Improving the human environment, Trump’s climate panel, Amazon’s “shipment zero” sham

In this issue:

  • Power Hour: Improving the human environment, Trump’s climate panel, Amazon’s “shipment zero” sham
  • Power Hour now on YouTube
  • Q&A with University of Oklahoma College of Law Students
  • New Interview: the moral case for fossil fuels and Oakland coal
  • The Human Flourishing Project: The wisdom of Arnold Bennett (part 2)
  • Upcoming speeches

Power Hour: Improving the human environment, Trump’s climate panel, Amazon’s “shipment zero” sham

In this week’s episode of Power Hour, Don, Steffen, and I cover seven topics:

(1) Improving the human environment. In this segment, I discuss how to think about our environment in a pro-human way.

  • Key takeaway: We should enhance the human environment through human impact—not save the non-human environment from human impact.

(2) Did Trump put a “climate denialist” on a White House climate panel? In this segment, Don discusses a New York Times story warning that “White House Climate Panel to Include a Climate Denialist,” Princeton physicist and former Power Hour guestWilliam Happer.

  • Key takeaway: “Climate denialist” is a smear term designed to forestall debate over the magnitude of CO2’s climate impact and how best to address it.

(3) What’s the actual capacity of “the world’s biggest battery”? In this segment, Steffen discusses how newspaper articles celebrated Tesla’s SA battery and its ability to “power 30,000 homes”—rarely mentioning that it could do so only for an hour.

  • Key takeaway: Grid-scale battery storage is nowhere near viable–and solar and wind partisans are not being honest about that fact.

(4) “Demand response” = power deprivation. In this segment, Don discusses how the variability of solar and wind are leading to increasing calls for “demand response”—the ability of grid operators to deprive us of energy.

  • Key takeaway: Greens claim to represent energy progress but are instead its greatest opponents.

(5) Amazon’s dishonest “Shipment Zero.” In this segment, Steffen discusses Amazon’s goal to make half of its shipments carbon neutral by 2030.

  • Key takeaway: If companies think that CO2 is a problem, they should be advocating for ways to reduce CO2 while providing abundant, affordable energy—not participating in schemes that do nothing to meaningfully reduce CO2 but do reduce the value they create for customers.

(6) The latest “green” trend: plastic penance. In this segment, Don discusses the trend of “plastic purgers,” who try to avoid using plastic products.

  • Key takeaway: According to the green philosophy’s goal of minimizing our impact on nature, people who obsessively avoid things like plastic deserve moral credit, while the producers who provide us with plastic, energy, and all of the values we need to flourish get branded as immoral.

(7) Why U.S. coal plants are outdated. In this segment, Steffen discusses how bad environmental regulations lead the U.S. to use outdated coal technology.

  • Key takeaway: Environmental regulations can actually make our environment worse.

You can listen to the episode here or on iTunes.

Let us know what you think

We’d love your feedback. Let us know what you like and what you don’t like so that we can make sure the podcast is as valuable as possible.

Power Hour now on YouTube

You can now listen to Power Hour on YouTube, either as full episodes or as separate, easily-sharable clips on dozens of topics.

Q&A with University of Oklahoma College of Law Students

Last week I did a Q&A for students at the University of Oklahoma College of Law Energy Center. You can now watch a video of the entire session here, including my answers to questions such as:

  • Should we be concerned about climate change?
  • How has the environment been impacted by fossil fuels?
  • Why do we have such a negative view of the fossil fuel industry?
  • Do solar and wind provide any value to society or to the grid?

Thank you to Professor Joe Dancy for putting this event together.

New Interview: the moral case for fossil fuels and Oakland coal

Last week I gave one of my best interviews ever. Zennie Abraham had me on his show, Zennie62, to discuss a controversy in Oakland, CA over coal exports.

But we also delved deep into the moral case for fossil fuels, and I was able to share some of the ideas I’ve developed while working on The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels 2.0.

The Human Flourishing Project: The wisdom of Arnold Bennett (part 2)

On the latest episode of The Human Flourishing Project I discuss some of Arnold Bennett’s positive insights on: personal finance, finding life interesting, taking control of one’s own mind, and integrating the present with the future.

Upcoming speeches

Here are some of my upcoming speeches.

  • 3/4 – Private event in Cabo, Mexico
  • 3/14 – Private event in Youngstown, OH
  • 3/26 – Private event in Napa, CA

If you’re interested in having me speak at a high level event, you can download a list of my new speeches here.