(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Drilled Puts The (Im)Moral Case For Fossil Fuels 'In A Coffin', Seals Lid 'With Big Old Nails' [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags']

Date: 2023-04-13  

If you prefer your discussion of deniers and disinfo to be in podcast form, then Amy Westervelt's Drilled podcast is probably right up your alley! But for the visual learners among us, the Drilled website also offers written content, such as this debunking of the myths behind the supposedly "moral" case for fossil fuels.

For nearly a decade now, Alex Epstein (a white supremacist and bargain basement racist ) has been putting his philosophy degree to good use at his for-profit think tank where he spreads the good news about fossil fuels.

While he used to simply stand in the middle of climate marches with a dumb "I <3 Fossil Fuels" sign to troll activists for content, or walk around conservative events trying to make "climate thinker" happen , these days Epstein's MLK-appropriating-not-attacking persona puts a "fresh face" on climate disinformation. Worse, his talking points are now finding purchase with Republicans eager to excuse the failings of their fossil-fueled financial benefactors and turn Big Oil propaganda into policy .

To accompany season 8 of Drilled , Westervelt has published a discussion guide that covers the seven key myths underlying the "moral case" for continued fossil fuel use, which were popularized by Epstein’s second book and the accompanying PR campaign.

First is the claim that fossil fuels extend life expectancy and quality of life, usually illustrated by a comically simple graph showing people living longer over the course of the last 200 or so years. However, it turns out that, according to actual science and not Epstein's hand-waving philosophical sophistry, "growing consumption of energy and fossil fuels over four decades did not play a significant role in increasing life expectancy across 70 countries." Not clear enough for you? Study author (and IPCC AR6 Lead Author) Dr. Julia Steinberger told Westervelt that "we can conclusively put" the idea that fossil fuels are good for life expectancy "in a coffin, [and] bang the lid shut with big old nails." And once more without the metaphor for good measure, Dr. Steinberger added, "We do not rely on fossil fuels for improvements in our living standards."

The second myth is that you can't do anything about climate change without sacrificing people's overall quality of life, something charlatans will say that climate alarmists ignore. Unfortunately for Epstein et al, serious researchers will tell you that the IPCC dedicated an entire chapter to that topic. IPCC report Lead Author Dr. Joyashree Roy explained to Westervelt that "40 to 70% of 2050 level of projected emissions can be reduced" by measures to simply save energy with efficiency upgrades or reduced consumption "without reducing employment" and "without reducing human wellbeing."

Next, there's the lie about fossil fuels being cheap and plentiful, which is only true when you don't include the cost of carbon pollution or the massive government subsidies , and certainly isn't true when you compare dirty energy to renewables, which are now often cheaper to install new than it is to keep a coal plant running.

Myth four is the claim that "if climate people were serious they would support nuclear and hydro," to which Westervelt responds by pointing out that polling shows most do ( though they shouldn't .) Myth five is the claim that "the Global South desperately wants fossil fuels," but Guyanese lawyer Melinda Janki points out that most Global South countries don't actually want more oil. She explains, "In every single former colony, people are saying, Stop the oil. We don't want it in places like Uganda and Mozambique… they're putting their lives on the line to stop oil."

Coming in at number six in this countdown of Greatest Disinfo Hits is the claim that if "the climate movement would just back off," then developing countries could get rich with fossil fuels. This is the sort of argument that only makes sense if you've never actually looked at what happens to places where fossil fuels are discovered and extracted. If you have, then you're probably familiar with "something economists call the 'resource curse'-- the tendency of economies that are overly tied to a particular commodity to focus everything on that commodity, make a small handful of elites rich and eventually tank the economy." And fossil fuels are no exception: in fact, they have their own "particular strain of the resource curse." According to UCLA professor Michael Ross, "Petroleum produces the largest problems for the greatest number of countries. The resource curse is overwhelmingly an oil curse." The countries afflicted by it, Westervelt writes in summarizing Ross' book The Oil Curse , "tend to have less democracy, less economic stability, and more frequent civil wars than countries without oil."

This makes myth seven pretty easy to bust at this point: Climate advocacy calling for the end of fossil fuel use isn't going to "block development progress in the Global South." Quite the opposite, actually! "In the same way that tobacco companies turned to the Global South as their customers once the Global North cracked down on smoking" the fossil fuel industry is hoping for a lifeline, and "pushing for long-term infrastructure there that will lock in coal, oil and gas use for decades to come, not only ensuring that Global South citizens will continue to pay too much for energy, but also that they will be late to the energy transition, left stuck with the most stranded oil and gas assets while the rest of the world moves on.”

But all you really need is this one takeaway to crush most of Epstein’s flawed arguments: "Despite producing nearly 10% of the world’s oil and gas, more than 600 million people still lack access to electricity across [Africa]. If fossil fuels were the fix for energy poverty… why would we still have so much energy poverty in the world?"

Though if you're from a white-led organization from a country whose development was funded by extraction of people and resources from Africa and enjoy the intergenerational wealth of colonization, maybe just sit this one out and let the Global South countries decide things for themselves this time.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/13/2163706/-Drilled-Puts-The-Im-Moral-Case-For-Fossil-Fuels-In-A-Coffin-Seals-Lid-With-Big-Old-Nails

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/