In this issue:
- Our use of fossil fuels is an achievement, not an addiction
- Power Hour: Heat waves and blackouts, Berkeley’s natural gas ban, and calls for a climate moonshot
Our use of fossil fuels is an achievement, not an addiction
This morning I spoke at an event of the Boilermakers—a labor union representing many vital professions within the coal and oil industries. One of the key ideas I shared is that we should think of our use of fossil fuels as an achievement. We are taught today to think of our use of fossil fuels as an addiction—an unnecessary, self-destructive habit that is convenient in the short run but will destroy us in the long run. But the reason humanity uses fossil fuels for over 80% of its energy—and that fossil fuel use continues to grow every year despite massive cultural opposition—is not convenience or habit. It is that the millions of individuals in the fossil fuel industry have achieved the ability to produce every form of power we need to flourish at far lower costs and in far larger quantities than any other industry can. I told the audience today that it is crucial that they view their work as an achievement. An achievement is something that is both extremely positive and extremely difficult. An achievement is something that is difficult to match and scary to lose. An achievement is something that the achievers are proud to be associated with, and that critics have trouble criticizing. The more we recognize our use of fossil fuels as an achievement, the better chance we have of preserving and expanding the unprecedented human flourishing it makes possible.
Power Hour: Heat waves and blackouts, Berkeley’s natural gas ban, and calls for a climate moonshot
On this week’s Power Hour, Steffen and Don covered six topics:
- The ubiquity of anti-human thinking
- Heat waves and blackouts
- Will climate change cause Tuvalu to drown?
- Berkeley bans natural gas
- Hiding the costs of climate restrictions
- A climate change moonshot?