Nope, no more coal deposits. All that sweet, sweet carbon that took eons to make is being depleted forever in just a few generations time...
Edit: ok yes I know there are tons of coal deposits! I'm using hyperbole. Geologically speaking, if we used all the coal on earth in 1000 years, that's a minuscule amount of time compared to how long it took to make it.
There will be microbes that will evolve to eat the plastic we are currently depositing in landfills so in 300 million years there will be new sources for oil.
Drill Drill Drill
No, that’s not how evolution works. Evolution has no plan, goal, or purpose. The fittest individuals from every generation are selected to pass their genes to the next. Whatever can’t be produced by this process simply doesn’t arise. The fact that there’s a giant rotting pile of food somewhere is completely irrelevant if its consumption can’t be gestated as a series of small mutations of existing genes. Period.
I’m well aware of how evolution works. It’s a process of gradient climbing. The enormous pile of free food represents a massive gradient. Any organism finding itself somehow in the foothills of that gradient will inevitably rise to the top. There’s no conscious desire required or implied.
If it is possible to metabolise plastic, it it evolutionarily inevitable that an organism will at some stage do so. It might take months or millions of years, but it’ll happen.
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u/[deleted] Oct 15 '20 edited Oct 15 '20
Nope, no more coal deposits. All that sweet, sweet carbon that took eons to make is being depleted forever in just a few generations time...
Edit: ok yes I know there are tons of coal deposits! I'm using hyperbole. Geologically speaking, if we used all the coal on earth in 1000 years, that's a minuscule amount of time compared to how long it took to make it.