Cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing.
In the book Green Tyranny—a fantastic history of the environmental alarmism movement—author Rupert Darwall lays responsibility for the beginning of this movement at the feet of the Germans and the Swedes.
In 1967, a Swedish scientist published the first ever “theory” on acid rain. Four years later, Bert Bolin, a Swede who would go on to chair the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), wrote the first-ever government report on acid rain.
It was a typical government report. Ninety pages long, it starts out with certainty: “The emission of sulfur into the atmosphere . . . has proved to be a major environmental problem.” Fifty pages later, however, Bolin admits to some doubt when he says, “It is very difficult to prove that damage . . . has in fact occurred.” Nevertheless, the government report concludes decisively, “A reduction in the total emissions both in Sweden and in adjacent countries is required” (emphasis added).
In the book Green Tyranny—a fantastic history of the environmental alarmism movement—author Rupert Darwall lays responsibility for the beginning of this movement at the feet of the Germans and the Swedes.
In 1967, a Swedish scientist published the first ever “theory” on acid rain. Four years later, Bert Bolin, a Swede who would go on to chair the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), wrote the first-ever government report on acid rain.
It was a typical government report. Ninety pages long, it starts out with certainty: “The emission of sulfur into the atmosphere . . . has proved to be a major environmental problem.” Fifty pages later, however, Bolin admits to some doubt when he says, “It is very difficult to prove that damage . . . has in fact occurred.” Nevertheless, the government report concludes decisively, “A reduction in the total emissions both in Sweden and in adjacent countries is required” (emphasis added).
His book’s overall thesis is that our strategy should be to pursue a change in rhetoric. To do this, we should frame our arguments about this issue from the standpoint of what is best for human flourishing.
On that front, he lays out three facts:
- Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy.
- Cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing.
- Innumerable people are suffering and dying for a lack of access to cost-effective energy.
Therefore, rather than insist on working to scale back our consumption of fossil fuels, we should actively seek to increase it—especially in the poorest parts of the world.
Beyond this brilliant thesis, Epstein’s book is a fantastic scientific and historical refutation of all things environmentalist alarmism. Perhaps the best example of that is his demolition of Al Gore’s infamous “hockey stick” curve. First, he demonstrates clearly that Gore’s graph, which shows Earth’s temperature as being constant for centuries only to spike up since the Industrial Revolution of the 1850s, is false. Second, he demonstrates that there is a hockey stick curve that is true and that people should be stupefied by—the graph of human flourishing over time.
For centuries, human flourishing had been flat in terms of life expectancy, standard of living, access to electricity, and caloric intake. Only since the 1850s, when humanity started burning fossil fuels, has all of this changed. Since then, we’ve seen human flourishing—by any measure one would choose—spike up in exactly this same “hockey stick” fashion.
In conclusion, market economics leads to business owners making informed and calculated investments in things like LED lighting technology for purposes of raising their bottom line as well. Market economics will also lead to the development of a robust and reliable electrical grid. Political economics, on the other hand, leads to corruption, cronyism, an electrical grid on the verge of failure, higher costs of energy, and a top-down “solution” to a fake crisis that is causing diminished human flourishing.
Just like everything else, in the case of energy efficiency as well as energy production, it is best to trust the market.
Jared Wall
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