The untold and ever-improving story of the shale revolution

In this issue:

  • The untold and ever-improving story of the shale revolution
  • Power Hour: Biden’s climate conundrum, the IMF’s phony fossil fuel subsidy claim, and more
  • The Human Flourishing Project: Clear thinking and human flourishing

The untold and ever-improving story of the shale revolution

In this week’s Power Hour Steffen Henne discussed how US shale used to be the second most expensive source of new oil but has now become the second cheapest source of new oil. As Steffen pointed out, that’s great news for the US and for the US shale energy industry—and ultimately for everyone since increased access to energy means increased human empowerment.

Unfortunately, this story of human ingenuity leading to human empowerment is being either ignored or bemoaned by today’s media.

Why? I believe much of the reason comes down to the concept of “standard of value”—how we define good and bad.

The job of the media is to give us context on what’s happening in the world from the perspective of our values. Whether they know it or not, what they regard as good or bad, important or unimportant depends on the standard(s) of value they are using.

And when it comes to many issues today, the dominant standard of value the media use is minimum environmental impact—the idea that what we should be pursuing is a world where we impact nature as little as possible.

Thus, anytime the media look at an activity with a lot of impact on our environment (such as shale energy) they have a negative focus. They ignore all of the ways in which we have a lot of impact on our environment that is great for human life. When the oil and gas industry figures out how to efficiently transform once-useless shale rocks into life-giving oil and gas, it’s viewed negatively

But if your standard of value is not “minimum environmental impact” but “maximum human flourishing,” the shale revolution becomes important and heroic. If human flourishing is the goal, what could be more interesting than the energy industry figuring out more efficient ways to empower people?

When you’re reading the news every day, be aware that you are not being given the news about the state of human flourishing—because the media are not focused on human flourishing. If they were, there would be a lot more good news—especially about the impacts of the fossil fuel industry.
 

Power Hour: Biden’s climate conundrum, the IMF’s phony fossil fuel subsidy claim, and more

On this week’s (abbreviated) episode of Power Hour, Don, Steffen, and I cover five topics:

Listen to the episode:

The Human Flourishing Project: Clear thinking and human flourishing

On the latest episode of The Human Flourishing Project I’m joined by my friend and fellow Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt Matthew Blasdel to discuss some interesting questions Matthew had about clear thinking and human flourishing.

Alex