Sorry for the confusion, I was using the term generically, or metaphorically.....”used as directed” alludes to things that can harm when not “used as directed”.....think of medicines for example.....some are quite beneficial “when used as directed” by a practitioner but like all medicines, can be harmful when you exceed the dosage or use it for something it was not designed to treat.
Petroleum based products are from fossil fuels which I believe scientists should have left in the ground because I don't believe anything that creates toxins was ever meant to be burned. Look at the pollution they cause! Does that offset the benefit of being able to jump in our cars and go wherever we like? Or to have coal powered electricity and industry pumping out tons of Co2 into the atmosphere when we are losing the lungs of the world for timber and palm oil plantations?
This is NOT OK.
Humans tend to think in terms of the little that they personally contribute to the pollution problem....like that one plastic container that they might throw in the garbage, but they forget about the million other people who think the same way.....collectively we are killing the planet and robbing its inhabitants of a quality of life that would still be there if we cared more about those around us, including all the myriad lifeforms that are now facing extinction because of our greed for profit.
Habitats are being destroyed with no regard for the creatures that God designed to live in them. Humans are 'reaping what they sowed', but so are all the other creatures who are at the mercy of our greed.
What I mean is that there is no balance....whatever good science does, there is always something bad to cancel it out. Without ethics there would be so many crossing the line as I am sure that in some nations they are already doing behind the scenes.
For example, why would the Chinese be doing research on bat to human transfer of viruses in the Wuhan Virology Lab, even publishing papers on the subject, and then all of a sudden we have a bat to human virus taking over the world, killing millions, and mutating into more lethal strains!?
I believe that humans will account for their actions.....