If somebody destroyed most of the fossil fuels in the world, will he/she be a terrorist, or a hero?

Question

If there was a bacteria invented by a scientist that destroyed fossil fuels, and it was used to destroy all the fossil fuels, it will force the Government to use alternative transport (electronic cars, bicycles).

This means that CO2 levels will drop dramatically, because nowadays we rely mainly on fossil fuels.

If you think this person is both a terrorist and hero, say why.

Answer 1

Terrorist in my book.  Like them or not, fossil fuels are the lifeblood of the world economy, and taking that away would make everyone on the planet extremely poor.  Be careful for what you wish for!

Answer 2

Figuring out who's a terrorist and who's a hero is one for the history books.   During the late 1770s, the British probably called Francis Marion a terrorist.   For us, he's a hero.

Answer 3

Big time terrorist. That bacteria can't just destroy fossil fuels. they'd have to convert them to something else, probably more CO2. So all that would accomplish is increasing the greenhouse effect without any benefit to industry.

You want to be a hero? Figure out a way to synthesize calcium carbonate rock.

Answer 4

What would be the by-product of the fossil-fuel eating bacteria?

The problem with the hero/terrorist question is that the action would be very arrogant and the person would have the blood of millions on their hands.

What about giving the world time to prepare - the same as when a leaf blight threatened the world's rubber trees? The threat pushed humans to make synthetic tires.

Also, would we be better or worse off after everyone started riding around on farty horses?

Answer 5

Hero for sure.

Answer 6

You would be a terrorist.  First - you would be releasing almost all of the stored carbon into the atmosphere.  Second - you would effictviely be deprviing the world of 90% of it's current available energy.  So - you would halt all development in all 3rd world nations, and force all first world nations back to the 1800's.

Answer 7

an idiot....petroleum duel is safe and low cost...

Answer 8

Terrorist, and after the world recovered from the economic collapse, war, starvation that would surely follow such a heinous act, I am sure that he would be hunted down like the mad dog he would be.

Answer 9

In the short-term, many people will be shocked by the fact that fossil fuels are no longer there, and probably many companies will go bankrupt causing huge problems.

However, in the long-term it may just prevent Global Warming.

P.S Is there even such a bacteria? It will be cool if there was 1.

Answer 10

dead

Answer 11

A terrorist of the highest magnitude and the destroyer of the human race, and probably most other life on the planet as well. Fossil fuels are made up, in large part, of the building blocks of life, since they are the product of former life.  Do you really think a bacteria that could wipe out all the oil, natural gas and coal on earth would stop there? Kiss you a$$ goodbye, and with it, every other carbon-based life form.

Answer 12

A terrorist.

If there were a sudden loss of oil, farm output would drop drastically, what food was produced could not be brought to cities, and millions of people would starve. Survivors would relocate to farms where they would grow subsistence crops by manual labor and be extremely poor.