However, he contends that “the negative climate impacts of fossil fuels will be far, far outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels,” that their impact “would not be catastrophic but rather continue to be ‘masterable’ by ingenious human beings empowered by fossil-fueled machines.”
The advantages of fossil fuels, he wrote, is that their abundance and relatively low cost make them useful so that eventually they will benefit the billions of people who have little or no access to energy. “Fossil Fuels,” he wrote, are “providing four times more energy than all alternatives combined.”
Because of their low cost and reliability they have transformed our environment into “one that is unnaturally clean and unnaturally safe from climate danger.” And while their use did increase the CO2 level, that would be offset by the fossil-fueled machines that provide benefits, like irrigation equipment that counter drought, air-conditioning machines that help us live in very warm climates, and heating units for cold climates.
While conceding that fossil fuels do contribute CO2 to the environment, he called our attention to the excessive and often flat-out incorrect predictions of gloom and doom that have influenced how we do things.
Grossly incorrect predictions of climate doom have been put forth over the years. Highlighting some of these mistakes in not-too-distant history, Epstein provided examples of trusted news institutions wrongly warning us back in the 1970s:
* The Guardian, in 1974: “Space satellites show new ice age coming fast.”
* Newsweek, in 1975: “The cooling world: Climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action to compensate for the climatic change, or even to allay its effects.”
* The New York Times, in 1978: “International team of specialists finds no end in sight to 30-year cooling trend in northern hemisphere.”
More recent predictions that are not included in Fossil Future have been just as wrong, and in the opposite direction, promising death and destruction from a warming world.
* In 2004, the U.S. edition of The Guardian reported that the U.S. Defense Department had told President George W. Bush that European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a “Siberian” climate, triggering nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting across the world.
* In 2008, then-presidential candidate Al Gore predicted that within five years the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely free of ice.
* In 2009, Great Britain’s Charles, Prince of Wales, said that capitalism and consumerism have brought the world to the brink of economic and environmental collapse, and we have only 96 months to straighten things out.
* In 2014, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius, appearing with then-Secretary of State John Kerry, warned that "we have 500 days to avoid climate chaos."
Even if you are not a senior citizen that has lived through all these false warnings, you probably realize that none of them has come to pass.
In fact, some positive things have occurred. Even though there has been an increase in atmospheric CO2, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. air emissions — including carbon monoxide, ammonia, nitrous oxides, Sulphur dioxide, and particulate matter — have been reduced from 300 million tons in 1970 to approximately 125 million tons in 2020, despite the increased use of fossil fuels.
This is because the currently used fossil fuels are cleaner than those used many years ago such as wood and animal dung, which were often burned indoors, and we have cleaner methods for using them.
Two other energy sources are not used very much: nuclear and hydroelectric, which Epstein says are discouraged because of the harm they do to the environment. But, he noted that the “radiation in the case of nuclear is trivial, and the waste has been safely managed for generations.” And for hydroelectric, arguing against those projects “in the name of free-flowing rivers … is clearly not focused on human flourishing” that it will provide.
Essentially, he suggests that these arguments greatly exaggerate the dangers of nuclear and hydroelectric, and essentially ignore the positive aspects they provide that will benefit humanity.
What Epstein accomplishes is something not really complicated, but it is something rather rare; instead of taking one side or the other and pushing it, he accepts the strong points of both sides, and presents both of them. He makes the case that ought to be more broadly presented to us; that we must keep at the top of our thinking how we best serve the needs of the billions of people on Earth by making the most of fossil fuels, and in doing that we also manage the negatives of fossil fuels to prevent them from doing serious harm.
Texas Congressman Chip Roy terms this approach a “humanity-centric alternative to the anti-fossil fuel climate hysteria” so prevalent today.
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