Amazon Review of Alex Epstein, "The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels", 2014
It is a rare pleasure to read a book or article by someone who understands
and appreciates the role of energy in our lives. Mr. Epstein certainly explains
this very well in his defense of human use of fossil fuels. As he is much more
eloquent than I - I will quote a few outstanding passages from his book.
“Ultimately, the moral case for fossil fuels is not about fossil fuels; it’s the
moral case for using cheap, plentiful, reliable energy to amplify our abilities
to make the world a better place”
“In school, we learn that this was the time of the Industrial Revolution -
although at least in my case, the problems of it were emphasized much more than
the doubling of human life expectancy and the far more than doubling of
individual income. What exactly does the term industrial revolution mean? Well,
it was a revolution in industry, which means in our ability to do physical work
to be more productive, which in practice meant an energy revolution.”
“Fossil fuel energy is the food of food. It is an undeniable truth that, in
providing the fuel that makes modern, industrialized, globalized, fertilized
agriculture possible, the oil industry has sustained and improved billions and
billions of lives.”
“Fossil fuel energy is, for the foreseeable future, necessary to life. The more
of it we produce, the more people will have the ability to improve their lives.
The less of it we produce, the more preventable suffering and death will exist.
To not use fossil fuels, therefore, is beyond a risk - it is certain mortal
peril for mankind.”
“Ultimately, a resource is just matter and energy transformed via human
ingenuity to meet human needs. Well, the planet we live on is 100 percent matter
and energy, 100 percent potential resource for energy and anything else we would
want.”
“And we observed that the motive power of transformation, the amplifier of human
ability, the resource behind every other resource, is energy - which, for the
foreseeable future, means largely fossil fuel energy. There is no inherent limit
to energy resources - we just need human ingenuity to be free to discover ways
to turn unusable energy into usable energy. This opens up a thrilling
possibility: the endless potential for improving life through ever growing
energy resources helping create ever growing resources of every kind.”
“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.”
Mr. Epstein’s book is not without fault. Perhaps he overstates the obvious, but
then most take energy for granted without recognizing it is the very essence of
life. He “dumbs down” the complexity of the greenhouse gas issue at one point to
an extreme degree with a discussion of “reflection” of infrared radiation. He
references a Richard Lindzen article which is also greatly simplified but still
not supportive of Mr. Epstein’s explanation. Of course, most attempts to explain
the greenhouse effect are woefully inadequate so I can’t fault Mr. Epstein too
heavily for his oversimplified explanation.
Overall his book is a very good read and should leave readers wondering about
their own personal debt to extensive human use of fossil fuels over the past
couple of centuries. How many of us actually owe our lives to fossil fuels?
(DRP 15/02/25)