Need talking points for this year's Thanksgiving energy/climate conversations?
Here's a 🧵 with my top 6.
Summary: Fossil fuels are making the world a better and better place by providing uniquely low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people--and are needed by billions more.
1: Contrary to rhetoric that we've "destroyed the planet," the world has never been a better place for human beings to live. Life expectancy and income have been skyrocketing, with extreme poverty (<$2/day) plummeting from 42% in 1980 to <10% today.
2: A root cause of today's amazingly livable world is fossil fuel. Low-cost, reliable energy enables us to use machines to be productive and prosperous. And only fossil fuels (80% of energy) provide low-cost, reliable energy for all energy needs on a scale of billions of people.
3: Fossil fuels have actually made us far safer from climate by providing low-cost energy for the amazing machines that protect us against storms, protect us against extreme temperatures, and alleviate drought. Climate disaster deaths have decreased *98%* over the last century.
4: Fossil fuels' CO2 emissions have contributed to the warming of the last 170 years, but that warming has been mild and manageable—1° C, mostly in the colder parts of the world. And life on Earth thrived (and was far greener) when CO2 levels were at least 5X higher than today's.
5: Solar and wind can't come close to replacing fossil fuels. They only provide electricity (20% of energy use)--and they don't even do that well. Because solar and wind are unreliable, they don't replace reliable power plants--they add to the cost of reliable power plants.
6: Billions of people desperately need low-cost, reliable energy, which for the foreseeable future largely needs to come from fossil fuels. 3 billion people use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator. 1/3 of the world uses wood and dung for heating and cooking.
Conclusion, part 1: The world needs to continue and expand its massive use of fossil fuels, while making sure we have the freedom necessary for genuinely cost-effective non-carbon alternatives to emerge. For example, we need to decriminalize reliable, non-carbon nuclear energy.
Conclusion, part 2: The legislation the US is on the verge of passing, called Build Back Better, should be renamed Destroy American Energy--because, by seeking to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use, it will make American energy unaffordable and unreliable.
Happy Thanksgiving. Whoever else you thank, thank the people of the fossil fuel industry, who alone provide every form of energy we need--including the energy that enables us to fly to see loved ones. Yet they are perpetually demonized by the ignorant and hypocritical.
PS If you like my talking points, you can find a nearly limitless free stockpile at EnergyTalkingPoints.com. And for the ultimate resource on the future of energy, preorder my book Fossil Future for yourself and/or your loved ones. It comes out Earth Week 2022 (April 19).
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The Biden administration claims that draining the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve shows its commitment to low gas prices.
In fact, this is yet another cynical ploy to disguise that its real goal is raise gas prices.
🧵👇
Biden’s claim that he released 1B barrels of gasoline to “lower prices at the pump” is his latest attempt to convince Americans he's trying to lower gasoline prices. But in fact, he’s doing his utmost to raise prices, because this is necessary for his anti-fossil-fuel goals.
From Day 1, President Biden has openly supported the destruction of the fossil fuel industry, from his 2019 campaign promise of “I guarantee you, we’re going to end fossil fuel” to his 2021 executive order declaring that America will be “net zero emissions economy-wide” by 2050.
For years tech giants have been helping climate catastrophists shut down reliable fossil fuel electricity, falsely claiming they can be replaced by solar/wind.
Now the grid they've helped gut can't supply their growing AI needs. 🧵👇
For the last decade, tech giants such as @Apple, @Microsoft, @Meta, and @Google have, through dedicated anti-fossil-fuel propaganda and political efforts, promoted the shutdown of reliable fossil fuel power plants in favor of unreliable solar and wind.
Tech giants have propagandized against reliable fossil fuel power plants by falsely claiming to be "100% renewable" and implying everyone could do it. In fact, they have just paid utilities to credit them for others' solar and wind use and blame others for their coal and gas use.
Despite massive subsidies and favoritism, EV sales dropped in Q1 of 2024 compared the previous quarter.
Economics be damned, EPA recently announced pollution standards that require car makers to sell >50% EVs by 2032.
My talking points on Biden's dictatorial EV mandate 🧵👇
Biden's de facto mandate of >50% EVs by 2032 is a dictatorial attack on the American driver and the US grid that will
1. Force Americans to drive inferior cars.
2. Place massive new demand for reliable electricity on a grid that is declining in reliable electricity supply.
The EPA has finalized new pollution standards so restrictive that in order to comply, car manufacturers will have to sell 56% EVs by 2032, plus at least 13% plug-in hybrid or other partially electric cars, as well as more fuel-efficient gasoline-powered cars.
1) liberate domestic industry to mine and process them cost-effectively 2) encourage friendly trading partners to do the same 3) stop artificially driving up demand before supply chains are ready
🧵👇
America’s economy and its national security depend on the secure availability of numerous “critical minerals”—such as lithium, copper, cobalt, and various “rare earth” elements—that, due to their unique chemical properties, are essential for many of today’s leading technologies.
Take cobalt, an important ingredient in the high-tech alloys used in many batteries, jet engines, and permanent magnets. Without a secure supply of cobalt, production of significant portions of high-tech industry and high-performance military equipment are jeopardized.
Congress won't support Biden's anti-fossil-fuel agenda.
So he's circumventing the legislative process by having the SEC coerce companies into spouting anti-FF propaganda and committing to anti-FF plans in the name of “climate disclosure.”
🧵👇
The SEC's new "climate disclosure rules"—now paused by the Fifth Circuit—have been rightly criticized for forcing companies to do endless, costly paperwork, which discourages companies from going public and thus contradicts the SEC's goal of increasing opportunity for investment.
Sadly, most critics of the SEC's rules are missing the biggest, most dangerous problem: they're not actually “climate disclosure rules”—those already existed—they are *anti-fossil-fuel propagandizing and planning rules* that violate freedom of speech and endanger our economy.
Q: What should government do to address climate change?
A: “Climate change” is the wrong target; we want to *reduce climate danger*. And the proven way to do that is: *master* climate danger by letting us use all forms of cost-effective energy, including fossil fuels.
🧵👇
Asking how government should “address climate change” assumes that us impacting climate must be a bad thing.
But it’s only bad if it endangers us by creating challenges we can’t master.
And so far, our climate mastery has far outpaced any new climate challenges.
It’s an irrefutable but little-known fact that as the world has warmed 1° C, humans have become safer than ever from climate danger. The rate of climate-related disaster deaths—from storms, floods, temperature extremes, wildfires, and drought—has fallen 98% in the last century.