It is finite, though we haven’t reached the limits yet. There are alternatives, but they are mainly possible BECAUSE of the massive wealth and capabilities that fossil fuels have enabled in society for the past few hundred years (and used for thousands of years before that on smaller scales). You are simply wrong that saying ‘oil is the foundation of society’ is ‘an overstatement’…it is the basis of the entire world we have today. Without it we wouldn’t have any of the things we all take for granted today. Saying that ‘society functioned quite well before oil’ is laughable. How are you quantifying this outrageous statement?? As for whether we function fine without it, well, that depends…mainly, it depends on technologies that have been developed and are being developed because we have the world we do. Fossil fuels are what allowed us to get to the level where we could develop all those wonderful green technologies…without them and the wealth and capabilities that have happened because of fossil fuels. And it’s going to depend on how we transition. Try and transition too early and force it and it could be very bad. We aren’t, today, ready for a full transition off of all fossil fuels because, frankly, none of the green technologies (with the possible exception of nuclear for power generation…and that has other issues) are mature enough or can scale enough to meet current and future needs. When/if we get to the point where we can transition off of fossil fuels it will be because we had them in the first place…and you simply can’t overstate that or the role they have played in building the world and society we have today.