Right wingers basically never met an absurd conspiracy theory they wouldn't immediately fall for, and their favorite one about petroleum is a doozie.
Many conservatives are convinced that oil—you know, the stuff made of millions-year-old fossils compressed underground—is actually a renewable energy source. "They" are just not telling us!
The ludicrous theory has gotten tons of attention on X after a right-wing weirdo quote-tweeted a viral science tweet about oil production.
The original tweet shared a video from Kuwait's Oil Museum in which a giant tube fills in seconds with oil. On the side of the tube, it is explained that this is the amount of oil Kuwait produces each second.
Nutritional supplement salesman and apparent Bible enthusiast (according to his bio) @closingUSD wasn't having it.
In a repost, he attempted to dispel the narrative that oil is a finite resource, writing:
"Hilarious they convinced everyone this is a scarce resource made from dinosaurs."
The oft-repeated "dinosaur" part is a misnomer: Crude oil is mostly made from prehistoric marine organisms like plankton and algae that were buried under layers of sediment and compressed and heated over millions of years.
That millions of years thing is why it's not a renewable resource, and while it's absolutely foolish to think corporations wouldn't lie about literally anything if it would make them an extra buck, this theory is incredibly dumb.
If oil were a renewable resource the oil industry would presumably just make it in a lab for exponentially less money than it takes to drill or frack it out of the ground and from under the ocean, allowing their profits to skyrocket.
Nevertheless, many conservatives have been convinced for decades that "they" are lying to us about oil in order to... do whatever nefarious things they're doing that are more important to the billion-dollar oil industry than money, or whatever.
Anyway! As you might guess, this weirdo's tweet and the thousands of equally weird responses it got were quickly roasted online.
Anyway, in case you were wondering why we have the government we have, it's largely because huge swathes of the country are out here like "if dinosaur vroom vroom juice not renewable how come no run out yet?!" Godspeed, everyone.
@realDonaldTrump/Truth Social
