Are fossil fuels moral?

You know that I love to challenge my existing beliefs to see if they’re solid or not, so when a friend gave me a copy of “ The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels “ by Alex Epstein, I was excited to give it a read. I couldn’t understand why a book would have that title (other than to interest people, which it did), so I was happy to dig in.

As it turns out, I agree with Epstein’s two main points.

Fossil fuels have helped humanity tremendously. There is no doubt about that. Fossil fuels have saved millions of lives thanks to improved living conditions, medical advances, food production, and much more. Related, Epstein says:

“If we look at history, an incredibly disproportionate percentage of valuable ideas have come in the last several centuries, coinciding with fossil-fueled civilization. Why? Because such a productive civilization buys us time to think and discover, and then use that knowledge to become more productive, and buy more time to think and discover.”

We’re not ready to stop using fossil fuels. I also agree with this. While I think alternative sources (largely solar) are the future, we’re not close to giving up fossil fuels yet. His book was written eight years ago, and we’re getting a bit closer, but still have a long way to go. His point holds, with his main support being this: