Up to 20% of drilled oil and gas is turned into petrochemicals and these are used to make famine-reducing fertiliser, uber-useful plastics and life-saving medicines. Yet around 200 members of the British Parliament were prepared last year to vote for the demented, anti-human private legislation that would have cut all hydrocarbon use in the country, whether it arose domestically or abroad, to just 10% within a decade. Food starvation and painful lingering deaths are just a few thoughts and words that spring to mind.
Treason is another. What other word can possibly describe the wilful political decisions currently being made in countries like the UK to stop future extractions of hydrocarbons? How can politicians like the sinister Ed Miliband claim international leadership of the Net Zero fantasy and expect others to provide future food, fertiliser and medicines? Who will tend to an ailing G. Monbiot when the medicine cabinet is empty and Norway sells its ‘curses’ elsewhere.
Modern medicine depends heavily on hydrocarbons, both as raw material and chemical building blocks. Without them, the production of many essential drugs – from painkillers and antibiotics to cancer therapies – would be significantly more difficult, much more expensive, and in some cases impossible to produce at the required scale. Many pharmaceuticals are organic molecules and hydrocarbons form the backbone of the complex manufacturing chemistry. For example, hydrocarbon-derived benzene can be converted through controlled reactions into compounds such as phenol and aniline to synthesise drugs such as paracetamol. Treating propylene provides vital solvents and other manufacturing intermediaries....<<<Read More>>>...