The Taming of the Frontier!
Brought to you by Goop Psychic Vampire Repellent
– keep those vampires at bay, with Goop.
Today’s episode: The Quest for Water!
When we last left our intrepid frontiersman,
he had just finished manifesting his own destiny
and built his log cabin.
Uh oh, looks like he needs that most precious
of resources – water!
Better get out your trusty spade and divining
rod.
Once you’ve found the right spot, begin
digging your well.
C’mon KB, put your back into it!
Oh no!
Tough luck friend, looks like you’ve hit
oil!
This land is basically useless without a water
source, you probably should have checked that
before building your cabin!
Time to pack up and move camp - we’ll catch
you next time on The Taming of the Frontier!
Brought to you by Goop.
This video was actually brought to you by
CuriosityStream and Nebula.
Up until the turn of the century, most people
burned wood or coal to heat their homes and
whale oil was the most common lamp fuel.
Which is why we nearly hunted them to extinction.
Coal was the primary fossil fuel used in steam
engines, which is what powered the railroads
and started the Industrial Revolution.
America is often described as the Saudi Arabia
of coal.
In 1901, the Hamill brothers struck oil at
Spindletop, Texas; while oil rigs had existed
for decades at that point, they didn’t hold
a candle to Spindletop.
They expected 50 barrels a day, but ended
up getting 80,000.
It was basically the Sutter’s Mill of oil
and even caused a wave of migration to the
area.
And later, a football team named for the same
reason.
Oil was a mostly-useless commodity up until
then, people would curse their luck if they
found it on their land, it was too expensive,
too rare, and too dirty to do anything practical
with.
It had to be refined into something more useful.
At this point, the most common derivative
product was kerosene, everything else was
a waste byproduct that was dumped into the
nearest river.
Hold that thought, we’ll come back to it.
In 1870, John D. Rockefeller founded Standard
Oil, named that way specifically to make everyone
think this was the standard all other companies
followed.
By 1904, it controlled 85% of the oil market
in the US.
Standard Oil even expanded into foreign markets,
giving away free lamps to people in China,
knowing that they’d be the only source of
fuel.
Creating their own returning customers.
But, this was still a fairly small industry
until the invention of the automobile.
And even more specifically, the Ford Model
T. The internal-combustion engine was invented
in 1876, but it didn’t become popular until
Ford’s assembly line production made cars
affordable, practical, and stylish.
Coming in a wide variety of shades of black.
In the same way that giving away lamps created
customers for kerosene, the mass production
of cars drastically increased the demand for
one of those previously wasted byproducts
- gasoline.
Yes, they used to dump gasoline into the rivers,
there were no regulations back then.
The petroleum that you dig up from the ground
is first known as crude oil, which is a thick
sludge full of impurities.
Sweet crude has few impurities, while sour
has more.
To turn oil into gasoline, you have to distill
it, which is a complicated scientific process
that I am again going to oversimplify.
Basically, you boil it and as the temperature
rises, it separates out into different components,
that are then captured and condensed.
Different temperatures boil off different
components in different amounts depending
on where you extracted the crude oil from
geographically.
Some can contain more bitumen, which is turned
into asphalt, or naphtha, which is turned
into plastic.
Since kerosene was the main product and boiled
off around 400 degrees, the distillation process
first separates out gasoline, which boils
at a much lower temperature.
This is why it was such an abundant waste
product early on.
Diesel, on the other hand, boils off at a
much higher temperature.
The compression-ignition engine was invented
in 1892 by Rudolf Diesel and used diesel fuel
instead of gasoline.
Diesel is the Pepsi to gasoline’s Coke,
and while it may be a more efficient fuel
for certain circumstances, every attempt to
market it as better to the average consumer
has been an objective lie.
Diesel engines use high pressure and glow
plugs to ignite the fuel in the cylinder,
driving the pistons.
Which is why you typically have to warm up
the engine before driving.
Gasoline can vaporize at normal environmental
temperatures and uses a spark to cause an
explosion in the cylinder.
Premature explosions are known as knocking.
Charles Kettering experimented with different
additives to try and reduce the frequency
of engine knocking and he eventually found
one, but it was far too common and unable
to be patented, he wanted something proprietary.
So, in 1924, he went with tetraethyllead – or
simply, lead.
Scientists warned of the dangers of spewing
leaded exhaust into the air we breathe, but
as I said, regulations weren’t a thing back
then.
Inhaling or ingesting lead permanently reduces
your cognitive ability.
It took 52 years for the EPA to phase out
lead and replace it with that first chemical
he discovered – ethanol.
Which is primarily derived from corn.
Nowadays, all gasoline in the United States
is required to contain at least 10% ethanol,
otherwise known as E10 or “gasohol.”
Because America is the Saudi Arabia of corn.
Rewinding a bit to 1911, Standard Oil had
an effective monopoly on the petroleum industry
through a number of unfair business practices
– it even owned the railroads its competitors
used.
So the federal government ordered its breakup
under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
It broke up into 34 different companies.
Standard Oil of New Jersey was the largest
and eventually became known simply by the
initials S.O. for Standard Oil.
People said it so often that it rebranded
as Esso, and later, Exxon.
Standard Oil of New York became known as Socony
– for Standard Oil Company of New York,
and later Mobil.
These two companies merged in 1998 to form
ExxonMobil, which is currently the largest
petroleum company in the United States.
Standard Oil of California, or SoCal, used
this logo… you might see where I’m going
with this already, but if not, this shape
is known as a Chevron, and the company rebranded
accordingly.
Several other companies that were bought up
by these two also have portmanteau names,
like the Continental Oil Company, or Conoco.
The Southern United States Oil Company, or
Sunoco, and so on.
Standard Oil was never able to capture the
market in Texas, but the two largest companies
located there, Texaco and Gulf Oil, were later
bought by BP.
Marathon was a Texan oil company that was
bought by Standard Oil, but then split off
during the 1911 break up and remains the fourth
largest oil company in the US.
In sum, a monopoly was broken up and over
the course of a century, merged into an oligopoly
of only four companies, which dominate the
US market.
Globally, at least until the 1960s, the petroleum
industry was controlled by a group of corporations
known as the Seven Sisters.
Which included Exxon, Texaco, and international
names like Royal Dutch Shell.
In the years after World War 2, a few countries
were no longer happy with being colonies and
having their vast oil reserves controlled
by foreign corporations, so they decided to
nationalize their oil industries after they
gained independence.
The messiest and most famous example of this
involved Britain and Iran.
Once oil was discovered in Iran in 1908, it
was bought and controlled by the British via
the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
Which was renamed the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company
in 1935.
In 1951, the Prime Minister of Iran decided
that Iran’s oil industry should be controlled
by Iran and after nationalizing it, kicked
the British out.
Britain depended on that oil during WW2 and
was unwilling to part with it,
They appealed to Eisenhower’s anti-communist
sentiments and secured the help of the CIA,
together they orchestrated what is commonly
described as a coup in order to get the Shah
to remove the Prime Minister.
Which he was constitutionally allowed to do.
The CIA didn’t install some hand-picked
pro-Western Shah, or re-install some long-since
deposed monarch, he was already in power.
They just helped him get rid of a democratically
elected prime minister.
Since this wouldn’t have happened without
the help of clandestine foreign powers who
were motivated by economic self-interest,
coup is still probably the most accurate term
to use here.
In any case, Anglo-Iranian was back and a
year later they renamed themselves British
Petroleum or BP.
We are deeply sorry.
Similar to how the British controlled Iran’s
oil through BP, they were hardly the only
ones interested in foreign oil fields, America
partially controlled the fields in Saudi Arabia
through ARAMCO, the Arabian-American Oil Company.
France had areas of North Africa through the…
that.
The largest corporations had formed a group
known as the Seven Sisters, which controlled
83% of the world’s proven oil reserves until
the 1960s.
Then, several other countries decided to do
what Iran attempted to do.
In 1960, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting
Countries, more commonly known as OPEC, was
founded to take control of the oil industry
from multinational corporations and give it
to national governments.
It’s founding members include Iran – which
successfully nationalized its oil during the
Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iraq, Kuwait,
Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
About a dozen other countries have joined
or left over the years, but all together,
they now control 73% of the world’s oil
reserves.
And almost all of them price their oil in
US dollars – why?
In 1971, President Nixon took the United States
off of the gold standard, and in order to
keep the dollar stable, decided to pin its
value to oil.
Ladies and Gentlemen, please put on your tin
foil hats now.
In 1973, the United States made an agreement
with Saudi Arabia: in exchange for military
defense of its oil fields, Saudi Arabia agreed
to price its oil in dollars.
Meaning that if France or Australia want to
buy oil from them, they would need to do it
using US dollars.
It didn’t take very long for other countries
to catch on and within a few years, the dollar
became the de facto world currency.
This is known as the petrodollar – and we
don’t take too kindly to countries that
don’t use the petrodollar.
Over the last few decades, a few countries
have tried to sell their oil in different
currencies and… well… let’s see if you
can find a common thread.
Iraq tried in the year 2000, but then reverted
back to the dollar in 2003 for some reason.
Libya tried it briefly in 2011, but also stopped
mysteriously.
Iran started in 2003 and Venezuela started
in 2006, both continue to this day.
Venezuela even created a cryptocurrency known
as the Petro.
Maybe that’s why they’re still under all
the sanctions.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you may now remove your
tin foils hats.
Since OPEC operates as a single cartel with
such a huge market share, it’s a monopoly
on par with the Seven Sisters or Rockefeller’s
Standard Oil.
But instead of corporations – it’s countries.
And they work together to keep the price of
oil high and relatively stable.
To illustrate how this works, we need a supply
and demand graph, we’ll start with our axes,
price and quantity.
The demand curve slopes downward, as the price
drops, the quantity of that product that people
are willing to buy increases.
The only real way to increase demand is through
creating new customers, either through advertising
or expanding into new markets.
Then we can graph the supply curve, which
is the inverse of demand, the higher the price,
the more companies are willing to produce.
This curve is much easier to control, and
it’s what OPEC and the various domestic
oil corporations manipulate to change the
price.
Say the demand for oil decreases because suddenly,
for reasons that shall not be mentioned, nobody
is driving anymore…
OPEC can reduce the overall supply of oil
and try to keep the price stable.
So when you ask yourself why the price of
gasoline is $2 a gallon rather than $1, it’s
because they’ve kept the supply artificially
low for decades.
Just like diamonds.
So how did the price of a barrel of oil drop
to negative forty dollars a few weeks ago?
Well, OPEC isn’t the only cartel in the
game.
OPEC only has thirteen member countries as
of the making of this video, led primarily
by Saudi Arabia.
To compete with OPEC, ten smaller oil producing
countries have banded together to form what
is commonly referred to as OPEC+, with Russia
as the symbolic leader.
Technically, OPEC+ refers to the overall agreement
between OPEC and these non-OPEC countries.
So again, let’s say that demand suddenly
decreases for some unknown reason and OPEC
decides to cut back on supply.
While OPEC decreased their production to keep
the price high, Russia and the other OPEC+
countries ramped it up… to the point that
it exceeded the demand and for a brief moment.
They had to pay people to take the excess
supply off their hands.
We have a number of systems in the United
States that are meant to fulfill the same
purpose – keeping the price of oil relatively
stable.
Like the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
After the various oil crises in the 70s, the
United States decided to keep a stockpile
of crude oil that could be released whenever
there was a supply disruption.
Like after a hurricane or during a war.
If the supply drops, the price increases – so
the government uses oil from the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve to boost supply and keep
the price stable.
The stockpile currently holds 641 million
barrels of oil or thirty-four days’ worth
at our current consumption levels, though
it has a limited withdrawal capacity and would
take five months to empty completely.
There are other ways to control the price
though – like subsidies.
Let’s say a company wants to sell a product
for $5 because that’s the price most consumers
are willing to pay – but, it costs $7 to
make.
This is where the government steps in with
a $2 subsidy, so that the company can still
price their product at $5 and still make a
profit.
But what if this product is essential and
you can’t afford the $5?
Easy, the government steps in with a $2 subsidy
for the consumer – though we usually call
this a tax credit or some form of welfare.
Regardless of the scenario, the producer is
still getting $7, whether it comes from the
consumer, the government, or both.
Fossil fuels, and specifically oil, have all
kinds of producer and consumer subsidies that
don’t exist outside of that industry.
You know how the first $10,000 you make isn’t
taxed?
Well, depending on which specific product
they’re extracting or refining and where,
the first 20% or so of their corporate profits
aren’t taxed.
They call this the Depletion Allowance.
There’ve been several attempts to repeal
or modify the Depletion Allowance since it
started in 1926, but as you might have guessed,
they’ve all failed.
Because it’s always framed as “raising
taxes.”
The Intangible Drilling Cost Deduction allows
them to write off the cost of exploration
and development and has also existed for almost
a century.
After that long it’s no longer a temporary
subsidy, but a fixed feature.
For all of these reasons and more, American
oil companies like ExxonMobil haven’t paid
any federal taxes in years, I don’t know
why any of you think they would magically
start now if we introduced a carbon tax.
They also haven’t been profitable in years.
During the 80s and 90s, most of the conversation
on fossil fuels centered on the idea that
we’d run out in the next few decades.
We were also “addicted to foreign oil.”
Let’s take care of that myth right now – around
half of our oil is produced domestically and
we import almost as much as we export.
Who do we import from?
Canada, by far.
Mexico is in a distant second place, followed
by Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Colombia.
For the sake of being thorough, these are
the top five countries we export oil to…
we are not and have never really been dependent
on foreign oil.
Ending our addiction to foreign oil was just
code for increasing domestic production.
The problem was that all of the easily extractable,
and therefore profitable, oil had already
been tapped.
So the industry lobbied for more off-shore
drilling and the exploration of federal lands,
like the Alaska Wildlife Refuge.
Along with environmentally friendly off-shore
production, we do need to drill here and drill
now.
Now you can chant the “Drill baby, drill!”
So that’s the direction that the big oil
companies went.
With several high-profile blunders like the
Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 and the Deepwater
Horizon explosion in 2010, more commonly known
as the BP Oil Spill.
We’re sorry.
While this was going on, an entirely new form
of fossil fuel extraction was becoming profitable.
Hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known
as fracking.
Fracking is usually associated with methane,
or natural gas, because America is the Saudi
Arabia of natural gas too – but it works
just as well for petroleum, which we call
shale oil.
Large companies like ExxonMobil completely
missed the shale oil boom.
Instead, all of that money they spent on off-shore
exploration and tar sands development went
to waste and the sites were written down as
losses because fracking is so much more profitable.
And significantly more hazardous.
Hydraulic fracturing involves the injection
of water and chemicals into the ground to
fracture the layers of shale that hold compressed
gas or oil.
Fracturing all of this rock turns a hundred
tiny pockets of fossil fuels into one large
one, which can then be extracted under pressure.
People who live near these sites have had
their local well water ruined and nearly a
third of all wells leak methane and other
chemicals into the air – for more on this,
and fracking in general, I recommend the documentary
Gasland.
In order to survive, the fossil fuel industry
has lobbied for a continuation of those century-long
subsidies and deregulation.
You see, stopping wells from leaking is expensive.
How can petroleum and natural gas extraction
be profitable if we can’t continue to dump
carbon into the atmosphere and chemicals into
the water?
That’s right, he said continue.
When the EPA was first founded in 1970, it
asked the industry for a list of all the hazardous
chemicals they produced.
So they could figure out what to regulate.
The Dupont chemical company decided to leave
one of their most profitable compounds off
that list and continued to use it in their
products for decades – while knowing full
well that it was incredibly toxic to people,
including the end-consumer.
I’m talking about Teflon, a product most
of us have come into contact with at some
point and will have in our blood forever.
It’s so carcinogenic that I’m surprised
they didn’t try to weaponize it.
Why am I talking about Dupont in a video about
oil?
Because while 70% of petroleum eventually
becomes fuel, like gasoline and diesel, 25%
of it is turned into petrochemicals and plastics.
Another industry fighting for deregulation.
The plastics industry didn’t really take
off until World War 2, up until then most
consumer products were built to last and made
out of wood and metal.
Plastic, made from oil, offered a cheap alternative.
The problem was that this also made it extremely
abundant and in the minds of consumers, disposable.
Before carbon emissions took center stage,
most of our environmental fears were about
trash – and how we’d eventually be overrun
with it.
Which is why, in the 80s and 90s, the plastics
industry spent millions of dollars convincing
you to recycle.
Remember those recycling campaigns in the
90s?
That was them!
Ladies and Gentlemen, please put on your tin-
No!
No, this one actually happened – I mean,
so did the other one, but this one is real.
The plastics industry knew that by convincing
you that plastic was recyclable…
You’d actually use more of it.
It’s basically renewable, you just set it
aside in this second, identical container
and a truck comes to whisk it away to a magical
factory where it’s turned into a tote bag
or something.
If you didn’t know this already, recycling
was a huge scam.
Did you feel like they cared more about selling
plastic than they did about making recycling
work?
Making recycling work was a way to keep their
products in the marketplace.
It was a way to sell plastic.
Yes.
A case could be made for recycling metals
like aluminum and copper, but plastics recycling
has never been profitable, it’s way cheaper
to just make a new product from scratch.
While making aluminum requires a supernova.
The vast majority of plastic you’ve sent
off to be recycled… wasn’t, even if it
had the recycling number on it, it just ended
up in a landfill somewhere.
Usually in some developing country like China
or the Philippines.
We were sold on the idea, even though the
industry knew it wouldn’t work, because
they thought maybe, in the future, they’d
figure out a way to make it profitable.
Well now it is the future and they didn’t.
So we’re here to showcase our first-of-its-kind
recyclable tube.
So if you put this in your curbside tonight,
do you think that this tube would be recycled?
We need more work, we’re working with other
organizations to get the word out- So not
yet.
Not yet.
Instead, they’ve managed to shift the blame
onto you, the consumer.
If only you would’ve paid more attention
to the other Rs and reduced, we wouldn’t
have this problem.
Stop using plastic straws.
And don’t use plastic bags from the grocery
store, buy these reusable tote bags instead.
Actually, now that you’ve spent like a decade
collecting them, we’re going to lobby the
government to ban their use… because they
bring bacteria and viruses into the store,
never mind the rest of you, it’s the bag
that’s the problem.
Let’s go back to single-use plastic bags…
and wrap all of our fruit and vegetables in
plastic.
All of this consumer-blame messaging about
pollution is a way to shift responsibility
and cost away from the corporations and onto
you.
I’m all for reduction being the goal, rather
than elimination.
But when just 100 companies are responsible
for 71% of global emissions, your individual
reduction is relatively minor.
These are the final gasps of a dying industry.
I know that last part may sound difficult
to believe, fossil fuels and plastics seem
like they’re everywhere these days.
But financially, it’s a different story.
Demand for single-use plastics has been steadily
decreasing and over 120 countries have restricted
their use or banned them entirely.
Including some cities and states in the US.
Fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil have
gone hundreds of billions of dollars into
debt in order to continue to pay out their
dividends.
Owing mostly to overexpansion and reduced
demand, oil and gas stock prices were at their
lowest level in a decade before recent events.
Most banks and financial institutions have
completely divested from the fossil fuel industry.
The end is neigh and they know it.
Because of that, there are some people who
are arguing for the increased use of fossil
fuels, even if the fossil fuel industry won’t
argue that themselves.
Transforming ancient dead plants into the
energy of life, in a way that maximizes benefits
and minimizes risks, is an activity that the
industry should be proud of, and we should
be proud to use its product.
Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry has,
in recent decades, not believed that, or at
least has refused to say it.
It has conceded to its environmentalist opponents
that fossil fuels are an addiction, just a
temporarily necessary one.
Last year, I wrote an open letter to executives
in the fossil fuel industry criticizing them
for this conduct and asking them to join me
in making a moral case for their industry.
When I started making this video, I looked
for any coherent pro-fossil fuel argument
I could find, which is somewhat more difficult
than you might expect these days.
But eventually I stumbled upon Alex Epstein,
a right-wing provocateur who likes to crush
the libs by holding impromptu debates with
unprepared college students at climate change
rallies.
His one claim to fame is that he wrote a book
called “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”
and he’s been invited to talk on such reputable
shows as the Rubin Report, Glenn Beck, and
PragerU – FIVE times.
I’m Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case
for Fossil Fuels, for Prager University.
Prager University is not a university, it’s
a right-wing YouTube channel.
But since he’s been on their channel so
many times to talk about his book, he’s
had time to refine his arguments.
Fossil fuels don’t take a naturally safe
and make it dangerous.
They empower us to take a naturally dangerous
environment and make it cleaner and safer.
Fossil fuel energy has not taken a naturally
safe climate and made it unnaturally dangerous.
It’s taken our naturally dangerous climate
and made it unnaturally safe.
Basically, according to him, fossil fuel use
has three effects we should consider.
The first is the Greenhouse Effect.
But aren’t things bound to get worse?
Haven’t scientists established that CO2
is a greenhouse gas with a warming influence
on the planet?
Yes, but that’s only a small part of the
big picture.
Although CO2 causes some warming, it’s much
less significant than we’ve been told.
He’s not a climate change denier, or even
a skeptic, he’s a… minimizer.
Similar to other soft denial narratives, he
isn’t denying that it happens, he just doesn’t
accept the magnitude or scale of what we’ve
been told.
The Greenhouse Effect is real, it’s just
a tiny side effect according to him.
He even has a video on his channel asking
people to stop calling him a denier…
Almost in no case is their viewpoint, I deny
that CO2 has any influence on the atmosphere
– any warming influence.
That’s not the position.
The position is that warming is a side effect
of fossil fuels and that that side effect
is far less significant in its impact on human
life than the positives on fossil fuels.
So, what are the supposed positives he brings
up?
To counter the Greenhouse Effect, which he
admits exists but doesn’t think is that
dangerous, he brings up the Fertilizer Effect.
That idea that CO2 will fertilize the world.
It also correlates with significant global
greening, because CO2 is plant food.
That would be true if we were growing new
forests to soak up all that carbon, but that
hasn’t been the case.
We’ve been cutting them down more than anything.
So, enough with the science-y climate change
effects, let’s get to his third argument,
which is far more philosophical: the Energy
Effect.
Which is really the “moral argument” for
fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels are not an existential threat,
they’re an existential resource, because
they increase something much more important
than the level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
The level of human empowerment.
Increased life expectancy, income, health,
leisure time, and education are all tightly
linked to access to fossil fuels.
Some of what he just said is opinion, but
some of it is undeniably true.
Fossil fuels have increased human quality
of life.
But then he tries to connect a few dots that
are just… watch.
But let’s look at the data.
Here’s a graph you’ve probably never seen:
the correlation between use of fossil fuels
and access to clean water.
More fossil fuel.
More clean water.
Okay, so, PragerU is pretty famous for its
deceptive graphs, but this one takes the cake.
They’re using two different y-axes at two
different scales to make you think that the
more fossil fuels are used, the cleaner our
water.
You look at the numbers on the left, which
start around 40, and end around 80 or 90 on
the right.
Yay fossil fuels!
But no.
Fossil fuel use is basically flat and so is
the percentage of people with clean water
now that we’re looking at it.
And he isn’t just pointing out a correlation,
he says it’s the cause.
Am I saying the more that we that we have
used fossil fuel, the cleaner our water has
become?
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.
Here he is doing it again with sanitation…
Take a look at this graph.
More fossil fuel.
Better sanitation.
Again, the axes and scales are different to
give you the impression that there is a causal
relationship.
This next one has more to do with climate
change than quality of life, but I can’t
leave it out…
Here’s a graph of the air pollution trends
in the United States over the last half century
based on data from the Environmental Protection
Agency.
Note the dramatic downward trend in emissions,
even though we use more fossil fuel than ever.
How was this achieved?
By leaving CO2 off of the graph – this isn’t
a typo, this is deliberate.
They have no problem talking about rising
CO2 emissions elsewhere.
What he’s really trying to say is that fossil
fuels improve the environment for humans…
in industrialized countries.
And that’s the only standard we should care
about.
That’s the moral argument, that when it
comes to fossil fuels, we should stop focusing
on the environment and instead focus on human
quality of life.
Or as he calls it, the human standard of value.
He doesn’t deny the negative environmental
impacts of fossil fuels, he just doesn’t
think they’re that dangerous, and he thinks
the positive effects on human quality of life
should be more important.
To the exclusion of anything else.
Here, in a sentence, is the moral case for
fossil fuels; the single thought to empower
us to empower the world: Mankind’s use of
fossil fuels is supremely virtuous, because
human life is the standard of value and because
using fossil fuels transforms our environment
to make it wonderful for human life.
That’s an argument I can at least understand,
even if I don’t agree with it.
Fossil fuels are the reason we have all of
this.
Cheap, durable products shipped from all over,
air conditioning, electricity, the internet…
videos on the internet… documentaries…
Which you can see by going to curiositystream.com/knowingbetter.
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Alex Epstein says that we should stop looking
at fossil fuels through the lens of environmental
impact and start looking at its impact on
human life… but only the positive, near-term
impact.
He’s not too concerned with the far future.
This is a binary worldview and, in my opinion,
an unnecessary one.
We can have it both ways.
He appropriately attributes the benefits of
industrialization and the modern world to
fossil fuels, but inappropriately assumes
that no other energy source can provide that.
Admittedly, it is the one that got us here.
It is the most abundant, quickest, and cheapest
way to provide energy to a population, which
is why developing countries are currently
building more fossil fuel power plants.
But we already have that infrastructure.
We’re not building interstate highways and
powerlines anymore, so we have a responsibility
to shift away to cleaner sources.
Yes, it really is on us.
We can’t expect developing countries to
skip from A to Z when we’ve spent the last
150 years burning through the alphabet.
We’re holding them to a standard we’ve
never held ourselves.
If they’re going to be increasing their
use and we know the negative impacts of our
continued use, we have the moral obligation
to transition to something more sustainable,
because now, we know better.
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