By DAVID BIEDERMAN Pictured below is an outcrop (exposed section) of oil-soaked sand. Oil sands are naturally occurring mixtures of sand, clay, and a viscous type of petroleum called bitumen. The brown and grey layers are sand, sandstone, and clay; the black layers are the oil sands. What a contrast it was to hold this crumbling and seemingly useless mixture …
The Truth About Sustainability
Is our way of life sustainable? For the last several decades—actually centuries—despite a continuously improving quality of life, many of our thought leaders have said “No.” In fact, the most our prosperity has increased, the less sustainable they claim it is. One reason for the unsustainability claim is the supposedly massive damage our production and consumption have done to our …
Why the World’s Greenest Bathroom is Also the Dirtiest
A few weeks ago, I drove down to San Diego to hike the Torrey Pines trail. While the trail was as scenic as advertised, there were two moments of unpleasantness. The first was the discovery that the bathrooms at the trailhead were closed and thus hikers would have to use porta-potties, with the lack of sanitation and presence of noxious …
Power Hour: Judith Curry on the State of Climate Science
On this week’s Power Hour, climate scientist Dr. Judith Curry, Professor and former Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, President of Climate Forecast Applications Network and proprietor of the blog Climate Etc., joins me to discuss how she went from being a mainstream climate scientist to one of the most controversial figures in the …
Pope Francis’s Crusade Against Fossil Fuels Hurts The Poor Most Of All
“The earth, our home, is beginning to look more and more like an immense pile of filth.” This was Pope Francis’s summary of his Encyclical earlier this year on the alleged destruction of our planet. The leading culprit, in his view, is humanity’s use of fossil fuels, which he believes are immoral and should largely be illegal. This week, the …
Power Hour: Brendan O’Neill on Humanism vs. Anti-Humanism
On this episode of Power Hour I’m joined by Brendan O’Neill, editor of spiked-online.com and author of A Duty to Offend, to discuss the difference between the humanist view of nature and the anti-humanist view of nature. Download Episode 110 with Brendan O’Neill Subscribe to Power Hour on iTunes
Power Hour: Steve Milloy on the Science and Policy of Emissions
On this episode of Power Hour, Steve Milloy, publisher of junkscience.com, discusses emissions, the EPA, and how junk science corrupts much of our government’s environmental policy. Download Episode 109 with Steve Milloy Subscribe to Power Hour on iTunes
Prager University: “Why You Should Love Fossil Fuels”
Every year on Earth Day we learn how bad humanity’s economic development is for the health of the planet. But maybe this is the wrong message. Maybe we should instead reflect on how human progress, driven by fossil fuels, has made our environment cleaner and healthier. Alex Epstein went on Prager University—an online educational platform created by leading talk show host Dennis Prager—to …
“A High-Test Success”: Media Coverage of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels is already impacting the energy debate, and the media coverage it’s earned points to this. In December we gave you an archive of Alex’s writing around the time of the book release. Now here’s an overview of some of the many articles published that point to his work as influence. Spreading The Moral Case References were already popping …
Fossil Fuels Are The Food Of Food
We all know that fossil fuels power our machines. Often overlooked however is the vital role they play in powering humans, as the food we eat is made possible by fossil fuels. To take just one example, synthesized fertilizers are the plant-nutrient inputs that feed humanity’s food crops, and this plant food is overwhelmingly made possible by fossil fuels. The …