Last week I spoke about the moral case for fossil fuels as part of the popular Google Talks series. The talk seemed to be very effective. Every questioner said I had clarified their thinking by giving a human flourishing-based framework.
For example, one questioner originally from China said, “I really agreed with your point and it’s something I never heard during my whole time living in China,” and asked about the prospects for promoting the moral case for fossil fuels there.
The experience confirmed one of my fundamental beliefs: that people who disagree with me are much more open to reason than most people suspect. I just have to make a really, really strong case.
I’ll be linking to the video of the event once it’s publicly available, probably in a couple of weeks.
(Special thanks to Dan Hackney for helping set up this event and make it a success.)
Exposing Al Gore’s Two Convenient Lies in The National Post
You can read my review of Al Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Sequel, in one of Canada’s top newspapers, the National Post. As you can see below, it was a badly-needed counterpoint to the standard Gore-worship.
Here’s an excerpt:
As the most influential figure in the international climate conversation, Gore has a responsibility to give us the whole picture of fossil fuels’ impacts—both their benefits and the risks they pose to humans flourishing. Unfortunately, Gore has given us a deeply biased picture that completely ignores fossil fuels’ indispensable benefits and wildly exaggerates their impact on climate. . . .
Take the rising dominance of solar and wind, which is used to paint supporters of fossil fuelsas troglodytes, fools, and shills for Big Oil.
The combined share of world energy consumption from renewables is all of two per cent. And it’s an expensive, unreliable, and therefore difficult-to-scale two per cent.
Because solar and wind are “unreliables,” they need to be backed up by reliable sources of power, usually fossil fuels, or sometimes non-carbon sources including nuclear and large-scale hydro power (all of which Gore and other environmentalists refuse to support). This is why every grid that incorporates significant solar and wind has more expensive electricity. Germans, on the hook for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s self-righteous anti-carbon commitments, are already paying three times the rates for electricity that Americans do.
You can read the whole thing here.
I also had a number of great media interviews on the topic of Gore’s movie this week:
- The Glenn Beck Radio Show
- Think Tank with Glenn Beck (video clip only)
- The Dennis Prager Show (subscription required)
- Heartland Daily Podcast
The Glenn Beck appearance was especially interesting. At the end of the interview, Beck came up with a great idea for a project we’re going to do. He is going to host a viewing party where I give the audience some critical thinking questions in advance and then discuss the movie afterward. Very exciting.
“I’m so grateful for all the work you are doing to help people Think More Clearly. Ever since I listened to The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels on Audible, I’ve gotten more engaged on the subject with other people. I’m a chemist in the environmental testing industry that does analytical work on the local, state, and federal level for compliance testing. In my 15+ years experience, I’ve come across a wide range of Earth Worshippers, as you call them.
“Keep doing what you are doing by equipping people with information that they can use topromote human flourishing. Without cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy we become less free in the United States.
“Because of your book, I am not afraid about being bold in conversations about theUnreliables, Dilute Energy sources, and energy density. I was even able to wear my “I Love Fossil Fuels” shirt to work without any issue which has triggered some meaningful discussion (on lunch break, of course).” -Anonymous