Alex Epstein, author of ‘The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels’, joined Fox & Friends to discuss the Paris Climate Accord and the important role oil and gas play in our economy. Video here:
Host: Is Trump right to pull out of UN Paris Climate Pact?
Alex: Sometimes in the world there are very destructive fads that many world leaders accept. In the 20th century we had socialism. Today we have climate catastrophism which sacrifices billions of peoples’ access to affordable energy to this ideal of some perfect mythical unchanged climate.
I think Trump had an obligation to stand up both for Americans, but also for 3 billion energy poor people throughout the world.
Fox News Host: If you listen to leaders of other countries, they say America’s being left behind, we’re on the sidelines. Would you call it that, or would you say that President Trump is showing leadership by sticking out from the crowd?
Alex: It’s called the Paris Climate Accord, which is pretty vague. I think it should be called the Paris Poverty Plan, because all it really does is it makes energy more expensive. Instead of liberating every source of energy, including fossil fuels, including nuclear power, you have people who are making energy more expensive by taxing fossil fuels, and to hypocritically oppose nuclear power and fracking, which are the two big ways of reducing CO2 emissions.
Host: Then Alex, why do they like this accord so much?
Alex: If you look throughout history, a lot of movements like control over the individual. In the 20th Century it was collectivism, particularly socialism, and today there is this idea that human beings left free are going to ruin the planet. So a lot of people like the idea that their power is somehow necessary for the planet and for humanity…
If we really care about human flourishing — if that’s our goal — not untouched nature, but human flourishing, then we need to use more fossil fuels not less. Not because fossil fuels are perfect, but because the positives far outweigh the negatives and the risk of not using them are catastrophic.
In general you have this tendency to only look at the negatives of things that people don’t like, like fossil fuels. And then to only look at the positives that they do like solar and wind which are called renewables but should be called unreliables.”
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