Alex EpsteinFossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

I have the hardback which is 430 pages not including notes and intro. I read it in about 10 days. it’s well-written and the author is careful to avoid the inevitable that he is a climate “denier”. He recognizers that what he calls the “mainstream knowledge system” will be very protective of the current orthodoxy initially called “global warming” and then “climate change”, which is a more flexible terminology.His basic argument is the the current “climate change” orthodoxy (orthodoxy is my word, not his} completely ignores the benefits of fossil fuels, which benefits are cost-effective and essential to human flourishing. Instead, the current knowledge system (orthodoxy, I would say) catastrophizes fossil fuels side effects, which do exist. The current knowledge system distorts research on fossil fuels, promotes only “experts” who support these distortions, and refuses to consider any benefits of fossil fuels. He cites specific examples of these distortions.The author argues that them knowledge system promotes a “delicate nuturer’ view of the environment with an “anti-impact” view of humans effect on the environment. I came to understand this to simply mean that the mainstream knowledge system views any human impact on the environment as undesirable. Human existence, let alone flourishing, is anathema to the mainstream knowledge system.One example on page 373 of the book involves the argument by Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren opposing “plans for spreading industrial agriculture due to their use of fossil fuels.” Messrs. ehrlich and Holdren advocated “much greater use of human labor and relatively less dependence on heavy machinery and manufactured fertilizers and pesticides.” An unempowered life of agricultural drudgery, according to Messrs. Ehrlich and hOldren, doers less environmental damage. As Mr. Epstein notes: “Clearly they were not talking about the human environment, which is barely livable when farmers engage in manual labor agriculture. My family has some experience with this. My father grew up on a farm outside of Waco, Texas, in the 1920s and 1930s. In the 1950s and early 1960s, when I was a boy or early teenager, we would visit my paternal grandfather, who along with other members of the family lived in a wooden house with about 3 rooms. Water came from a cistern outside the house, the toilet was an outhouse, there was no air conditioning and heat was provided by a wood-burning pot bellied stove. Food was cooked in a wood-burning stove. There was a barn and a chicken coop and many other similar houses occupied by farm families nearby. By the late 1950s and 1960s electricity was coming to these small farms. Running water and sanitary sewer was a distant dream. I go to this area for an annual reunion and these little farm houses are gone. My cousins and all of their friends moved to Dallas, Houston, Waco, and other locales with the benefits provided by fossil fuels aa soon as they could. Since Messrs. Ehrlich and Holdren and other fellow-traveling ideologues idealize this existence so much perhaps they could be persuaded to adopt this lifestyle.The book also looks at the opportunity to master climate challenges through the use of the tools enabled by fossil fuels. There are reports of wildfires, droughts, and floods which sometimes create great hardship for humans. This cannot be disputed. The book looks at the statistics on losses from environmental disasters now and in the past, with losses declining with the expansion of the use of fossil fuels. You can go through the book, look at the citations and do your own research if you wish, but I would discourage simply the accepting the current orthodoxy and being dismissive of the book’s claims. Many of the wildfires in California now are due to poor “green” governmental policies. California has just now passed a law that will make it illegal to sell a gas-powered vehicle by 2035. Unfortunately, their “green” electric grid is also undergoing stress and has banned charging of electric vehicles.The war on fossil fuels has also included a war on the use of nuclear reactors. I read recently that Japan, notwithstanding Fukushima, is looking at nuclear power to provide reliable electricity for the Japanese. Germany,, and Europe generally, is beginning to look at nuclear and coal for reliable electricity. China has built many new coal power plants to provide power to its people. Keep in mind that political elites first and primary goal is to remain in power and if too many people are freezing or have no job because there is no power, the goal of remaining in power could be threatened. Wind and solar are not reliable. They can, and should, provide electricity for the grid, but probably don’t constitute the sole answer to power needs.On page 127, the author looks at the miracle of being able to travel by private jet. Al Gore gets a mention in several places in the book. I encountered one pilot who had flown Mr. Gore and 3-4 associates from Nashville, Tennessee, to Central dna South America and then back to Nashville. I expect that created a lot of CO2 for very few people. This flight was well after Mr. Gore became Mr. Global Warming. It simply is one example of where elites dictate rules for others that they themselves don’t wish to follow. I’m sure Mr. Gore is not the only person promoting global warming/climate change who believes and acts as if these dictates apply to the little people, which includes the author of this book, the readers of the book and anyone else not within the elite.The book takes a while to read and It repeats itself at times, but it makes a cogent argument. My one criticism is that he never engages the reason “why” the current knowledge system takes this approach. I think it is because the current elites think that there are simply too many people on the earth and the herd needs substantial thinning. Ergo,, the book’s argument for “human flourishing” is not what’s is desired.If the topic interests you, I recommend the book strongly.

I am a scientist (psychology), so I know how science works even though I am not a climatologist. But for many decades I have read widely in many fields including the physical sciences. I have read about twenty books and scores of articles on climate issues. For many years I suspected that something seemed wrong. There were so many contradictions. Everyone seemed to report findings, using selected data, which supported their side but not findings that contradicted it. It seemed that a political agenda was constantly mixed in with a science agenda. Soon one view became dominant: that fossil fuels were destroying the earth, maybe even in the next ten years, and needed to be abandoned to prevent a world-wide catastrophe. People who disagreed with this could be harassed, mocked, and even risked job loss. Scientific findings could only be published in some journals if they came out with the “right” results. Organizations were pressured to sell their oil stocks. Reporters for many leading newspapers learned quickly that only certain types of articles were acceptable. Opposing oil became a moral crusade, a virtual dogma. Eminent catastrophizers included: Paul Erlich, Al Gore, James Hansen, Paul Krugman, Bill McKibben, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. There have been many distortions of scientific data. But since our Constitution says we have a right to freedom of speech, all critics of the anti-oil crusade could not be silenced. Some catastrophizers openly advocate being dishonest in order to further their agenda. Epstein refutes all the crtics. He presents a list of recommendation for evaluating climate claimsEpstein’s book is a brilliant antidote to the assault on fossil fuels. Its theme is that fossil fuels are one of the greatest benefits to human civilization ever and that there is, for now, no viable substitute. Epstein covers all the relevant issues from every angle, so I will only give a brief summary here.1. The earth, absent the benefits of machines powered by fossil fuels and electrical energy created by fossil fuels is a very dangerous place, characterized by mass poverty, recurring starvation, death from the cold, poor medical care, poor sanitation, exhausting manual labor, bad water, inadequate shelter, devastating natural disasters, and low life expectancy.2. The nations that suffer the most today are those that lack such technology. Without fossil fuels, people who lack them will keep suffering because they will stay poor.3. Coal, oil, and gas are responsible for almost all the energy created today-- about 80%. Solar and wind provide only about 3%. Fossil fuels have allowed humanity, insofar it has advocated reason, to master nature (following the laws of nature and science) thus enabling the human race to multiply and thrive.4. Fossils fuels are abundant in nature: plentiful, cheap, and reliable when production and transportation are not opposed by government regulations. They supply on demand electricity.5. The championed substitutes for fossil fuels are: wind, solar and batteries. Epstein notes, as have others, the many problems with these sources. Windmills do not work without wind. Solar panels do not work without sunlight. Batteries are nowhere near cost-effective enough or efficient enough to store and provide sufficient energy when the wind isn’t blowing enough and the sun isn’t shining enough. So in practice, solar, wind, and batteries are not replacements for fossil-fueled grids, they are inefficient, cost-adding add-ons to fossil-fueled grids.6. Epstein calls the idea that all power would be created by wind, solar, and batteries to be divorced from reality, just from the aspect of cost alone.7. What about pollution? Epstein shows that it has been decreasing for decades thanks to technology. Further, he identifies the ways that side effects can be mitigated.8. What other alternatives are there for power? Epstein favors two: waterpower from dams and nuclear. Both are safe, dependable, non-polluting and do not take up much land or harm birds and animals. Unfortunately, both are roundly opposed by the public. He shows that biomass and geothermal are at least decades away from becoming even significant supplements to fossil fuels, let alone replacements.9. There is a long section on dealing with climate side effects including evidence that fossil fuels lead to fewer storm-related deaths, e.g., floods. Sea level rise today is radically less than in previous history (and can be coped with) and the danger has been greatly exaggerated as with the case of ocean acidification.10. The book ends with a call for freedom of production and a critique of companies, including oil companies, which have conceded the anti-fossil agenda.I consider this book to be, by far, the best—most honest, most accurate-- statement of the fossil fuel issue written so far. But each reader will have to decide what to believe by using their own rational judgment.