The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels – by Alex Epstein
(Portfolio/Penguin, 2014)
Epstein makes a good argument for the utility of fossil
fuels. He also makes a good argument that human well-being is a more valuable
standard by which to measure their utility than environmental non-impact.
However, while his arguments are successful against a standard of non-impact,
they do not hold up if the standard simply becomes a more pragmatic reduction
of impact. Thus the book is useful pitted against more radical or extremist
environmentalists and weak pitted against moderate pragmatic environmentalists.
Epstein is a fellow at the right wing think tank Ayn Rand Institute. He is also
a founder at the Center for Industrial Progress. While Epstein acknowledges
that fossil fuels are a primary cause of climate change he thinks we can
effectively use technology to adapt and mitigate it.
He notes that at the time of writing 87% of global energy
use was fossil fuels. He invokes the past specters of unfounded fossil fuel
depletion, although at times in the U.S. anyway, there have been temporary
shortages. He invokes Amory Lovins’ incorrect predictions about the
capabilities of renewable energy. He invokes the wrong assumptions of The Club
of Rome’s Limits to Growth and
biologist Paul Ehrlich’s predictions of mass starvation in light of population
increase. He invokes the vastly incorrect predictions of Ehrlich’s protégé,
Obama science advisor John Holdren, anti-fossil fuel advocate Bill McKibben,
and climate scientist James Hansen about climate effects – all predicted to be
worse by now than has occurred – although there is no doubt some significant
climate change effects are occurring. Epstein debated Bill McKibben at Duke
University in 2012.
One of his main data sources is the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which comes out annually.
Here it is clear that increased fossil fuel use (mainly coal and oil)
correlates to increased GDP per capita and to increased life expectancy.
However, with the overload of particulate matter in China over the last few
years the life expectancy correlation may take a hit. There is little doubt
that access to affordable energy in developing countries leads to increased
human well-being. Most fossil fuel reduction proposals take that into account
and exempt developing countries from growth reduction requirements. He
correctly notes that in many cases the benefits of fossil fuels outweigh the
risks.
Human ingenuity, says Epstein, has increased fossil fuel
reserves when most experts predicted depletion. This is true due to
technological innovations like hydraulic fracturing, horizontal drilling, 3D
and 4D seismic, and other imaging and extraction techniques for mining.
He favors optimism rather than pessimism about fossil fuels.
He shows EPA data that air pollutant emissions dropped significantly from 1990
to 2014. What he doesn’t say is that such drops were due in large part to
lobbying efforts that the fossil fuel industries opposed such as requirements
for scrubbers at coal-burning power plants and replacing of coal plants by
natural gas plants which emit far less pollutants. He invokes climate cooling
concerns in the early 1970’s as an argument against pessimistic catastrophism.
He correctly shows that Jim Hansen’s temperature predictions in the mid-1980’s
were off the mark. Temps have increased significantly but far less than Hansen
predicted then. However, Epstein also shows temperature data and quite
incorrectly concludes that “CO2 is not a particularly powerful driver.”
He gives data that show that climate-related deaths have
decreased significantly over time when catastrophists predicted they would
increase. This is not surprising since we have better technology, warning
systems, and disaster planning than in the past, partly due to prosperity and
fossil fuel used to power our technologies.
Based on the past incorrect predictions of experts he
suggests that experts should be advisors rather than authorities. I would agree
to a certain extent. Knowledge of science does not necessarily translate to
knowledge of policy. Policy requires ‘big picture’ assessments. Regarding past
fossil fuel use utilizing the standard of human well-being Epstein sees it as a
moral victory:
“I think that our fossil fuel use so far has been a moral
choice because it has enabled billions of
people to live longer and more fulfilling lives,…”
In contrast, people like Bill McKibben have advocated that
minimizing impact on the environment should be the standard, presumably at the
cost of human well-being. His austerity scenarios back this up. McKibben values
preservation of nature at the expense of human well-being. Again, I think
Epstein’s arguments work great against extremist views like those of McKibben
and his ilk but are rather inconsequential against sensible and pragmatic
arguments for reasonable reductions in fossil fuel use and environmental
impacts. Cheap, plentiful, scalable, and reliable energy in the form of fossil
fuels will continue to be used where applicable until renewable energy becomes
cheaper, more plentiful (more efficient), and more reliable so that it can
economically and logistically compete and gradually replace fossil fuels.
His arguments for energy access – real energy access via
power plants and grids not just a few solar panels – for developing countries
are ‘no-brainers.’ Energy is food for our machines, he says, and those machines
make the products we need and such manufacturing gives people jobs. About a
billion people in the world have no electricity and up to 3 billion have
inadequate electricity.
Solar and wind energy suffer from efficiency problems. He
notes that per unit of energy produced wind requires well over 10 times the
steel and iron than coal and about 100 times that of natural gas. Of course,
the intermittency problems of both solar and wind are a big issue limiting
their economics and feasibility. He rightly calls out the nonsensical hype of
wind and solar. Germany, regardless of their very strong push still relies
increasingly on coal in light of phasing out nuclear. Wind and solar have
limitations on the grid as well as significant temporary over-generation needs
to be exported or stored, or else is lost. He goes through the problems with
biomass (wood, solid waste, and biofuels like ethanol) as well. Processing and
scalability are the two main issues and in the case of wood and waste they
produce CO2 and as much pollutants as coal. Corn ethanol can compete with food
corn and inflate food prices. Hydroelectric power is limited by lack of
available suitable sites and political/environmental opposition. Nuclear energy
is reliable and scalable but is not cheap. Safety is important but the dangers
of nuclear are likely over-hyped. Only newer, cheaper, and safer forms of
nuclear have a chance of dominating the energy landscape pretty far into the
future but that is assuming real technological breakthroughs with fusion or
perhaps thorium reactors.
Among the fossil fuels, or hydrocarbons, coal is the most
plentiful and in many places the cheapest. While Epstein cheers coal many
throughout the world predict its use will decline as it has where natural gas
is cheaper and renewables have feasibility. Natural gas is ideal for home
heating, base load electricity in most cases, and peak load electricity. Its
biggest problem is that it must be pipelined in most cases which keeps it more
local, although liquefied natural gas (LNG) that can move via truck and mainly
tanker is gaining market share throughout the world. Natural gas is the
lightest hydrocarbon and produces the least pollutants and CO2. Oil is highly
concentrated (energy dense) and its portability is unrivaled. Thus it and its
refined products like gasoline have long been the transport fuel of choice. A
vast array of products like plastic and rubber are derived from oil and natural
gas liquids (ethane, propane, butanes, natural gasoline, and condensates).
The definition of a resource involves human ingenuity to
transform a raw material into something usable. The value and subsequently the
price of a resource varies depending on several factors. How much of a resource
is readily available depends on availability of technology to extract it, price
comparisons with other available resources, and on infrastructure available to
process and deliver the resource. Thus we have categories of resource reserves:
resource in-place, technically recoverable resource, and economically
recoverable resource. These fluctuate according to supply and demand economics.
One important thing he notes is how the availability of oil
produced by the oil industry revolutionized agriculture through mechanization
and effectively solved world hunger problems – at least those not constrained
by local poverty and politics. Mechanized agriculture and crop technology
drastically increased yields. Fertilization from natural gas derived nitrogen fertilizers
from the Haber-Bosch process is another major part of that picture. Fossil fuel
powered water pumping in irrigation is another contributor. Epstein notes that
rarely do the fossil fuel producers get any credit for providing the resources
that feed us and improve countless lives. Thus he argues that fossil fuel
producers should be hailed rather than vilified.
Epstein goes on to be the catastrophist he warns about by
predicting billions of unnecessary premature deaths if carbon emissions
reductions are implemented on the recommended scale – 80% reductions over
several decades. I think that is way off.
He talks about his experiences in high school and college
where he was taught the dire realities of global warming. He states that he
didn’t like the potential restrictions on behavior implicated in responding to
climate change threats. Later he discovered there were a few climate scientists
that were skeptical of global warming predictions such as MIT’s Richard Lindzen
and Patrick Michaels of the University of Virginia. These researchers claim
that the effects of global warming are mild and inconsequential. They are not
considered to be correct by most climate scientists yet they are exalted by
those who oppose implementation of policies to quickly mitigate global warming.
He does note that there is uncertainty about the dangers of climate change and
that society has unfortunately categorized people into climate change believers
and climate change deniers, those who see it as a looming catastrophe and those
who see it as inconsequential. The depiction of “climate change denier” is both
an unfair subtle jab comparing to ‘holocaust deniers’ and a straw man. While
fossil fuels may increase global warming and its effects they also increase our
ability to adapt to climate impacts. Many people who believe climate change is
occurring also think our best focus should be on adapting to it. Thus the need
for adaptation, particularly to extreme weather events which may be enhanced by
climate change, can be widely agreed upon.
Epstein defers by noting that climate disasters have always
occurred, that climate has always been volatile and dangerous. While that may
be true that has nothing to do with anthropogenic enhancements towards the
likelihood of increased amount and potency of events. He compares current
changes in things like sea level to past changes (sea level has been rising
since the end of the last ice age) but fails to acknowledge that impacts could
be much worse with astronomically higher coastal populations.
Epstein displays a graph to show that the greenhouse effect
is an “extreme diminishing effect – a
logarithmically decreasing effect,” as if this makes the anthropogenic
effect less – it doesn’t. Sure the initial CO2 in the atmosphere that was there
before the industrial age has the most effect. He notes that it is not the
greenhouse effect alone that is postulated to lead to catastrophic effects but
proposed positive feedbacks that amplify it. He points to doubts about
feedbacks and climate sensitivity but fails to mention that the vast majority
of climate scientists agree on the range of those effects. He then mentions the
uncertainty in climate modeling. Models are based on assumptions and if one or
more of those assumptions is off the mark then the future predictions may be
incorrect. He shows Jim Hansen’s predictions from 1988 and how he overestimated
warming by about 0.2 to 0.4 deg Celsius. Of course the state of climate science
was much less certain in 1988 than it is now and the models have been updated.
This is classic “cherry-picking” to sow doubt. Next he shows John Christy of
the University of Alabama Huntsville’s tropospheric satellite temperature data
that also shows that degree of warming has been overpredicted. What he doesn’t
mention is that the surface data does show warming consistent with modeling so
his refutation is only half or part correct. (animals and humans affected by
changing temperatures do not live in the troposphere). My own speculation is
that the troposphere or any place further out from the surface of the earth
encompasses a vastly larger area than near surface so changes might be muted or
altered in some ways.
He shows another graph on ‘accumulated cyclone energy’ which
suggests that storm energy has not increased as models predict. He also attacks
sea level rise scenarios as unscientific because they are overly based on
modeling and refers to numbers that do not match models as “climate
dishonesty.” While modeling does have issues and is constantly being refined
and reinforced with more data as time goes on I think he is being quite unfair
here since the scientists do not see their sometimes inaccurate predictions as
‘unscientific’ or ‘dishonest’ but correct for discrepancies as they occur.
Scientific modeling has been used very successfully in many scientific disciplines
and although global climate modeling can be seen as quite complex there is no
reason to disregard it or downplay its usefulness. He is basically accusing
scientists of not being scientific. While he rightfully disses people like Bill
McKibben for incorrectly associating the greenhouse effect directly with
catastrophic climate change I find it rather silly that he claims to
out-science prominent scientists. He does correctly dis the common 97% of
scientists agree argument which is incorrect and overused but clearly a
majority (I would guess well over 80%) of climate scientists and a lesser
amount of other scientists agree. Economic geologists (of which I am one) have
a larger percentage that do not agree and this is very likely due to the fact
that most are involved in fossil fuel production.
In addressing climate ethics he does rightly point out that
several prominent scientists have crossed over into policy too much and made
absurd statements – Hansen’s statement that fossil fuel CEOs should be tried
for crimes against humanity and nature and the late Stephen Schneider’s
argument that scientists should dramatize and make scary the potential effects
of climate science to stimulate policy actions. This is unfortunate and I agree
with Epstein that it is not ethical and would mislead the public.
Next he introduces the fertilizer effect and so-called
‘global greening,’ whereby increased atmospheric CO2 stimulates plant growth
and leads to increased green plant mass. This is undoubtedly true. He invokes
the work of climate scientist Craig Idso that shows this and strongly suggests
that increased agricultural yields are due not only to fertilizer made from
natural gas but also due to increased atmospheric CO2. Of course, most climate
scientists do not believe that this positive effect offsets the negative
effects of CO2. The fertilizer effect is true of most plants including food and
commercial plants but there are some plants that do not benefit from increased
CO2. While those who are apt to dis the dangers of climate change will often
point out that CO2 is plant food, several studies indicate that the negatives
outweigh the positives. Epstein seems to think otherwise and warnings about the
dangers of climate change can be chalked up to biases that consider human
impacts on the environment to always be negative. Thus, again he accusing
scientists of being unscientifically biased and dishonest. I find his argument
unconvincing.
Of course, fossil fuels and the technologies they enabled
have led to fewer climate-related deaths as we can now much better predict in
detail extreme weather events. This is no surprise although Epstein seems to
think it is. Also unsurprising is that developed nations have fewer deaths from
climate-related events like droughts, storms, floods, heatwaves, and wildfires
than developing nations do. Fossil fuels (and really now all energy sources)
and their enabled technologies make populations less vulnerable. However, high
populations in vulnerable areas particularly near the tropics, the so-called
‘global south,’ are still quite vulnerable. There is no doubt that technology
makes us safer.
Epstein rightly berates John Kerry for telling Indonesia, a
developing country that is vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis, to stop
burning coal. However, perhaps they should be berated for excessive underground
coal fires and especially for irresponsible land clearing by burning, illegal
logging, habitat destruction, and much of this due to palm oil plantations. In
some years the smoke from out-of-control land-clearing fires and deforestation
in Indonesia has been the number one single source of global carbon emissions.
In adapting to sea level change he points to the Netherlands
as many do. They used technology to adapt by building dikes and water drainage
systems. Of course, the Netherlands is a small country that does not typically
have storm surges like the Atlantic coastal cities of the U.S. sometimes do.
Flood control is useful and should be more widely applied as Houston recently
discovered.
He considers ‘climate justice,’ the argument from
anti-fossil fuel advocates that by burning more fossil fuels we are endangering
the poor in particular. He rightly notes that the cheapest and most widely
available forms of energy make the climate livable the fastest. The undeveloped
world has the right to industrialize and that will make their local climates
more livable for them. People working in the fossil fuel industries,
particularly those at higher levels, have been demonized quite unfairly by the
environmental and climate justice advocates.
Technology has also enabled us to mitigate pollution. Air,
water, and soil pollution levels have improved through time, due in part to
environmental rules like the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act (Epstein does
not mention this) and due to technologies like ‘scrubbers’ and other pollution
abatement technologies, effluent capture and treatment, water recycling
technologies, and many other industrial ‘best practices’ to reduce pollution.
Our water treatment technologies are mostly what provide us with clean water
since much natural water is naturally tainted: with salt, heavy metals,
bacteria and other pathogens, and parasites. Chemicals are used to purify
water, water that runs through plastic pipes made from oil and/or copper pipes
derived from mining.
He notes the toxicity involved in wind turbine manufacture,
specifically the processing of required rare earth elements via hydrofluoric
acid often from China. Toxic lakes of effluent that give off foul air that
affects local people are one result of this.
He considers the advantages of coal: widely available,
usually cheap, and easily transportable. Of course, coal smoke sickens people.
The trend has always been toward cleaner coal-burning. From in-home burning
which was largely replaced by natural gas, fuel oil, and propane, to
centralized coal-burning power plants for electricity to plants with pollution
abatement equipment installed to more efficient plants to the possibility (now
seeming unlikely) of widespread carbon capture and sequestration at the plants.
Coal mining has gotten safer and more mechanized over the decades. Nonetheless,
in developed countries coal seems destined to continually decline due to its
carbon emissions and pollution and in some places from competition from natural
gas and eventually renewables.
He considers rights including property rights, the right to
pollute, and the right to a clean environment, and the role of government in
these rights. He suggests that rights need to be contextualized, presumably in
relativity to alternatives. Here we get into debates about where the lines
between acceptable and unacceptable risk need to be drawn. Epstein seems to
suggest that pollution levels should be set based on technological ability to
reduce pollution. While I agree that should be a factor considered I think
impact on humans (and nature to a lesser extent) should be the main criteria.
He mentions four common fallacies invoked in anti-fossil
fuel arguments: the abuse-use fallacy, the false-attribution fallacy, the
no-threshold fallacy, and the “artificial” fallacy. The use-abuse fallacy is
simply arguing that if a technology is potentially dangerous, it should be
banned. He uses the anti-fracking movie Gasland
as an apt example. The false-attribution fallacy is simply falsely attributing
cause and effect – when an effect may have other causes. He uses the flaming
water faucets again from Gasland as
an example. Although drilling (not hydraulic fracturing) can lead to methane
migration into a water supply under certain geological conditions (as can
drilling a water well too deep) in those places there may also be significant
naturally-occurring methane that had previously migrated into the water – which
is why lighting faucets occurred in some of those areas long before the advent
of oil & gas drilling. He also argues against media headlines that assume
causation based on correlations as is often done, quite irresponsibly in my
opinion, in epidemiological and other health studies in which the results are often
vague and may be attributable to other causes or multiple causes. The
no-threshold fallacy says that a substance is poison regardless of the dosage
which is obviously false since many substances are beneficial or neutral at low
doses and harmful at high doses. Dose is virtually always a factor is poisoning
and pollution. This fallacy has been used extensively by those who oppose
nuclear energy. The “artificial” fallacy is simply concluding that man-made, or
synthetic substances are harmful simply because nature did not produce them.
This is patently false and ridiculous. It has been used to advocate against
many industries including the food and health industries. Of course, many
naturally-occurring substances are harmful, some at low doses.
Epstein is correct to conclude that development including
industrial development, particularly in developing countries, overall has led
and will continue to lead to a cleaner environment. Most technologies are
becoming more efficient and less wasteful. While one might argue that is not
the case in air choked parts of China and India it can still be demonstrated
that life and health there has improved overall. While outdoor air pollution
may have increased, much more dangerous indoor air pollution mainly from wood
and dung cooking fires has decreased, reducing fire risk and pollution that
mainly affects women and children.
He also points out that fossil fuels in the past have
replaced wood for fuel which in turned preserved forests. Oil also replaced
whale oil. The internal combustion engine freed horses and cows from being
laborers for humans.
He argues against sustainability and the ideas of “carrying
capacity” and finite resources, as argued by Ehrlich and Holdren. Notions of “peak
oil” and indeed “peak everything” have been challenged since it is often
technology developed through human ingenuity that unlocks new resource
potential. He seems to think that makes the concept of finite resources
irrelevant and in some cases it does but in others it is still quite relevant.
He makes the argument like others that we need not worry because technology
will save us. While this is possible it is a very weak argument for inaction on
several fronts.
“The basic principle espoused in this book is that we
survive by transforming our environment to meet our needs. We maximize resources
and we minimize risks.”
He talks about his 2012 debate at Duke University with Bill
McKibben. Epstein had little help and actually paid McKibben ten thousand
dollars of his own money to debate. McKibben was fresh from the publishing of
his influential Rolling Stone article, Global
Warming’s Terrifying New Math. McKibben has long called for restrictions on
fossil fuel production and may be considered a leading anti-fossil fuel
advocate. The article kicked off the divestment movement – divesting from
fossil fuels. Epstein felt that McKibben was making a moral argument against
fossil fuels and wanted to counter it with a moral argument in favor of fossil
fuels.
Epstein complains that in schools we are now taught about
the dangers of fossil fuels but not about their benefits. He considers this irrational moral prejudice. He claims
that the thought leaders of the anti-fossil fuel movement: Ehrlich, Holdren,
Lovins, McKibben, and Al Gore, have exaggerated the negatives of fossil fuels
and ignored the positives. He quotes Lovins, Ehrlich, and Jeremy Rifkin
opposing nuclear fusion (an inherently safe form of abundant energy for all that
has yet to be developed) in the 1980’s to show that they are basically
anti-technology. He questions what being “green” even means since being
anti-tech is advocating that many people benefit from technology in many ways
be denied it. Epstein favors industrial progress as a moral ideal – improving the
planet for human beings. Of course that can’t happen if environmental impacts
are ignored or downplayed. In terms of media campaigning for fossil fuel
companies he thinks they have been too much on the defensive from assaults from
environmentalists and should instead be proud and extoll the virtues of fossil
fuels. He sees fossil fuel companies as depicting themselves as a necessary
evil. The natural gas industry gave the Sierra Club $25 million between 2007
and 2010 when they were promoting the cleaner virtues of gas relative to coal
and oil, much of it due to the relationship between then Sierra Club leader
Carl Pope and shale gas pioneer Aubrey McClendon. A year or two later the
Sierra Club under new leadership was declaring the natural gas industry and
their technique of fracking as evil and public enemy number one – of course
they kept the money. The fossil fuel industry, particularly the oil & gas
industry lately, has long suffered from a PR problem and gaining public
acceptance is now a major focus. Effectively explaining the value of their
product is the main point of Epstein’s approach but also necessary is
convincing the public that they are actually optimizing the minimizing of risks.
With delay tactics recently particularly from pipeline opposition there is loss
of revenue from delayed project approvals. This also resulted in some lost work
and layoffs (me included) during the recent industry downturn.
Epstein calls out candidate Obama who compared the tyranny
of oil to the previous tyrannies of fascism and communism, quite an unfair
characterization even if just political rhetoric. Epstein offers a summary
sentence of his book:
“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.”
In conclusion I would again say that Epstein’s arguments are
strong against radical anti-fossil fuel advocates but weak against pragmatic
environmentalists who have a more well-rounded understanding of energy,
environment, and climate. His arguments treating climate change as a minor
problem are weak. I agree that technology allows us to adapt to climate-related
extreme weather events and adaptation should be a major focus but I also think
we need to reduce emissions as much as is practical and devote considerable
research and incentives toward reducing emissions.
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