Fossil Future
Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less
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5.0 • 5 Ratings
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- £8.49
Publisher Description
The New York Times bestselling author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels draws on the latest data and new insights to challenge everything you thought you knew about the future of energy
For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels to human flourishing--including their unrivaled ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people.
And contrary to what we hear from media “experts” about today’s “renewable revolution” and “climate emergency,” reality has proven Epstein right:
Fact: Fossil fuels are still the dominant source of energy around the world, and growing fast—while much-hyped renewables are causing skyrocketing electricity prices and increased blackouts.Fact: Fossil-fueled development has brought global poverty to an all-time low.Fact: While fossil fuels have contributed to the 1 degree of warming in the last 170 years, climate-related deaths are at all-time lows thanks to fossil-fueled development.
What does the future hold? In Fossil Future, Epstein, applying his distinctive “human flourishing framework” to the latest evidence, comes to the shocking conclusion that the benefits of fossil fuels will continue to far outweigh their side effects—including climate impacts—for generations to come. The path to global human flourishing, Epstein argues, is a combination of using more fossil fuels, getting better at “climate mastery,” and establishing “energy freedom” policies that allow nuclear and other truly promising alternatives to reach their full long-term potential.
Today’s pervasive claims of imminent climate catastrophe and imminent renewable energy dominance, Epstein shows, are based on what he calls the “anti-impact framework”—a set of faulty methods, false assumptions, and anti-human values that have caused the media’s designated experts to make wildly wrong predictions about fossil fuels, climate, and renewables for the last fifty years. Deeply researched and wide-ranging, this book will cause you to rethink everything you thought you knew about the future of our energy use, our environment, and our climate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Epstein (The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels), founder of the Center for Industrial Progress think-tank, shuttles between grandiosity and dubious claims in this bloated argument to increase the use of fossil fuels over alternative energy initiatives. Using a framework of prioritizing "human flourishing," Epstein argues that much of human progress can be attributed to the use of coal and oil, that the global poverty rate has gone down as a direct result of fossil fuel usage, and that "the negative climate impacts of fossil fuels will be far, far outweighed by the unique benefits." Many of his statements are hard to take seriously: a net-zero policy "would certainly be the most significant act of mass murder since the killings of one hundred million people by communist regimes," he suggests, and attempts to eliminate fossil fuel dependence will result in "a threat to the long-term existence of the United States." His points about how scientific assessments are not always accurately conveyed to the public in the media and that calamity sells over thoughtful assessment are solid, but his ensuing leap to reverse course and expand fossil fuel usage comes up rather short. What Epstein breathlessly characterizes as "spread the truth" lands as manic and petulant.
Customer Reviews
A super book which reframes the entire discussion on climate change and energy policy
This is a superb book, a “must read” for any honest free-thinking individual who is motivated by the truth regarding energy policy and climate change.
Controversially, Alex argues that the designated experts for researching, analysing, synthesising and evaluating climate change and energy policy have failed to assess the full context of fossil fuel production. They have greatly exaggerating the negatives sides effects of their use whilst minimising or ignoring their life-saving benefits, which has perpetuated for decades. Alex argues this is the result of an incorrect framework of evaluation and an irrational moral standard. If a policy of net zero was implement it would be a certain catastrophe for the human race, who’s lives depend desperately on access to cost-effective, reliable energy in order to flourish.
At present, only fossil fuels are capable of providing low cost energy which can be scaled to billions of people and be supplied on demand, which is why despite 40 years of aggressive subsidies and government mandates in support of “renewables,” fossil fuels continue to comprise 80%+ of the worlds total energy production and are still growing.
Alex introduces facts which have been suspiciously omitted by the designated experts and integrates them in a new framework for evaluating these issues. I challenge anyone to finish this book and not be persuaded by Alex’s arguments.
Well done Alex. If the world continues to flourish; if it chooses to jettison the anti-human standard of non-impact for a new moral standard of human flourishing, it will no doubt have been in part because of the significant contribution you have made with Fossil Future.