Transcripts For CSPAN2 Book Discussion On The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels 20150209

Machinery of modern internment in Prisoner Exchange is crafted on an industrial level. The first of four large Prisoner Exchanges took place in june 1942, and the second of september 2, 1943. During these two exchanges more than 2000 japanese and japaneseamericans were literally traded for other americans imprisoned in japan. In february 1944, 634 german residents and their americanborn children were sent from crystal city into germany in exchange for americans. On january 2, 1945 428 more in crystal city were treated in to war. You can watch this and other programs online at booktv. Org. Heres a look at some upcoming book fairs and festivals happening around the country. Let us know about book fairs and vessels in your area and we will add them to our list. Email us at booktv cspan. Org. Now on booktv alex epstein says that the public only hears one side of the argument and the debate over fossil fuels. He argues that fossil fuels have done far more good than damage to the world and are a safe and reliable source of energy. This is a little under one hour. Good afternoon. Welcome to the Heritage Foundation and to our douglas and Sarah Allison auditorium. We welcome those to join us on all of these occasions on our heritage. Org website and those will be joining us on a future booktv program. We would ask everyone to check that cell phones have been turned off as a courtesy to our speaker. We will post the program on the heritage home page following todays presentation for everybodys future reference, and has always our internet and other outside viewers are welcome to send questions or comments, simply emailing speaker heritage. Org. Hosting our guest today is derrick morgan, our Vice President for domestic and economic policy. He leads the institute for Economic Freedom and opportunity. He serves as come is a lawyer by training, he served in all three branches of the government including on the senior staff of Vice President Richard Cheney for coming to heritage. Please join in welcoming derrick morgan. Derrick . [applause] thank you for coming for daring the weather outside which ensure but its something to do with fossil fuels, right . You can address that. And for our location change. Good to see you all here. Welcome. We believe in free market at heritage not just because it works best overall for Human Flourishing that it would be enough of a reason to support it. Its also moral its the free market system can when the respect private property, rule of law and freedom to contract. That encourages each person to find something that they can do or produce that will be beneficial to other people. Every time you make a purchase both sides profit, both sides are better off. You multiply that i billions everyday and you get a little bit of a sense of this, the magic of the free market. I mentioned that because oil coal and hazardous producers are making their customers much better off. If you doubt that, think about the lives of many of our fellow human beings who do not have access to plentiful inexpensive fossil fuels. The villager in africa who burns dried dung to heat his home. The farmer in india or uses an ox to plow his field. And the elderly woman in ethiopia the walks miles to fetch her water. Inexpensive energy would help them and it helps us in so many ways that we in the u. S. And the west often taken for granted that we will have electricity and gasoline to make our lives comfortable and productive. Thats great while at last but arent we running out of these resources . Thanks to human innovation new supplies of coal, oil and natural gas especially natural gas recently have been found. Postaward about peak oil and admission resources were astonishingly wrong. Americas more than five years of coal at current user rates over the worlds biggest producer of oil and natural gas more than saudi arabia or russia. We have plenty of these fuels. Should we transition to new fuels . Maybe, if we can find a better source of energy, one that is less expensive and is just as plentiful your the left wants to make these coal, oil and Natural Gas Resources more expensive so their preferred field will be used instead. The problem is that the cost of energy is reflected in everything you buy. Everything that is transported are made by machines or used made by using electricity which is just about everything. And, of course, Higher Energy prices are especially bad for the poor who spend more of their income in energy. Wait, wait, wait. Its all fine and good you might say but what about the environment. Inexpensive energy and the development that goes with it leads to cleaner environment. The cleanest countries in the world, those with the best environments are those that have the highest Economic Freedom score in heritages own index of Economic Freedom. As my colleagues have written. Lets look at the United States briefly. According to the epa since 1980 Carbon Monoxide is down 84 . Ozone is down 33 . Lead is down 92 . Sulfur dioxide is down 81 . Cleaner air its much cleaner now than when i was a boy for example. Okay okay. Theres something icky about fossil fuels some might think. Cant be moral to use them, can it . It came. After the clash we are with us today alex epstein, the president and founder of the center for Industrial Progress Center for industrial progress. Alex has to be some of the biggest names on the environmental left, his writings have been published in the wall street journal, forbes Investor Business Daily and dozen of other publications. Easy to graduate and the author of todays book the moral case for fossil fuels. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome alex epstein. [applause] i recognize some of you. So i didnt i had an experience about five years ago that i think really captures the way we are taught to think about fossil fuels and actually whats wrong with him i do not just the way that the left thinks of fossil fuels but often the right thing so fossil fuels. So im from southern california. I grew up in this area, but the climate out there is just amazing. So i moved there about 10 years ago for work and i havent been able to lead. About five you i was in irvine california, Orange County at the Farmers Market for lunch. As sometimes happens there was a green peas booth outside the Farmers Market, and this girl comes up to me. What am i now 34 . I mustve been 20 29 at the time so looked fairly young and said youre an environmentalist, right . And dont you want to help us get off our addiction to fossil fuels and transition to Clean Renewable Energy . Into thinking she really does not know whats going to happen in terms of what my view is. And i said no actually i really like to fossil fuels. I think what the fossil fuel industry does is great overall anything the world would be better if we used more fossil fuels. So you think to yourself, what is she thinking or what is she going to say . Thats what i was wondering. The reason why i raised it that way, and that is my view that we should use more fossil fuels is i wanted to see i wanted her to bring up one of the common objections. So, for example, catastrophic Climate Change, catastrophic pollution, catastrophic resource depletion and i wanted to sure that theres actually a good way of thinking about these things were the fact that something is the challenge doesnt mean that its a catastrophe and that if you look at the big picture, the full context these things and so forth are our are challenges are far, far outweighed by the benefits human beings get. But, unfortunately, she didnt ask about any of those things. And she didnt even get mad at me. She did something that at the time took me aback, and that was she looked at me almost in awe and i thought what is going to happen . This cant really be all right . I realized later as if an alien creature, she was talking to an alien creature address that i think we should use more fossil fuels. She said wow, you must make a lot of money. Which was by the way definitely not the case. Certainly not. I dont even think i knew anyone in the fossil fuels initiate the time but certainly wasnt making a lot of money from anyone. I had the same experience this morning effect. I was on bloomberg and i decide im not going to wear my usual costume, which is this. Lastwhich by the way i will result in new york city but if you want to check it out on youtube but that was less dramatic than the threefoot by threefoot i love fossil fuels sign that i carry. Those are fun things. But anyway i was just wearing this little pen and a host hostess, the woman host looked at my pen. She said what does that say . It says i love fossil fuels. Shes taken aback a little bit and she said well do you love the fossil fuels or do you just love the oil industrys money . So again you must be paid off. I said no, i just love fossil fuels. So why this story is so significant, because it really captures what i think are the three different moral views of fossil fuels. And the one that we should use more which i will talk about last is you are so out of bounds that you can auto sell. My view is if we ask or think about these issues logically its the only one that makes sense. One of the conventional views is what i call the unNecessary Evils. Of fossil fuels are an addiction, evil, destroying the planet and fortunately weve all of these promising Renewable Technologies to replace them with. Everyone familiar with this . The idea is we need to get off the fossil fuels and we can get off them quickly. The response to that too often particularly by the Energy Industry or the fossil fuel industry is to say well no theyre not an unNecessary Evil. They are a Necessary Evil. Know they are a necessary addiction because unfortunately solar and wind are not going to come along the cleanup. Look at shell as a recent example, shell oil company. They have a policy on their website that their goal is companies reduce co2 emissions to zero. Theres a book and they do these little skits online about how theyre going to power things like footsteps and they just build a soccer field that is allegedly powered by footsteps. I wrote an article about that on account lived that a minimum 147 times more expensive than natural gas their footsteps solution. This is the view that hey, and then at the same time saying hey, let us go in the arctic. Well we cant, unfortunately cant get rid of it all now. Yes, we want our industry to expire unfortunate we disagree with environmental us about the expiration date. This is a view and derrick what was your adjective, do we yucky . A key. Sorry, i was texting at the time. Something wrong. A Necessary Evil Necessary Evil and if youre Necessary Evil think about a lot of stuff you hear even from the right has at least attention of that. Especially any time someone says were going to move i guess of course we want to move to solar and wind as soon as we can, et cetera said it. My view is different. I dont believe in a Necessary Evil or Necessary Evil. I believe in the third which is superior good. A superior good, its a very good means its like anything else. Like this, thats just saying i buy this, i use this because its the best thing available to me. Its going to enhance my life more than any of my other options. And by the way it doesnt mean it needs to be renewable, i plan and using them everyone should use an iphone the sixth to the end of time otherwise we are not allowed to use it. Its not that kind of thing. Its not saying its perfectly clean, theres no pollution. Of course, theres mining and all kind of other things. This is a good thing and the risk and side effects are worth it. And should be minimized but the value that we gain is a large that it is good and were not going to feel guilty. So thats the way i feel about fossil fuels. Again, the three moral views are unNecessary Evil Necessary Evil, and superior good. Makes sense so far . Does anyone know what this is made of . Natural gas or oil. Probably natural gas. So then the question is how to get there. I wrote the whole thing on that but i want to give you an indication of my own Journey Towards this because i grew up in this area, chevy chase, maryland. As most of you probably know this is not exactly a fossil fuel hotbed. Both ideologically it is not in physical its not that its not like theres a lot of fracking taking place here a lot of shale resource that people, shale resource plays the people are making or coal industry or things like that. So i grew up like everybody pretty much i think and the Montgomery County Public School system learning nothing positive about energy, so not about fossil fuels but learning of course they are destroying the planet. We are running out of them, one at of all resources. They are polluting, that will only get worse and of course, they are causing catastrophic Climate Change. I went to Montgomery County Blair High School and my teachers were quite big into that which had an impact on the from a math science background particularly was younger that i got into philosophy. This is my background, and the question is what changed for me . Part of what change is studying philosophy which i will get back to later but in terms of just the subject matter would change for me as i said something i think everyone should study and almost no one has taught. And that is in the history of energy. The history of energy. What was life like before we had cheap, plentiful, reliable energy, and what was life like after, and how did we get from one place to another . Because i never even thought of that until i was maybe 25. I hadnt even really thought of them in any serious way how much betterbetter life is and how much of a role that can be placed in that. I want to store the really influenced me was studying how we came to use oil. This is really fascinating. You think we use oil now and people think why dont we just choose Something Else . As if we all just got together and voted on oil and thats why we use it theres no logical reason but the real question of why do we use this particular substance for so long. I was doing some research on rockefeller, and to understand rockefeller i need to understand how did the oil industry come to be, how did it will assess into the is that the old story i had heard about whale oil, the story about we were wailing this is partially true but mostly not true. We do all for oil from whale oil and we start running out of wales and then so one day magically they discovered oil and weve been using ever since and whenever going to find the next oil for our whale oil in effect . But it wasnt true. Ever actually at least six major competitors that were longstanding. So, for example, if a substance based on turpentine and that had certain properties. It was cheap to make it tend to be quite explosive which is not the greatest thing for indoor of luminance. In your home. They are are different really good things were different kind of animal oils standard lard oil into something called steering which is this highly technological lard oil. Theyre different grades of whale oil. Perhaps the most promising thing was coal oil. That was the biggest predecessor to what we can call rock oil or petroleum. What struck me was in looking at all of these things, he felt to produce energy. You often hear today, solar and wind, they can produce energy, or they work and allow we can get some energy. A looking at history it became clear it doesnt matter too much if you can produce some energy. It depends on can you produce it cheaply and scalability . That was coming turned up before that no one could produce it cheaply. I dont officials with me here today but didnt when it ever see this over at maps of north korea and south korea at night . One is dark one is like. This is pretty much what happened to the american countryside with oil. Because is very expensive to own at home. The countryside was dark at night to forget what that means. If you lose four or five six hours a night let alone what the kind of day of manual labor, your life is shorter. That struck me. Its not just years and our life. Its life in our years. Because just as one is reading maybe 26th 27 thinking about it, how many plans i had from a life endowment of those involved be able to work at night or two things that night and they didnt have it. Their lives were effectively shorter and then the oil industry came along in 1859 edwin drake drilled the First Commercial Oil on the u. S. And it was this quote from a new yorker chemist in 1864 and what he said in effect is in the countryside they used to be dark and now it is light. That struck me as oh, my gosh, thats five years. We hear today its going to take solar and wind a long time to mature and how long how long did it take oil because i think they know how long did it take oil to go from nothing to market . Two years. Two years. Five years was so much better. What has impressed upon me was the two things. The one is energy is life and death. Energy is life and death. And the more i learned about energy, a more apparent this became. I will read you one quote that i love that they use in the book. The thing didnt take note of is this is coming from time in history, this is about coal where coal was far far dirtier than it is even in the worst place in china today by far. This is how they felt about coal. They had encountered personally the value of energy. So this was a letter to a major newspaper. And they were worried about running out of coal. They really didnt understand how much coal there was, how technology can improve your ability find it so they were worried a look at what happened with her worried that a people talked gleefully about not using fossil fuels. So the guy says coal is everything to us. Without coal our factories will become idle, our factories and workshops will be still as the great. The locomotive will rest initiative and the rail will be buried in the we took our streets will be dark our house is uninhabitable, our rivers will forget the paddlewheel and we shall again be separated by days from france, by months on the trendy. This was in britain to the post will link in its period of protracted state. 1000 special arts of manufacturers one by one than in the tribal flight into so as booms the canyons are set to disappear and the cast is dry. The next line is the one i never forget. We shall miss are granted intends as a man misses his companion, fortune or a limb. Every hour and every turn reminded of the irreparable loss. So lisa my part i felt like i got nowhere near the appreciation of how Important Energy use. In the book i elaborate a lot on that but i want to just stressed not that it is that important and the core of it is that energy is i like the term machine, like our body needs calories, so a machine needs calories. But in the u. S. Our machines to 100 times more work than we do. So they need 100 times more calories. We need to figure out food is pretty expensive for us. We need to forget what to make calories for machines that are way, way, way cheaper by the food. This is the biofuels the work. And we can produce a lot. So the first point is energy is life. The second, its Affordable Energy. If you cant afford it you cant have it. Affordable energy is life and death, and Affordable Energy is incredibly challenging. Incredibly challenging and thats what i call it the original alternative Energy Market but the oil, thats what they showed me. That its not easy to produce something that is affordable and scalable. Yet defined perimeter and get a find a really good process where you can produce a lot of it. That means when someone says a i have footstep power isnt that great because its renewable . My first inclination is thats going to be hard to do cheaply and scalability. Go for but dont take away my energy in the meantime. Feel free to try to out compete but this is part of the reason why in the whole history of civilization there are only three even partially scalable sources of energy that we have. Fossil fuels, nuclear to some extent hydroelectric which is limited by the number of sites. Nuclear doesnt really get most of the motor power things. It does electricity. So that was really striking. There are three moral views and these were the two insights about energy that i had Affordable Energy is lifeanddeath, and Affordable Energy is incredibly challenging. That led me to the last step of the journey im going to talk about and then i want to make sure we can get questions and go into some of these details. But the last one was then looking at the modern debate. Look at the modern debate. Here its important i think tobacco was a philosophy. All about how to think logically, how to think logically, particularly about the issues of right and wrong. One absolute rule of thinking logically about issues of right and wrong is you have to always look at the full context or the big picture in which means if youre considering a choice you have to look at both of the risks of it and the benefits. A negative and the positives. And if you just look at one side youre going to make really bad decision but if you dont look at them carefully, youre going to make bad decisions. And when i started reflecting on our Current Energy it struck me that it is bizarrely biased. My own education i had supposedly gone to one of the best high schools in the country and one of the best colleges in the country, and i do not nobody spent five minutes the entire time, those eight years, talking about the value of fossil fuels. Only talk about where these risks and side effects. In very dire terms, no less. And so thats just on the face of it like it was now the i know all of this about how energy how valuable, even all those risks and side effects were true which i was suspicious of given they were biased in their whole presentation in the first place, we cant have an intelligent discussion if we only look at one side of the issue. And that then maybe really interested in well, lets actually study whats the evidence of the benefits and wheres the evidence of the risks and side effects . And one thing in particular and a talk about this in the first chapter which is called the secret history of fossil fuels, one thing that struck in particular about how the risks and side effects that nobody talks about is has to do with the issue track record. Whenever were doing predictions we have to realize predictions are very, very difficult. Predicting the future is difficult to think about something about the financial crisis how many people predicted very rosy things. Life is full of this complex systems and defer dealing with Something Like Economic System or society let alone a climate which is arguably more complicated, more complicated in certain ways although it doesnt have free will in the same way you have its really hard. So if somebody claims to be able to predict this, someone sing all these really bad things, you know this dust you are using today, you know the way a clue who this morning everything the way, the thing that runs everything in your civilization its all going to destroy the world is going to in effect. The whole world, youd want to know okay, thats a big claim. How do you really know that. Even if they say lots of experts agree with it thats not too much by itself and let you really know. You have evidence that have an ability to predict. One easy question is whats the track record . Like it people making these predictions of catastrophic resource depletion, catastrophic pollution, catastrophic Climate Change, and we look at the track record of the individuals involved . Thats a great tool of knowing how good somebodys thinking methodology is. So if somebody makes very extravagant, confident claims and turns out to be completely wrong, his theory may well be wrong it is certainly wrong about his level of confidence, he does have very good judgment. What struck me is the more i read, i read this publication called access to energy which the best Energy Publication ever. I basically inhale but that thing. Its still around but the main author, peter beckman, row from 19731992 so i had this advantage even though i was born in 19 aei read the whole history of energy and a vibrant like month by month by the best guide and into the present but maybe is that 2008 or 2000 it took about. What was crazy, everyone was make all the exact same predictions back then, like the exact same prediction. We are running out of resources. Theyre predicting that in the late 60s and early 70s. So, for example, paul irwin who still one of the world leading a colleges became so popular he was invited on the tonight show over a dozen times. Imagine an election today being on jimmy found a dozen times to talk about how were going to run out of everything and he predicted income would basically be destroyed by the year 2000. And that we would run out of americas economic joyride is over. Thats what he said in the early 70s. Tons and tons of people say that. The same thing with pollution. Derrick mentioned the actual stats, instead of saying this is probably to solve they thought theres a solution, its going to be a disaster and we should pack it in and stop using fossil fuels. What ive seen and what a show in the book is that we use 25 more fossil fuels but pollution has gone way, way down. In addition to fossil fuels help us with environmental things like clean water, and then with Climate Change, thats often viewed as this is some brandnew theory. But it turns out for example, james hansen the leader in the world leading media climate scientist, he predicted in 1986 the temperature between 20002010 would rise between two and four degrees fahrenheit. That did not happen by the way. A very small fraction of degree. Its been 1. 3 degrees fahrenheit since the industrial revolution. So much of over and over is that people are completely wrong, and thats not discussed. Number one thing that showed me okay, we need to totally reexamine this issue from the perspective of lets look at all the benefits and all the risks, and lets look at the with precision. We cant just have this bias that fossil fuels must be bad or we can all look at negatives, we cant exaggerate. We need to look precisely because if you restrict one calorie of energy, you are restricting someones opportunity to use a machine to improve his life. So when we talk about lets respect our co2 emissions that means restricted energy use which means restrictor progress. If youre going to talk about that you better have a really, really good reason. In the moral case for fossil fuels thats basically my conclusion. I do my best at leisure look at all the evidence conflict about certain things are, look at all the positive, although negatives, add them up and where i get is superior good. I think the most important thing, even more than the conclusion is the message. As a society politicians like talking about we have a broken x. With a broken method of thinking that energy and my mental issues. Its incredibly biased and that serves nobody except for people who really just dont like industrial civilization. Some happy to talk about any of the issues in any kind of detail, but the point i wanted to get across today was if we have a broken method, we need to really start looking big picture about these things and part of that is what always need to recognize that the for the energy is lifeanddeath and Affordable Energy is incredible challenge. So this but i would love to take questions. [applause] all right. And when asked for you to please wait for the microphone to get to you. Just raise your hand and say name and affiliation, you can ask your question. Question. I want to do one plug for one of our papers coming up which is steve moore has gone back and look at all the things that were said during the Alaska Pipeline debate, compared that to what is being said now with these dont come and its the same thing to all the talking points on the same and none of it came through with Alaska Pipeline. Maybe ill ask you a question about the Global Warming issue generally. Is there anything different from the Global Warming agenda and say the environmental agenda from 1960 of the 1970s are one of the similar is our differences you can pick up . How the issues portrayed . The aim, the goals. So that gives me opportunity to talk about one thing that i found super helpful in coming to this issue which goes to having a background in philosophy. I was really interested in the time my mid to late teens and affirmative lawsuit which is about how we think about our relationship with the rest of nature, with our environment. What i found is most people are not aware that there are two different, that there are multiple environmental philosophies, sort of think of it as my philosophy as we all care about the environment. And that way of putting it, the invited them we care about the environment obscures a big difference. Theres one viewpoint, theres really the humanist view of environment and the nonhumanist view of environment. So the humanist view says our goal is to maximize human well being and we want an environment that will do that. So if were going to preserve for him and john is because its beautiful to us. Theres another school that says the ideal is human not impact and that means we want to impact as little as we cant even if that goes against human life. So you take Something Like the water in alaskas pretty good example. Its a place is when nobody goes. Its called the wildlife refuge which are doing the very small holes. For all intents and purposes most always on for most people but nobody wants to go there but evil hate the idea of human beings trading their so thats the idea of nonimpact is the ideal. And this goes commend Environmentalists Movement in the 60s and 70s they were more vocal about this. So, for example, a very bad word in fi mentalism until maybe the 80s was technology. Very very explicit that if youre in favor of this nonhumorous view of environment yet to be at a technology because technology, what is technology . Is using human ingenuity to transfer our environment for human purpose. But what happened is Digital Technology became so popular that it became to say im against technology. So there was im against development but those really run together. They are under basically the same thing. So i bring this up because what happens is, the viewpoint is we should impact as little as possible. Thats the ethics of it. Ethics and the metaphysics of it is how does the world look of a metaphysics is usually nature is icollege the fragile mother. So nature is as fragile mother and nature will give us everything we want it and need but only if we dont disrupted. Like if we mess with things too much, if a quoteunquote play god we are going things are going to go haywire. This viewpoint has existed for everything. Like for anesthesia, computer, every new Technology People are afraid thats going to take over the world. White house pointed is some new side effect. With fossil fuels there is a side effect. When you burn fossil fuels you can get things like sulfur can be in there, nitrogen but the main thing is you get water vapor and carbon dioxide. You get h2o and co2. Thats true that side effect does impact the atmosphere, but what happens is if you have this fragile mother view of the world you are going to suspect that thats not merely a change or even a challenge, but a catastrophe. This is the mindset that has always existed and environmentalism. This is why they are wrong about everything because they assume though, all the predictions are wrong. Basically without fail. But like ddt man is changing things, making chemicals therefore it must be a catastrophe. Its actually catastrophe not to use it. Same thing with fossil fuels but theres this assumption of catastrophe. To go back to the example so its really this philosophical bias thats driving everything and thats why people are so out of their mind about 1. 3 degrees fahrenheit in one and 50 years and theyll say some portion of it is caused by fossil fuels. Before this period ever in history always wanted it to be warmer. Always but the idea, if man does it it must be visually bad thing and thats why they rename it Climate Change even though its just warming. And whatever climate things, from warming. Even though the co2 level has been 10 times higher in history and life arrived its just a few of me may change. Its this view of the fragile mother view of nature plus the nonimpact of view of ethics. I hope that answers the question to the mindset has always been the same and so it was a brief flirtation with global cooling, based on particulate matter coming out like stuff that blocks, basically co2 of basic reflect a certain amount of heat back it was other things will reflect heat out like soda and that kind of things. It is always equating change or challenge with catastrophe. If its manmade, and no catastrophe in the state of nature. Was as a humanist i see a catastrophe in the unchanged state of nature. Is topic predictions will never change was the mindset change, lest the dogma because its an unscientific viewpoint. Time for your questions. Weve got one in the back row. Action want to ask you when you said about the three resources, cold from use of Nuclear Energy and hydroelectric. I just want to make sure that you consider hydroelectric as a renewable or nonrenewable . Sure. You never touched on it. He never said hydroelectric which is the most massive, but like the majority of good question. So first of all just be clear i wasnt it wasnt just coal nuclear and high go. It was fossil fuels. Im blending together coal, oil and natural gas but in terms of just the major energy sources. You can say either coal, oil, gas or hydro or you can save fossil fuels and explain those three. But in terms of hydro, why didnt i include hydro under renewable . Two aspects. One is mainly because the environmental us do not include them together. So if you look at what is in peaking hydroelectric development, so lets save the world has come on not sure why youre shaking your head, but if you look at what a world has in terms of hydroelectric capacity and to oppose the building of new dams, its not conservatives. Its not libertarians. It is environmentalists. So go to the sierra club website, among the list of achievements are dams that they have shut down. This is a particularly objectionable view given that the claim that there is a co2 related catastrophe. The reason i focus on solar and wind is because those are what they claim is replacement technologies that are usually not favorable to hydro. Im a huge supporter of hydro. I go through a length in the book as well as a huge supporter of nuclear. Hider is limited though by the fact that theyre only certain water sites that can accommodate it. In terms of renewable, i consider renewable a useless classification. I dont think he should think no other industry, again, you think of a renewable cell phone or renewable building. The way life works under capital is we make progress. Were always finding new ways of doing things. So the question of what should i use for fuel or what materials should use for a book is not what can i do over and over for a billion years or a million years. The question is whats the best way of doing this that mankind knows comment, then tomorrow we want to figure out an even better way to when i fill up my car with gas im not saying hey this is a is a commitment for f1 to do this to the end of time. Im saying this is a really good thing for us and i welcome other people developing of the think so when i buy my next car it can be powered by Something Else whether thats methanol or compressed natural gas or some advanced battery technology. We want whatever the best thing is. So to think of it as we want solar and wind, we should give them preference because they are renewable, that means we are settling for something inferior on the grounds that we can have something inferior forever. But why would you want it forever if it is inferior . Its a joke anyway because all the materials, only one of the components is renewable which is the son or the wind, but all the others are nonrenewable. Thats the exact same thing with oil by the way. Oil has this uncanny. It is compressed and stored solar energy. Lets tie back to the last point. Renewable as an ideal is not a scientific ideal. Its not that economic ideal. Its not a moral ideal. Its an ideal based on the idea that we should minimize our impact on the earth, that that should be our goal. People have these very woozy i did so we are living in common with nature and were taking in the sun which is complete nonsense because of course we mine the hell out of earth just to do that just as well as other things. But its this ideal of lets not impact things and also the ideal which is even worse of lets be repetitive. Thats an ideal fit for an animal, not a human being. My personal favorite is mr. Fusion, the coffee maker in the back to other questions . One in front and then over to this side. Drew schaefer with the Heritage Foundation. In terms of regulation, as a result of like very simple inherent negative externalities what do you think of like is for capandtrade programs or taxation, or what do you think at all on that topic . So theres two issues there. One is do i think that externality is a good framework for the law to operate under, and that would be no. And then too, are there externalities or negative externalities, particularly with climate issues. So the way my framework is proper lets take establish and take something more complex like the alleged danger of co2 in the atmosphere. In general, like you have to decide at a certain point in my view what threshold of a mission constitutes pollution and what doesnt. There will always be a threshold. Its important not to set it too low, which is what eb is always doing the lord is not always better. I give you an example i gave before the guy in coalbased england in the 1800s. Imagine if it imposed todays epa rolls or even 1970 epa rule for everyone but i of cold and starvation right . It would be something wrong with that and the issue is that pollution is a right to we think of it as a rights violation where youre doing physical harm to somebody but its not pollution if its something that is completely essential and unavoidable in person life. So at any given whats nice is that at any given stage of technology you can set higher and higher bars for what innocents can lower bars for pollution because you core technology. Today we can say it should be illegal to have a coal plants that they used to have. Because we have the technology. The point is that the threshold of what is and isnt pollution isnt economic and technological phenomenon to the ultimate goal must be what is the full context of what improves human life. That goes to Something Like fossil fuels, fossil fuels are the only Energy Technology that could possibly scale in the near future next several decades to provide energy for 7 billion people. Whatever you say about them and i should improve the world the planet will blow up and everyone will die you cant say that these shouldnt be allowed because they are polluting the energy is a more fundamental need and the lack of pollution at least in super pristine environment. Super pristine environment is only something we have in modern times, largely because of fossil fuels. Even the caveman, he has to sit next to a fire in breathing smoke over time. No clean air paradise whatsoever. I think the law should define, this is a scientific issue. What is the proper level of emissions. The commit all sorts of considerations like how is affected, if youre running a factor in some moves into your neighborhood, versus if you move into someones neighborhood with a factor. Say when has a much different threshold. Like if im running a factory and people start moving in they do great innocents to do with my factory versus i go into chevy chase, maryland, with a coal plants and plug it in the middle of my old neighborhood, its different. Thats the principle. It all has to be based on evidence. And this is where so much of the epa stuff is really bad because it doesnt recognize, it assumes that you should just lower everything in called the no threshold policy. They do have nuclear. If a lot of radiation is bad, no radiation must be the ideal but im getting radiation from potassium right now, and myself. You guys are just a little bit less. You have to be scientific, and that goes to the climate thing but you have to be scientific about are people actually being harmed by this . And my favorite statistic for this is lets look at how meet people are dying and climate. How may people are in danger by climate . What you find this is surprising to me, is that not only has bush hasnt increased it is decreased precipitously. In the last 80 degrees pashtun 80 Years Community times safer from club and someone eight years ago. Last you suppose let the worst year ever, less than 30,000 climate related deaths in entire world. And by that. Was in 1931 i believe it was over 3 million thats less than onethird the population. That would be like 10 million now. What does this show was . It shows us that, this goes back to the view of the nurturing mother. Its not a nurturing mother. Its a pretty tough mother. What we need to do is master nature, so the climate is naturally variable. It changes all the time. It changes dramatically and its a vicious. It attacks us all the time. So what we need to do is master it. Thats the thing. Into master climate we need energy because we need to be able to control the climate in your house. You need to build a sturdy civilization. Thats what really matters but thats what chapter five is called climate mastery. Again we are so afraid we wont be upsetting Mother Nature in these tiny little waste and were missing the big picture that 3 billion people in the world have almost no energy and thats why there vulnerable to climate. If you want to guarantee increase, guarantee safety from climate, give people access to more energy. You heard it here one tough mother earth, right . We had a couple of hands over here. Im an intern. I just want to be clear that pollution is bad it is drastically overestimate in the media, its bad but it is worth it for all the good it does . I just want to clarify. I think with anything in life, if you do addressing the risks and side effects are worth it. But at the same time the risk and side effects you want to minimize them. So the idea is that the moral thing to do is to go forward with fossil fuel use full throttle and keep improving the technology. And at the same time in parallel encouraging other technology. By encouraging i mean stop getting in the way of it. But this is but for example i believe if done properly every additional lump of coal in the system is a good thing because its giving someone the ability to use machines to improve his life which is a fundamental form of human opportunity which, you know, we need and billions of people basically have none need. I saw two more hands here and we will see if we can get through them quickly. Its my theory that environmental aspect j. Lehr the heartland institute. Its my very environmental zealots are so strongly favor wind and solar because they know they can never be widespread inexpensive and support the population of the world and a really want do not want development. They do not want the population to grow. How do you feel about my theory . I share it. No because its and its the nonimpact ideal. Ultimately, you know, you probably should be a bit more than i should but in terms of let me see if i can find this quote. I will paraphrase it. If you believe in on impact, if we should live a low impact lifestyle, then you should be against energy on principle. It doesnt matter if its perfectly clean, perfectly chick, et cetera. This is put to the test because mr. Fusion more or less in the late 80s people thought we can be fusion which is this a dream form of Nuclear Power which i wont get into the technical details, but essentially the unlimited virtually free, incredible essay. Asked some of the top people who today claim that theyre terrified of co2 people like annamarie lovins and paul ehrlich and jeremy rivkin, so what do you think of this . You would expect oh great, right . We have as much energy as one with no side effects. No they said this would be the worst thing. I forget which one said this, getting society this kind of cheap energy would be like giving an idiot child a machine gun. But thats how you do because youre supposed to minimize your impact. If i just make you as a human being 5000 times more powerful trancelike incredible, look, chicken change and move around. Ultimate f. Nine impact is the ideal, then not impact the energy is remains of impacting major with nations but thats what it does. 100 i agree. Where are we next okay . Windows have a lot of impact, especially on birds. Those to be pointed out much more aggressive. Even environmentalists shut those things down already. Epa has come up with this concoction called social cost carbon what they dont talk about social benefits of carbon, and their costs are mainly offshore. Happened someplace else, bangladesh, wherever. Heavy look at that and what are your comments because it pretty much which to what i said about climate. I think its all bogus in the sense of they are all based on extrapolations, from extrapolation from climate prediction models they cant predict climate. I mean, this is just the elephant in the room. This is just the fact that everything the u. N. Says is extrapolation from climate prediction models that cant predict climate and theyve been completed and validated by history. These have a horrible track record. You mentioned they dont look at the benefits. Its the same kind of bias. Philosophical bias, not a logical error. So the public is making a logical a or thats what i focus on think big picture and whites good to point out social benefits for carbon the people coming up with these social costs are not innocent. Their antiindustrial and theyre just looking for ways to scare people. We have time for one more if there are any more questions. Right over here. Im just an interested citizen, but the question i have for you goes to the solution and the role that conservatives inadvertently play in the problem. Conservatives generally favor in legal construction difference to the agency. Because they dont like courts overturning governmental decisions, but deference to the agency here is part launch for epa. What is your practical substitutes solution to the problems you have outlined . In terms of the sea to subject, its easy. Stop attacking it, stop regarded as something that is legally actionable whatsoever. So thats easy. Then theres the question of how you have the right solution standards and ultimately its a big issue. I am much more of the view that they should be resolved much more and courts actually bound by an agency like the be a. So thats a good essay in the book climate coup which is a pretty good critique of the executive state and this issue and as a positive alternative. I am in that school but it is tough but not my focus. Part of the reason why its a moral case is to evaluate what is the impact on human life and then give certain rough political guidance but thats a guide for policymakers to say we cannot be trying to outlaw this stuff thats fundamentally good for human life. Thats what im attempting to do with the book but theres ton more work to do be on that. Good news. We have copies of the book outside and im sure he would be happy to sign them. Great. Please join me in thanking alex, and thank you for coming. [applause]. Brought to you as a Public Service by your local cable or satellite provider. Host fcc chairman tom wheeler has presented his Net Neutrality proposal to the other commissioners. The vote in the federal Communications Commission is due on february 36th. 26th. Joining us on the communicators this week to talk about that is fcc special counsel gigi sohn. Gautham nagesh of the wall street journal is our guest reporter. Gigi sohn, about a month or so ago chairman wheeler talked about a different proposal that