into the equation since it's sort of a fossil fuel.
It's likely that nothing would exist as you know it today. Society would not have evolved past the point that it was 400 years ago.
People who say we'd have developed alternative energy sources forget how much part fossil fuels play in the part of developing and producing what we have now. Think we'd have solar power panels? How about geothermal? How would you transmit power without the ability to mass mine copper? The windmill and water-wheel would be the peak of alternative energy.
The middle east would be largely desolate.
We would have a largely scattered agrarian society with some fishing and exploration.
The industrial revolution would have never happened.
We would likely not be alive or enjoying the luxury of being able to debate something so esoteric. If we had been born, gathering food, staying safe and warm would be of utmost importance.
EDIT: Dude, airplanes? Are you serious? How would one develop an airplane without fossil fuels? Think about it! The airplane would likely not have progressed beyond Daedalus and DaVinci.
The world would look alot like it did in about 1870 or so.
There would be no air transportation, plastics and whatever petroleum products would be produced strictly for industrial use, and probably would not be available to consumers as such. Rubber Trees, naturally occurring tar-sands and perhaps the limited use of gas (methane) were in use before the development of the oil industry.
The middle east would largely be a sparsely populated, ultra-poor desert of warring Bedoins, rather like it is today, without money.
The Ottoman empire or something like it would still exist since World War 1 and 2 would not have happened or if they had happened, there would have been a radically different outcome considering that the US, Germany, Japan and Russia all became involved or went to war due to oil, Germany attacked the USSR to gain access to oil, Japan attacked the US because of an US imposed oil embargo.
Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia all were creations of oil and as nations would not exist. Such highly industrialized societies could not exist without access to coal or something in their region for mining, since the region lacks both coal or wood, they would pastoral or sparsely populated.
There would only be about 20% as many people alive. Since Southeast Asia and large parts of the world otherwise, ';eat'; oil. Since oil makes something like 50/70% more food available due to fertilizers / transportation and heavy machine use to create and maintain farm land.
The US might not be as agrarian as it was in 1870, but it would certainly not be as urban as it is today. Nearly 95% of everyone in the US and Europe lives in cities or suburban areas and is not directly involved in farming or food production.
Even with efficient transportation via rail and steam or horse-drawn transport, nearly 25% of all citizens would be in farming related production or logistics. Big cities or sprawls like the Northeast or the Desert cities of Los Angeles or Las Vegas might exist but they would be tiny towns rather than big cities.
The electronics revolution largely would not / could not have occurred. Plastics and good modern polymer chemistry allowed for advancements in electronics, electronics miniaturization and other advances which would make the advent of computers as we use them today, improbable.
In about 30 years, we will get to discover what it's like to live in a world where crude oil doesn't exist - again, it's not that oil will be gone completely, but it will be, very rare and very expensive.
Barring a new technology that can produce large quantities of high-grade gasoline, and oil products, either biologically or from other natural resources, starting in about 2015 or so, the planetary economy will shrink slightly every year until a new inexpensive major energy source is discovered.
Without that ';miracle'; technology, we'll all learn what a world without easy and cheap oil is like.
First lessons about this new world energy environment, are already happening, gasoline has tripled in price and will probably ';top out'; at between 7 and 9$ per gallon, at which point, vast tar sands in Canada and Venezuela are able to be mined and processed profitably.
In 200 years, there might be tar-sands in Canada left, but Saudi Arabia will be tapped out and we will not be using fossil fuels, whether we are flying around in hover-cars that are powered by water, or are huddled around campfires in small post-civilization villages, 100 years into a permanent dark-age is a question we answer today.
its almost impossible to know for sure, but one could assume more countries would dependent on their own energy sources, there would far less 'globalism' and more nations would 'take care of your own' more than they do know.
'schools?' We had schools before cars....long before cars.
Fiberglass could replace plastic for many applications, so thats not too big of a deal (we got by for centuries without plastic).....so could hemp products.
Its not really a coincedence in my mind that with the increase in plastics and petroleum based substances that the vitirol against marijuana increased too...
Hemp products caused oil companies to lose out on a lot of profits.
Modern society wouldn't exist. You wouldn't have plastic, modern agriculture, electronics, automobilies, anything like that. It was research using patroleum that drove advances in chemistry and organic chemistry (I know it's odd to think of petroleum as 'organic,' but it is, it contains carbon). Without that influence, chemistry, and thus all science, might be set back a century or more. Think 19th century, coal-fired steam engines, derrigibles, horses... With air power limitted, international military power would still be a matter of navies, with battleships as thier crown jewels. Pearl Harbor would have to have been a naval bombardment by the Yomato.
The Western World as we know it could not exist and will not
contiue to exist with out it. Though most petroleum is used in the
production of energy, Its responsible for more aspecs of our
technologocal world than you can imagine. Petroleum extracts
and distilates are crucial in all of our industries. There are no
substitutes to match its abundance, its cost, or its diverse use.
The world we know must me drastically altered to accommodate
it's absence. I'm looking forward to that.
there would be less wars since of this
but,
solar is very expensive, most people would have to walk, have to probabaly not go to school since some people were i live can barely afford cars
Urban planning would've produced much more efficient city designs.
Liberals would have nothing to ***** at, al gore would be a soy bean salesman ..and the dinosaurs would still be in manhattan
Mr. Chi,
There would be no Yahoo...and I would not be able to read your question.
We would be overpaying for some other item.
I'd be Amish.
We would have found alternative fuels a long time ago!
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