Fossil fuels aren't just used as energy sources, either. Many of the products we use as consumers are based in part on petroleum and other fossil fuels. Platic containers or various types and formulations is an obvious product made with petroleum. One product that is not so obvious are those pants known as "skinny jeans"; petroleum is used to make them fit better on the person wearing them.

Even the use of clean energy sources itself requires the use of fossil fuels. As wonderful as solar energy and wind energy appear to many people, they are unreliable sources of energy. When they are unavailable, fossil fuels are used as backup sources of energy. On top of that, many materials used for producing clean energy are made in part from fossil fuels.

Eliminate the use of fossil fuels, and civilization as we know it regresses to around the year 1850. Fossil fuels are used for more than just providing energy and power.

A realistic plan to move away from fossil fuels toward clean energy would still make use of fossil fuels in a lesser role every year until its use is minimal. The fact that a number of groups insist on an immediate switch to clean energy proves that something else is driving that push to clean energy, and it's not market forces and it's not technolgy.