I'm currently most of the way through Alex Epstein's Fossil Future, and I find the arguments within very convincing.
In (extreme) brevity, they are:
- Fossil Fuel use and the cheap energy it enables is responsible for unprecedented human flourishing for billions. Billions more need access to ever-increasing amounts of cheap energy to flourish.
- Any argument against fossil fuel use must argue that its side effects (CO2 warming the planet) overwhelm the good they do by providing cheap energy. These side effects must be so bad that it's worth compromising the safety and flourishing of billions of humans to curtail their use. Such an argument must also prove that those negative side effects are beyond what humanity is capable of adapting to or overcoming, given cheap energy provided by fossil fuels.
- No such argument is justifiable, given the current state of climate science.
Does anyone (preferably those who've read the book, although I don't want to restrict answers to just those people) have an opposing view/opinion, and if so why?
I'd like to do my intellectual homework on this one, and actively seek disagreement, given how convincing I've found the argument so far.
It looks like you are using a double standard here.
Seems reasonable. If someone wants to build a new coal plant, I agree with you that, to know if it is a good decision, we need to compare the coal plant, including its benefits and its side effects, to alternatives (another source of electricity, or even no plant at all).
This part sounds like an unrealistic standard. Assuming that, in the same scenario, taking into accounts benefits and side effects, the coal plant is not the best alternative, then it should not be chosen. If you want to claim that we should discount or ignore the negative side effects, based on the fact that we could overcome those, then you need to prove it, you need to bear the burden of proof.
Sure there are other environmental problems, but my experience of the main concern of modern environmentalists is climate change, largely because it's seen as apocalyptic in scope and thus the most deserving of concern.
As for deaths resulting from fossil fuel pollution, I suspect Epstein's response would be that we should be evaluating fossil fuel use in its full context. How many lives were saved/improved by access to the energy generated? How many people were lifted and kept out of poverty?
The largest effect in the article is also found in East Asia, whi... (read more)