Short, medium and long-term this will spur the world to move off of fossil fuels. I'm not a fan of war, especially this stupid one, but that one benefit may be, unintentionally, worth it.

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briansm 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah, 'demand destruction', which in sounds positive in theory but in practice will likely mean poverty, famine and 'population reduction'.

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lovich 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The majority of demand for fossil fuels is for energy. Switching to alternative sources for energy is not “demand destruction” unless you zoom in your analysis so much that you’re missing the forest for the trees.

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pibaker 2 hours ago | parent [-]

You cannot just switch an entire country's energy source on a finger snap nor do we have a viable alternative for making nitrogen based fertilizer. East Asia, which is heavily dependent on Middle East gas, is already bracing for energy shortages. What is likely to happen next is a fertilizer shortage in some poorer countries which will then lead to food shortages and social unrest.

	▲	ch_sm an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> You cannot just switch an entire country's energy source on a finger snap no one is suggesting that > nor do we have a viable alternative for making nitrogen based fertilizer nor is anyone suggesting that
	▲	lovich an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The switch to renewables isn’t expected to happen on a finger snap. And if we no longer need the majority of fossil fuels for oil, we will have more of our own ample local fossil fuels to allocate to production of things that still require them like your afore mentioned fertilizer or lubricants.

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Eddy_Viscosity2 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the short term, Trump is actually paying people to stop existing solar and wind projects and is not exactly open to new ones starting up. So.. oil it is then.

	▲	hvb2 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Solar and wind are used for electricity. There's fossil fuels used for that as well but that's mostly natural gas and a bit of coal.

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hackable_sand 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's nice to be optimistic, but we already have incentives to upgrade to renewable energy.

	▲	onlypassingthru 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Short of fuel rationing and gas lines, over $150/week to fill your SUV is probably the biggest incentive possible.
	▲	seanmcdirmid 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		If you look at it from a world rather than USA perspective, expensive oil is encouraging other countries to buy new energy tech and EVs from China. It was probably going to happen anyways, but Trump sped it up.