1. There are 7 billion people on the planet. 1.3 billion have no electricity; most of these will die an early death because of it. In order to give all 7 billion the same access to energy Americans enjoy, we must quadruple our global output.
2. This means we need cheap, plentiful, dependable, and scalable energy. Wind, solar, and biofuels are none of these things. The only fuel source that meets all 4 criteria is fossil fuels.
3. By any metric you like, air pollution, availabilty of clean drinking water, economic development, longevity, or quality of life, as we have increased our use of fossil fuels, these metrics have all improved.
4. 
4. Energy is essential to life. We must alter our environment in order to survive. If you doubt this, get butt-naked and go out in the woods; see how long you survive. We use energy to supply all of our other needs: clothing, shelter, food, and water.
5. Energy fuels our greatest asset: our ingenuity. We are living in the best environment in all of human history because of fossil fuels. All of our technological advancements and every problem solution, were made possible because of fossil fuels.
6. Without cheap, plentiful, reliable, and scalable energy, people die. Consider the child delivered by emergency C-section in a clinic in Gambia forced to rely on solar energy.
7. The child, who had died from suffocation, could have been saved if the clinic used their ultrasound machine. Unfortunately, due to the expensive and unstable nature of their energy supply, they don't routunely perform ultrasounds; they only do them if they suspect a problem.
8. For the same reason, this clinic won't even consider buying an incubator, so any premies who need one just die. You could also read about the clinic in Kenya that can either run the lights or the refrigerator, but not both.
9. Cheap, plentiful, reliable, and scalable energy is required for 3rd world countries to indutrialize and pull themselves out of poverty. The policies your ilk propose would be an early death sentence upon billions if applied globally.
10. What exactly are you saving the planet from? Warming? You understand that we are a tropical species, right? So warmer and wetter is better. We have experienced very mild warming that is in no way unusual for our planet.
11. The seas are rising in some places and dropping in others, again nothing out of the norm. Land also rises and falls. Remember how the Dutch handled a problem of sinking land by developing a system of windmill pumps and dykes? Imagine what we can do with todays technology.
12. Can you guess what would power such technological innovations? Yep, cheap, plentiful, reliable, scalable, fossil fuel energy. Thank God we're not dependant on the expensive unreliable stuff, solar, wind, and biofuel energy.
13. Btw, all of the climate change disaster predictions going all the way back to the 70s are not based on any science; they are based on 108 different global climate modals (GCM).
14. These computer models use complex algorithms to manipulate data, allowing them to perfectly postdict the past. This can be done with any data set; a practice known as "pressing the curve."
15. Unfortunately, as many who have tried this in market investing have learned, a model's abilty to postdict the past says nothing about its abilty to predict the future. The only way to gage a model's predictive value is to see if its predictions come true.
16. He have nearly 4 decades of predictions from these GCMs, as well as the actual empirical data to compare them to. All models completely fail.
17. The truth is the data suggests that the Earth is quite tolerant of CO2 doubling, and that variations in solar output and cloud cover have far more to do with any global temperature changes than any made-made CO2 emmissions.
18. Maybe you mean to save the planet from the devestating effects of pollution emmitted from fossil fuels. Admittedly, there are pollutants to worry about. Nevertheless, remember that as our use of fossil fuels has increased, the levels of pollutants in the air have decreased.
19.
20. Remember, fossil fuels empower our ingenuity, allowing us to mitigate and even eliminate many of the risks associated with their use. Burning fossil fuels today is not like in the 1800s; there are many clean technologies that allow us to mitigate and control the risks.
21. You must also remember tge relationship between value and risk. As value increases, so does risk appetite. In 19th century England burning dirty coal was embraced, even though the pollution was horrendous, because the alternative was death and the destruction of society.
22. Compared to your "green energies," fossil fuels are untouchable. You want to talk about dirty fuels? How about wind turbins that use small magnets made of a rare-earth mineral, neodymium. It is mined primarily in China.
23. Earth must be sluiced through a solution containing hydrflouric acid, a substance so toxic it can literally seep through your flesh and melt your bones. Here's an article on the operation:
bbc.com/future/story/2…
bbc.com/future/story/2…
24. References:
Epstein, Alexander J. (2014). The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, New York, NY: Penguin.
Institute of Public Affairs. (2015). Climate Change: The Facts. Woodsville, NH: Stockade Books.
Epstein, Alexander J. (2014). The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, New York, NY: Penguin.
Institute of Public Affairs. (2015). Climate Change: The Facts. Woodsville, NH: Stockade Books.
@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks.
