Alex Epstein > Quotes

“We don’t want to “save the planet” from human beings; we want to improve the planet for human beings.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“Net-zero policy, if actually implemented, would certainly be the most significant act of mass murder since the killings of one hundred million people by communist regimes in the twentieth century—and it would likely be far greater.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“The open secret of our relationship to climate is how good we are at living in different climates thanks to technology.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“The more opportunity you have to do what you want with your time, the more opportunity you have to be happy.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“The Earth is not a naturally nurturing “delicate balance” but rather a naturally (1) dynamic, (2) deficient, and (3) dangerous place that we must massively impact if we are to survive and flourish.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“Have you ever, in any mainstream discussion of “climate change,” seen any concern expressed about whether restricting fossil fuel use might increase climate danger by decreasing fossil-fueled climate mastery”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“There are two lessons here: First, weather, climate, and climate change matter—but not nearly as much as they used to, thanks to technology. Climate livability is not just a matter of the state of the global climate system, but also of the technology (or lack thereof) that we have available to deal with any given climate. Second, having that technology is useless unless we have the energy to run it.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“We are told that rising CO2 levels will cause a “sixth mass extinction”—a species extinction so devastating that we literally won’t be able to live. Given that previous mass extinctions involved phenomena that blocked out massive amounts of light and warmth, like the giant asteroid that left a ninety-three-mile wide, twelve-mile-deep crater 66 million years ago in what is now Mexico, there is an incredibly high bar to claim that an increase in a warming and fertilizing gas will cause mass extinction.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“The proper attitude toward human activity and climate is expressed in the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Consider the following passage, where industrialist-philosopher Francisco d’Anconia remarks to steel magnate Hank Rearden how dangerous the climate is, absent massive industrial development. The conversation takes place indoors at an elegant party during a severe storm (in the era before all severe storms were blamed on fossil fuels). There was only a faint tinge of red left on the edge of the earth, just enough to outline the scraps of clouds ripped by the tortured battle of the storm in the sky. Dim shapes kept sweeping through space and vanishing, shapes which were branches, but looked as if they were the fury of the wind made visible. “It’s a terrible night for any animal caught unprotected on that plain,” said Francisco d’Anconia. “This is when one should appreciate the meaning of being a man.” Rearden did not answer for a moment; then he said, as if in answer to himself, a tone of wonder in his voice, “Funny . . .” “What?” “You told me what I was thinking just a while ago . . .” “You were?” “. . . only I didn’t have the words for it.” “Shall I tell you the rest of the words?” “Go ahead.” “You stood here and watched the storm with the greatest pride one can ever feel—because you are able to have summer flowers and half-naked women in your house on a night like this, in demonstration of your victory over that storm. And if it weren’t for you, most of those who are here would be left helpless at the mercy of that wind in the middle of some such plain.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“I live in the United States, in Southern California, which is naturally a near desert where I would have died of drought (or not lived here) in previous generations. But thanks to irrigation, air-conditioning, sturdy homes, and other technological advances (especially high-energy transport, which enables me to trade with people far away for goods I could not create under the local circumstances), this is one of the most wonderful places on Earth to live: I can enjoy warm, temperate, low-humidity weather without the downsides of the desert.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“if you go through the multi-thousand-page IPCC synthesis reports, you will not find any quantification of climate-related disaster deaths. And if you review the world’s leading source of climate disaster data, you will find that it totally contradicts the moral case for eliminating fossil fuels. Climate-related disaster deaths have plummeted by 98 percent over the last century, as CO2 levels have risen from 280 ppm (parts per million) to 420 ppm (parts per million) and temperatures have risen by 1°C.[6]”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“three crucial, undeniable facts about the benefits of fossil fuels that hold true to this day—and yet are ignored by our knowledge system when it advocates for the rapid elimination of fossil fuels. These facts are: Fossil fuels are a uniquely cost-effective source of energy. Cost-effective energy is essential to human flourishing. Billions of people are suffering and dying for lack of cost-effective energy.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“our designated experts cling to the delicate nurturer assumption to disguise their anti-human goal to themselves. Very few human beings can admit to themselves that they are fundamentally anti-human—even if their whole lives are devoted to stopping the high-impact productive activities that make human flourishing possible. The more one clings to the belief that Earth is “delicate,” and that we’re always one impact away from collapse, the more one can convince oneself: I don’t hate and want to destroy humans, I just want to save human beings from themselves.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“The examples of machine learning and Bitcoin are particularly clear refutations of a widespread (and disastrous) fallacy: that progress in energy efficiency will lead to the need for far less energy in the future.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“new catastrophe claims will involve the same distortions as the catastrophe claims I’ve debunked so far. They will (1) ignore the fundamental benefits of fossil fuels, (2) especially ignore the environmental mastery benefits of fossil fuels, and (3) wildly overstate the negative side-effects of fossil fuels. Thus, when confronting the latest catastrophe claims, we want to be on the lookout for these distortions.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“The main obstacle to using machine labor is lack of cost-effectiveness: machine labor consuming more value than it produces. I call this the “private jet problem.” Travel by private jet is an amazing thing. If you have a private jet, you can save a lot of time in your traveling, and you can travel to all kinds of great places at the drop of a hat. So why don’t the vast majority of us travel by private jet? Because despite the value of the time private-jet labor produces, the enormous amount of resources consumed via private-jet labor makes it cost-prohibitive for the vast majority of us.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“Mankind’s use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous—because human life is the standard of value, and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it wonderful for human life.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“We take the materials around us and make them more valuable; that’s how we went from starving in a cave to producing a cornucopia of food that we can enjoy in comfortable homes. The thought leaders did not sufficiently consider these virtues of human beings.”
― Alex Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“Another reason we buy into Green is because we as a culture have never been fully comfortable with human industry. We’re taught that the pursuit of profit is wrong, that capitalism is wrong, and that we should feel guilty for our wealth and way of life.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“Think about how many times you hear that 97 percent or some similar figure thrown around. It’s based on crude manipulation propagated by people whose ideological agenda it serves. It is a license to intimidate.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“There are some quotes from a story in the Los Angeles Times called “Fear of Fusion: What if It Works?” Leading environmentalist Jeremy Rifkin: “It’s the worst thing that could happen to our planet.”13 Paul Ehrlich: Developing fusion for human beings would be “like giving a machine gun to an idiot child.”14 Amory Lovins was already on record as saying, “Complex technology of any sort is an assault on human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”15”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“Whatever the IPCC’s motives for omitting the fact of plummeting climate-related disaster deaths, one thing is certain: when the world’s most influential synthesizing institution does not include a crucial variable, what we are told the “experts” think is inevitably and significantly distorted.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“On a human flourishing standard, we want to avoid not “climate change” but “climate danger”—and we want to increase “climate livability” by adapting to and mastering climate, not simply refrain from impacting climate.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“To the extent a grid is committed to using solar and wind, whenever sunlight or wind increases, the grid has to cycle down controllable power plants, and whenever sunlight or wind decreases or disappears, it has to cycle up controllable power plants. Rapidly cycling power plants up and down is an efficiency killer, just as stop-and-go-traffic kills your car’s fuel efficiency.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“Just like us,” says Bill McKibben, “our crops are adapted to the Holocene, the 11,000-year period of climatic stability we’re now leaving . . . in the dust.”10 This argument does not reflect reality. First of all, the Holocene is an abstraction; it is not a “climate” anyone lived in; it is a summary of a climate system that contains an incredible variety of climates that individuals lived in. And in practice, we can live in pretty much any of them if we are industrialized and pretty much none of them if we aren’t.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“If we pursue the environmental goal not of “protecting the environment” or “saving the planet” from human beings but of “improving our environment” or “improving our world” for human beings, we can have it all—the best of what exists naturally and the best of what we can create—including the time and ability to enjoy what exists naturally.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“let’s be clear: If fossil fuels have catastrophic consequences and it makes sense to use a lot less of them, that would be an epic tragedy, given the state of the alternatives right now.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“The environmental thought leaders’ opposition to fossil fuels is not a mistaken attempt at pursuing human life as their standard of value. They are too smart and knowledgeable to make such a mistake. Their opposition is a consistent attempt at pursuing their actual standard of value: a pristine environment, unaltered nature. Energy is our most powerful means of transforming our environment to meet our needs. If an unaltered, untransformed environment is our standard of value, then nothing could be worse than cheap, plentiful, reliable energy. I’m saying that if fossil fuels created no waste, including no CO2, if they were even cheaper, if they would last practically forever, if there were no resource-depletion concerns, the Green movement would still oppose them.”
― Alex J. Epstein, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

“Knowing that our knowledge system consistently denies temperature mastery is crucial context to keep in mind whenever we hear claims about “catastrophic” temperature changes in the future; there is a very good chance those claims are based on climate mastery denial, and that without such denial catastrophe would be implausible.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“Just as fossil-fueled resource mastery led to more fossil fuels, it also led to more of every kind of resource being available—including the gold, mercury, silver, copper, zinc, natural gas, and petroleum the Club of Rome had predicted would have run out by now.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less