Celebrating ILMA: How Lubricants and Hydrocarbons Make the World a Better Place by Alex Epstein
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Celebrating ILMA: How Lubricants and
Hydrocarbons Make the World a Better Place
by Alex Epstein
Word association
game
“Industrial Heroes”
My energy heroes
I love fossil fuels
Two changes in my
thinking
1. A change in my standard of what a
hero is.
2. A change in my understanding of
what the petroleum industry does.
Change 1: My standard of what
a hero is
Green movement
consistently against
human interestsIn every conflict between the needs of
people and the preservation of nature,
environmentalists call for the sacrifice
of human interests. Whether it is the
well-being of loggers against the
spotted owl or the benefits derived from
animal testing versus the harm to the
tested animals, nature is always
prioritized over human existence and
progress.
Reason: Their
standard of good is
unchanged nature,
which is incompatible
with human flourishing
Sustaining human existence is a process
of reshaping the environment to meet our
own needs. The more productive we
become, the more we change our
surroundings. Whether building a dam in
a river to generate hydroelectric power,
drilling for oil to produce gasoline or
cutting down trees to make room for
housing, every action that benefits
humans necessarily modifies our
environment. Since environmentalism
holds that the environment should be
preserved, it is automatically opposed to
human existence.
Consequence:
Following their
standard leads to
continuous suffering If nature is intrinsically valuable and
does not include humans, every meal is
immoral, every house built is an evil
committed against nature. Human
existence is an act that should bring
with it a never-ending sense of guilt.
The proper standard
Human flourishing
Change 2: My understanding of
what the petroleum industry does
What did we use before oil?
“Grand ball given by the whales in honor of the discovery of oil in
Pennsylvania,” Vanity Fair, 1861
Chemist, 1864
“Kerosene has, in one sense, increased
the length of life among the agricultural
population. Those who, on account of
the dearness or inefficiency of whale
oil, were accustomed to go to bed soon
after the sunset and spend almost half
their time in sleep, now occupy a
portion of the night in reading and other
amusements.”
Coal, Letter to the
Times (London), 1866“Coal is everything to us. Without coal, our
factories will become idle, our foundries and
workshops be still as the grave; the locomotive
will rust in the shed, and the rail be buried in
the weeds. Our streets will be dark, our
houses uninhabitable. Our rivers will forget the
paddlewheel, and we shall again be separated
by days from France, by months from the
United States. The post will lengthen its
periods and protract its dates. A thousand
special arts and manufacturers, one by one,
then in a crowd, will fly the empty soil, as boon
companions are said to disappear when the
cask is dry.”
Why did they
succeed?
Created abundant, affordable, reliable
process
2 dry years
39 drops
1.2 billion humans without access to electricity
2.7 billion humans rely on biomass for cooking and heating
The total process of solar and wind needs to compensate for their
inherent unreliability
In practice that means enormous redundancy and cost increases for
little energy
Fossil fuels are helping us make the naturally dangerous climate more
livable
Global greening
Who is the real hero?
The industry’s true
shame
Promoting the “Necessary Evil” narrative
I currently work for an oil and gas company in Oklahoma City
and I noticed that there is a huge disconnect with the
younger (my) generation and the oil/gas industry. Given
the current environment I was wondering if I was in the
right industry—not only were we ‘evil’, but I could easily
be losing my job.
“I’ve always been able to put together that fossil fuels were at
least a necessary evil, but most likely net positive if you
included the economic benefits—however, your book
definitely turned me from a supporter to a champion.”
“
Resources
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels — What it is and why it matters By Alex Epstein, founder, Center for Industrial Progress
How to think about our energy future
Is humanity’s continuing—and expanding—use of fossil fuels a moral choice or an immoral choice? To answer
this question, we need to be clear on our standard of value—our metric of good and bad—in energy and
environmental issues.
At the Center for Industrial Progress, we reject the common standard of minimizing human impact. Our
standard of value is: maximizing human flourishing.
To discover what will maximize human flourishing we must think full context—we must carefully look at the
benefits, risks, and side effects of all our alternatives. We reject the common method of thinking out-of-context.
Thus, when we consider fossil fuels, we do not write them off as bad because they cause some man-made CO2
and some man-made warming. We look carefully at the full context of their potential impacts on human
flourishing now and in the future.
Fossil fuels & human flourishing: the benefits
The unmet need for cheap, plentiful, reliable energy: ● There are 7 billion people in the world who need cheap, plentiful, reliable energy to flourish. Some 3
billion have virtually no energy by our standards, which means we need vastly more energy.
● It is extremely difficult to produce cheap, plentiful, reliable energy. In the entire history of humanity,
only three industries have achieved this on any scale: the hydrocarbon (fossil fuel) industry, the nuclear
industry, and the hydroelectric power industry.
The unique ability of the fossil fuel industry to meet our energy needs: ● The fossil fuel industry produces over 80% of the world’s power because it is the only industry that has
figured out how to produce cheap, plentiful, reliable energy for electricity, transportation, and heating
on a scale of billions.
● Since the energy industry is the industry that powers every other industry, the fossil fuel industry
increases productivity and prosperity in every area of life, from agriculture (diesel-powered farm
equipment) to hospitals (24/7 electricity).
● The only industries that can meaningfully supplement fossil fuel energy are the nuclear and
hydroelectric industries, which are widely opposed by environmentalists. Even without this opposition
fossil fuels would still be irreplaceable for decades to come. Hydro is limited by lack of suitable
locations. Nuclear has the long-term potential to expand greatly, but is many decades away from
scaling to the level of billions.
● For these reasons, any restriction on fossil fuel use would do devastating damage. This must be
factored into all policy debates over restricting fossil fuels to reduce CO2 or other byproducts.
About the author: Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, is a
humanist philosopher who seeks to identify the full context of industrial and
environmental controversies. His New York Times bestseller The Moral Case for Fossil
Fuels has been widely praised as the most persuasive argument ever made against
climate catastrophism, and led The McLaughlin Group to name Epstein the most
original thinker of 2014.
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