The petroleum industry caused vast reductions in coal usage while making it possible to produce enough food to feed everyone on the planet.  Before cars took over, horse dung was a very serious environmental threat in New York city. Many of the products that make our life style possible (Polymers, travel and transport, fertilizer to name a few) are provided from petroleum.  Globally, our life expectancy and health is better than ever. All that would not have been possible without Petroleum. To equate energy companies to tobacco companies is absurd.