Book Review: Fossil Future
In contrast to the seminal works of Shellenberger, Lomborg, and Koonin (all of which are reviewed on this site), Epstein’s Fossil Future is relatively light on statistics, references, and charts. This seems to be purposeful and it is brilliant! While Fossil Future is a lengthy work - 480 pages - worthy of a full read I also think it can be distilled into one chart and a couple of paragraphs.
Instead of trying to convince people with the facts, Epstein has taken an entirely different tact altogether – making an emotional, moral appeal that we need to start caring about humans again. Instead of accepting the net-zero narrative that’s inherently anti-human, Epstein argues advanced societies should be discussing energy through the moral lense of human flourishing. It’s a concept so simple that your five-year-old is able to comprehend it. The simplicity of the argument is what makes this work such a novel work.
Bluntly stated, it is not moral to force nearly 1 billion people (roughly one-eighth of the global population) to die premature deaths because a Democrat Progressive Environmentalist in Seattle, Washington thinks a tree is worth more than their collective billion lives. Epstein has forced the discussion back to where it should have been for the past decade, where we value human life. He also brings the concept of externalities back into focus. For too long academics have gotten away with intellectual murder, myopically factoring in only the negative externalities using egregious exaggerations, and without giving credence to the positive externalities which seemingly overwhelm the negative ones.
His work in Fossil Future is reminiscent of one of my favorite authors, Hans Rosling, whose work in Factfulness corrected my many misunderstandings about the world we live in. As Mr. Rosling taught me, the world is a far better place than the news cycle and governments would have you believe! Figure 4.1 sings in harmony.
I’m glad to see Alex getting the attention he deserves. Earth was a difficult place for humans to flourish for more than 2 million years - right up into the 1800s. It has only been in the past 150 years (0.01% of history) or so that humans have begun to flourish and life spans have dramatically improved. We must price in the POSITIVE EXTERNALITIES that fossil fuels enable. Modern civilization, the most peaceful period in history, is predicated upon our wise use of fossil fuels!
Buy your copy of Fossil Future
Many thanks to Alex Epstein for providing an advance copy of Fossil Future.