... " ‘Keep it in the ground!’, environmentalists cry, convinced that humanity’s digging for coal, oil and gas, and our burning of these long dormant fuels to create energy, has propelled our planet into a hellscape of pollution.
The Extinction Rebellion death cult marches behind banners declaring ‘Fossil fuels = death’.
... One-time climate sceptic Boris Johnson is these days indistinguishable from environmentalism’s prophetess of doom, Greta Thunberg.
... self-styled anti-capitalists beat the streets to demand an end to the oil industry and the closure of coal mines, sounding more Thatcherite than Trotskyist.
... There’s only one problem with this rash, hyperbolic onslaught on fossil fuels: everything about it is wrong.
Far from destroying life on Earth, our discovery and exploitation of these fuels improved it enormously.
If it wasn’t for humankind’s liberation of the ancient sunlight trapped in coal, or our burning of the petroleum that accrued from chemical reactions in the seas of the prehistoric era, modernity as we know it simply would not exist.
Fossil fuels gifted us the wealth, comfort and liberties we in the West enjoy, and they’re doing the same right now for emerging countries like China, India and Brazil.
... They shouldn’t be demonised; they should be celebrated for helping to radically improve human existence.
... Fossil fuels supply the vast majority of the world’s energy.
The vast bulk of all the heat, electricity and fuel humankind needs in order to ward off the cold, create light, produce food, make and power machines, transport goods and essentials, power hospitals and generally protect itself from the vagaries and diseases of nature comes from the coal, oil and gas we are encouraged to loathe.
According to the 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy,
... 84 per cent of global energy
comes from fossil fuels.
Oil supplies 33 per cent of world energy,
coal supplies 27 per cent, and
gas supplies 24 per cent.
... Fuels that energise production, consumption, travel, health.
What next – a global crusade against the evils of water? Air?
It is worth considering how borderline psychotic the demand for Net Zero is in a world in which 84 per cent of our energy comes from fossil fuels.
... As Alex Epstein, author of the brilliant book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, puts it:
‘Environmentalists’ climate proposals would result in exactly the kind of apocalyptic scenario they claim climate change is causing.’
... Keeping fossil fuels in the ground would stall growth in emerging countries, plunge millions back into the poverty they’ve only recently been liberated from (courtesy of the burning of fossil fuels),
and set a precedent in which the protection of nature from carbon emissions would be accorded more importance than the liberation of human beings from drudgery.
Progressives should fear the ideology of Net Zero far more than the burning of coal and oil.
... The coal-fuelled Industrial Revolution dragged humankind from the old era into a brand new one – one in which life expectancy leapt up, health vastly improved, new discoveries were made, cities sprung up, workers’ rights were secured, and democracy was born.
... As Epstein points out, the more fossil fuels humanity has burnt, the fewer ‘climate-related deaths’ there have been.
Over the past century CO2 emissions have risen inexorably, but climate-related deaths – that is, deaths from storms, floods, droughts and wildfires – have fallen spectacularly, from around half a million each year to just 14,000 in 2020.
... contrary to the anti-production, anti-consumption prejudices of the eco-elites, humanity’s increased use of oil, gas and coal over the past couple of centuries has not been some crazed, greedy, destructive endeavour.
It is not just about driving SUVs, taking cheap flights, and eating as many hamburgers as we can (though there’s nothing wrong with any of that).
Rather, it is a process that has birthed a world of machines that assist in the protection of humankind from the hunger, sicknesses and climatic tragedies that stalked our species prior to the modern era.
The truth is that we would be facing far worse environmental conditions and living conditions if we hadn’t used as much fossil fuel as we have.
... Between 1980 and 2012 worldwide use of fossil fuels rose by 80 per cent.
... The 2020 Statistical Review of World Energy notes that China had been responsible for a full three-quarters of the growth of energy consumption in the previous year, followed by India and Indonesia.
China is also a leading player in the growing demand for oil.
... In China and India, just as in Western countries in the past, the huge hike in fossil-fuel consumption has coincided with a massive growth in life expectancy.
... As Epstein points out, fossil-fuel use really started to take off in China and India in 1970, and then rose enormously from 1990 onwards in China in particular.
And in this same period, life expectancy in China went from under 65 in 1970 to around 75 in 2010 (it’s now closer to 77), and in India from around 50 to 65 in the same period (it’s now almost 70 in India).
Income has also risen exponentially in China and India.
... Fossil fuels powered growth and industry, leading to more jobs and higher wages, leading to longer, healthier lives.
... this dystopic vision of humanity running out of fuel was built on highly questionable science.
Peak Oil, Peak Coal, Peak Gas – around 20 years ago these millenarian fears were widespread in polite society.
... In 2013, the World Energy Council reported ... ‘There is a greater abundance of energy resources in the world today than at any other time’, the council said.
So fossil fuels aren’t running out, their use has brought about fewer climate-related deaths, and they have helped to power a radical transformation in the life expectancy, living standards, health and knowledge of humankind.
... The hostility to fossil fuels seems increasingly to be driven by misanthropy rather than reason; by an elitist feeling of revulsion for the gains of modernity rather than by a rational assessment of the undoubted problems humankind still faces.
To my mind, our unlocking of the long-hidden wonders of fossil fuels, and our use of this furious energy to make the world anew, has been the most important thing humanity has done thus far.
... Coal stores the surging heat of the Carboniferous period of about 300million years ago.
It was about a thousand years ago that people first started to tap into these black, glistening containers of ancient heat, using it to heat homes, which meant less forestland had to be cut down and more croplands could be created.
... Instead we’re meant to view coal as a filthy thing, and our burning of it as a sin against Mother Nature.
... As Epstein has argued, the entire debate about energy in the 21st century is the wrong way around. ‘How can we reduce fossil-fuel use?’,
campaigners and politicians ask, when what they should be asking is this: ‘How can we create such an abundance of energy that every human being will enjoy comfort, health and happiness?’
... Of course we could go beyond fossil fuels at some point, but only if we get serious about nuclear, about unlocking the awesome power of uranium.
Until then, fossil-fuel consumption should not be demonised and it certainly should not be halted.
And it should also not be merely tolerated, viewed as an unfortunate necessity in a world that needs energy.
No, it should be encouraged, it should be cheered, and it should be celebrated as the modern wonder that it is."
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Tuesday, February 1, 2022
Keep burning those fossil fuels
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Carefully Selected Quotes by Ye Editor