4 ideas about COVID-19 you won’t hear anywhere else

In this issue:

  • Power Hour: 4 ideas about COVID-19 you won’t hear anywhere else
  • Bringing the moral case for fossil fuels to Colorado college students
  • We will replace fossil fuels?
  • The Human Flourishing Project: Flourishing during a pandemic

Power Hour: 4 ideas about COVID-19 you won’t hear anywhere else

On this week’s episode of Power Hour, I discuss four ideas you won’t hear anywhere else: 

  1. The increasingly prevalent COVID-19 policy of indefinite universal isolation is immoral and un-American
  2. Climate change fixation blinds us to real threats like COVID-19
  3. A Green New Deal would be fatal in the fight against COVID-19
  4. The Corona Recession is a mild preview of the Green New Deal

I also discuss a fifth idea that’s even more controversial.

Bringing the moral case for fossil fuels to Colorado college students

A few weeks ago I told you about my experience speaking about the moral case for fossil fuels to college students at Colorado Mesa University. As I said then, this may be my best speech so far introducing The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. You can view (and share) the entire speech here.

The Q&A largely featured questions from students in the university’s “sustainability” program. Here are clips of each question along with my answer:

What will replace fossil fuels?

During a recent speech I was asked, “Is there an inevitable end to fossil fuel use and if so what’s the replacement?” Here’s a (lightly edited) transcript of my answer:

Well, I believe there’s an inevitable end to the sun in about 5 billion years. So if it all depends on your timescale. I definitely don’t think there’s a relevant, inevitable end to fossil fuels in our lifetime. 

And the main thing I would say is we don’t need to have an idea of what the replacement will be. We just need to advocate the freedom to find a replacement. 

The reason to advocate for fossil fuels today isn’t because that’s the only thing we should ever use. It’s because the fossil fuel industry has discovered the best process we have for producing energy given our knowledge and abilities right now. 

And over time, that can and should evolve as people are free to compete and look for better energy processes. What we need to oppose is policies that would take away our freedom to use fossil fuels and dictate some inferior replacement.

Now, my guess is that nuclear energy will be the future. And the basic reason is that one of the advantages fossil fuels have—particularly oil—is that they’re super concentrated and that allows you to do a lot in terms of mobility. It also allows you to move fuel all around the world and empower people everywhere, unlike something like hydro. And nuclear is by far the most concentrated source of energy we know how to harness. 

So that’s that has enormous potential. But at any given stage, we should be free to use the best sources of energy. And today, for most people, most of the time, the best source of energy is fossil fuels.

The Human Flourishing Project: Flourishing during a pandemic

On the latest episode of The Human Flourishing Project, I discuss some tactics for overcoming the mental and emotional challenges of the current pandemic + recession.

Alex