Alex Epstein Profile picture
Mar 29, 2022 20 tweets 12 min read Read on X
*Warning*

Tomorrow the @washingtonpost plans to "cancel" me and my new book Fossil Future by publishing a 100% slanderous hit-piece labeling me as "racist."

Please join me in calling for The Post to spike the piece, fire the "journalist," and publicly apologize.

VIDEO THREAD
The @washingtonpost's smear campaign against me has 4 main steps:
1. Refuse to engage my arguments.
2. Hunt down things I wrote at 18 that seem controversial.
3. Falsely portray those *individualist* writings as "racist."
4. Use "racism" to discredit my work.

Despicable.
*Step 1 of @washingtonpost's "racism" smear of me*

Refuse to engage my arguments, including the many parts of Fossil Future where I condemn and ridicule racism as deeply immoral and absurdly pseudoscientific.

"Fossil fuel eliminators" can't refute me so they try to smear me.
*Step 2 of @washingtonpost's "racism" smear of me*

Try to find the most "smearable" things I've ever written. In this case, climate reporter @maxinejoselow is using articles of mine I wrote at Duke when I was *18 and 19* years old--then totally misrepresenting them as racist.
*Step 3A of @washingtonpost's "racism" smear of me*

Portray 18-year-old me's statements of Western culture's historical superiority as racist--even though I made clear that I believe that culture, which is fundamentally *ideas*, is totally different from skin color!
*Step 3B of @washingtonpost's "racism" smear of me*

Portray 18-year-old me's criticisms of certain MLK actions--e.g., affiliating with Communism, supporting policies that proved destructive to black individuals--as racist.

The criticisms were *individualist*, not at all racist.
When you look at the @washingtonpost's "allegations and information" about my "racist" views at ages 18 and 19 in the context of what I actually said, it becomes clear that I was *not remotely racist* and that the WP is trying to *destroy my work and life for political reasons*.
*Step 4 of @washingtonpost's "racism" smear of me*

Use the totally false smear of me as "racist" to attack the motives for my energy arguments.

Reporter @maxinejoselow wrote that she plans to portray me as not really concerned about "poverty in developing nations in Africa"!
Instead of engaging with my arguments in Fossil Future, @washingtonpost is planning to publish a hit-piece on me to discredit my arguments with the absolute lie that I'm a racist--a lie that could be used to attack me for the rest of my life.

Heads must roll over this.
*Step 5 of @washingtonpost's "racism" smear of me*

Try to discredit my extensive *energy* expertise by citing a complete non-expert (climate scientist Andrew Dessler) with an enormous axe to grind (he's been widely ridiculed for recent debate performances against me).
Summary: @washingtonpost climate reporter @maxinejoselow is planning to "cancel" me tomorrow by 100%-baselessly portraying me as "racist."

Please join me in calling for the Post to:
1. Fire Joselow for malpractice.
2. Apologize to me.
3. Pledge to root out political smearing.
Here's the YouTube video with my full explanation of how @washingtonpost and @maxinejoselow are planning to "cancel" me and my new book Fossil Future tomorrow through slanderous claims that I am a racist.

No legitimate paper can allow this to happen.
If you're new to my work, follow me @AlexEpstein for extreme clarity on energy, environmental, and climate issues from a humanist perspective.

Also, subscribe to my newsletter, featuring lots of concise, powerful, well-referenced energy talking points.
alexepstein.substack.com
FYI not only can you buy Fossil Future from typical booksellers, students and educators can get a *free* copy from @yaf.

Please spread the word so that thousands of young people are exposed to the truth about our energy, environmental, and climate future.
yaf.org/fossilfuture/
Update on @washingtonpost's plan to "cancel" me as "racist": the Managing Editor has not only failed to apologize, she is *praising* the "climate reporter" who responded to my major energy/climate book by falsely accusing me of racism 23 years ago.

Vile.
Dear Editor @Krissah30, did you even look at the video I made detailing the horrific plan to *destroy my life* with "racism" allegations that are *total distortions* of my *individualist* writings at age 18?

If you won't spend 1 hr, watch this 4-min clip.
Here's by far the best report so far on the @washingtonpost's attempt to "cancel" me and Fossil Future with totally false accusations of "racism."

Thanks @revivingreason of @TheObjStd for getting all the facts right.
theobjectivestandard.com/2022/03/washin…
I wonder if this note from an African energy leader who knows me will affect @washingtonpost’s desire to portray me as a racist who doesn’t really care about Africa.

Or will they continue to rely on their staffer’s bizarre distortions of me at age 18?
The @washingtonpost hit-piece on me was “slated for publication on Wednesday at 6 a.m. EST.” It’s now *two full days* past that.

Time’s up, guys. Admit that you were totally wrong—that you planned to cancel a political opponent with false “racism” allegations—and clean house. Image
Update: It's 3 days since the Post's hit-piece against me was supposed to run, and still nothing. (The author has written several pieces since.)

I've received overwhelming support.

Here's a 10-minute summary of the story so far.

Have a great weekend!

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More from @AlexEpstein

Oct 24
Myth: Fossil fuels have made the planet less livable.

Truth: Fossil fuels have made the planet incomparably more livable, by fueling an unprecedented increase in humanity’s productive ability.

(A summary of Fossil Future Ch 4, part 1 of 3)

🧵👇 Image
The Full Benefits of Continuing Fossil Fuel Use

To properly evaluate fossil fuels, we need to understand their full benefits and side-effects.

It's crucial to start with their benefits, since these can often be used to neutralize and overwhelm their negative side-effects.
Understanding the benefits of anything requires knowing 1) the state of human flourishing and 2) the role of that thing.

E.g., understanding antibiotics’ benefits requires knowing 1) we’re safer than ever from infectious disease and 2) antibiotics have an essential role.
Read 27 tweets
Oct 21
Myth: Elon Musk opposes all EV subsidies.

Truth: Elon, through Tesla, has been one of America's biggest advocates of direct and indirect EV subsidies—and of punishments for Tesla's competitors.

🧵👇 Image
Elon Musk likes to tell us that he is against all energy subsidies, including EV subsidies.

Yet the company he runs is one of America's biggest and most successful advocates of EV subsidies.

What gives? Image
Tesla under Elon Musk's leadership has consistently advocated for EV subsidies in various forms, including:

1) Biden's EV mandate (the most extreme form of subsidy)
2) Biden's EV subsidies (a direct EV subsidy)
3) Biden's heightened "CAFE" standards (an indirect EV subsidy)
Read 17 tweets
Oct 14
Why are leading institutions so biased against fossil fuels?

Because their operating “anti-impact framework” causes them to view fossil fuels, which are inherently high impact, as intrinsically immoral and inevitably self-destructive.

A summary of Fossil Future, Chapter 3 🧵👇
An Anti-Human Moral Goal and Standard

Our knowledge system’s opposition to fossil fuels while ignoring their enormous benefits can only be explained by it operating on an anti-human moral goal and standard of evaluation that regards benefits to human life as morally unimportant.
Outside the realm of energy, an example of an anti-human moral goal at work is the scientists who, operating on the anti-human moral goal of animal equality, oppose animal testing for medical research and disregard its life-saving benefits to humans.
Read 22 tweets
Oct 2
LCOE must die.

If you ever hear anyone favorably compare solar and wind to coal, gas, or nuclear by citing a low LCOE—"Levelized Cost of Energy"—you are being scammed.

LCOE explicitly ignores "reliability-related considerations" and is therefore a garbage metric. 🧵👇 Image
You've heard it over and over: "Solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels."

You might suspect something is wrong here, because if solar/wind were so cheap their developers wouldn't always be asking for subsidies, or claim the sky is falling when subsidies are taken away. Image
The suspicious claim that "Solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels" is usually justified using an intimidating-sounding metric called LCOE: "Levelized Cost of Energy."

LCOE is used all the time in prestigious publications and in government.
Read 18 tweets
Oct 1
Our “knowledge system”—the people and institutions we rely upon to research, synthesize, disseminate, and evaluate expert knowledge—consistently ignores the massive, life-or-death benefits of fossil fuels.

A summary of Fossil Future, Chapter 1 🧵👇 Image
Save the World With…Fossil Fuels?

I am going to try to persuade you of something that might seem impossible: that one of the best things you can do to make the world a better place is to fight for more fossil fuel use—more use of oil, coal, and natural gas.
Questioning the “Expert” Moral Case for Eliminating Fossil Fuels

We're told rapidly eliminating fossil fuels is the expert consensus, but consider: 1) sometimes the alleged “expert” view is wrong, and 2) eliminating fossil fuels is a radical and potentially disastrous change.
Read 32 tweets
Sep 20
Apple, Google, Meta and hundreds of other companies claim be "100% renewable" while using mostly fossil fuel electricity.

How is this possible?

Because an FTC rule called the "Green Guides" lets them buy so-called "credits" to count others' solar and wind use as their own. 🧵👇 Image
No significant US company is close to being "100% renewable," since all such companies rely on the mostly fossil fuel electricity grid.

But in 2012, the Obama FTC rewrote a guidance document called the "Green Guides" to let companies falsely claim to be "100% renewable" anyway.
The FTC has published the "Green Guides" since 1992 to specify what constitutes deceptive environmental marketing claims under The FTC Act.

In particular the Green Guides specify when it is misleading—and therefore illegal—to claim to use a given amount of "renewable" energy.
Read 20 tweets

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