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Why You Should Love Fossil Fuel | 5 Minute Video

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Every year on Earth Day we learn how bad humanity’s economic development is for the health of the planet. But maybe this is the wrong message. Maybe we should instead reflect on how human progress, even use of fossil fuels, has made our environment cleaner and healthier. Alex Epstein of the Center for Industrial Progress explains.

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Script:

Every year on Earth Day, we’re supposed to reflect on all the ways we’ve made the planet worse. But what if we try something different? What if we reflect on all the ways we’ve made the planet better?

Try this thought experiment:
Imagine that we transported someone from three hundred years ago, at the very start of the Industrial Revolution, to today’s world. What would he think about our environment? Without question, his reaction would be one of disbelief; not that we had destroyed his pristine, natural world, but that such a clean, healthy environment was possible.

“The air is so clean,” our time traveler might say. “Where I come from, we’re breathing in smoke all day from the fire we need to burn in our furnaces and stoves.”

“And the water. Everywhere I go, the water tastes so fresh, and it’s all safe to drink. On my farm, we get our water from a brook we share with animals, and my kids are always getting sick.”

“And then the weather. I mean, the weather isn’t that much different, but you’re so much safer in it; you can move a knob and make it cool when it’s hot, and warm when it’s cold.”

“And what happened to all the disease? In my time, we had insects everywhere giving us disease — my neighbor’s son died of malaria — and you don’t seem to have any of that here. What’s your secret?”

I’d tell him that the secret was energy, specifically energy derived from fossil fuels — oil, coal and natural gas. These fuels power machines that allow us to transform our naturally hazardous environment into a far healthier environment. Most of the natural world is too hot or too cold, has too much rainfall or not enough. Then there’s bacteria-filled water, disease carrying insects, tornadoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, to name just few of nature’s other unpleasant features.

As our time traveler noted, 300 years ago human beings spent a lot of time breathing polluted air from indoor fires. As unhealthy as it was, it was worth the warmth. But we’ve been able to conquer all these environmental hazards. We’ve drained swamps, reclaimed land, cleared forests, built roads, constructed glass and steel skyscrapers. We’ve irrigated deserts, developed fertilizers and pesticides, linked oceans — all of it in humanity’s incredibly successful effort to create a safer, cleaner, more habitable world. And we did most of this using machines running on cheap, plentiful, reliable energy from fossil fuels.

To be sure, using that energy has carried risks and created negative by-products. But thanks to technology, we get better and better at minimizing and neutralizing those risks. Los Angeles was once smog city. Now its air is cleaner than it’s been in decades. London’s Thames River was once clogged with sewage; now it’s clean.

For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/why-you-should-love-fossil-fuel

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43 Comments

  7. 0:40 "man, I'm so glad I get to breathe air instead of standing next to my furnace and inhaling smoke!" how in the world is this relevant? Not to mention, pollution levels across the globe and air quality are the worst they've ever been in history. In China, specifically Beijing, you risk lung disease or worse if you don't wear a mask outdoors.

    0:53 Flint water crisis. African water crisis. Ganges and Seine rivers. Fresh water is becoming more and more polluted and inaccessible.

    1:00 The weather could not be more different. The global temperatures have risen dramatically. The sea levels are rising because ice is melting at catastrophic rates. Four of the last five years have each been the recorded hottest years in history.

    1:13 Tuberculosis crisis in Russia. HIV and AIDS spreading like wildfire in Africa and Asia. The COVID pandemic. Malaria.

    1:26 No, the secret was scientific advancement. Energy merely fuels the inventions we've created. Energy by itself is completely useless.

    1:30 We only need energy, not from any specific source. Costa Rica, as an example, is running on 99.7% green energy, with projections to be 100% clean in the near future.

    1:41 The Earth is not "naturally hazardous." It's existed for billions of years. The hazards like pollution, water crises, weather crises, and disease, really started, oh, around 1760. Interestingly enough, that's when the Industrial Revolution began.

    1:46 People have been living in the "too hot" and "too cold", "too much rainfall" and "not enough" for hundreds and thousands of years. By the way, fossil fuels and pollution have only pushed these problems to their extremes, with hot temperatures, cold temperatures, rainfall, and drought being the highest and lowest in recorded history. Same with tornadoes, earthquakes. and tsunamis.

    2:05 Chimneys have existed since around the 11th century AD, a time period our time traveler more than clears. The "pollution" from "indoor fires" was no worse than it is today. The "outside air" is way more polluted. This argument is literally saying that fireplaces make your house hard to breathe, which, if you've ever owned a fireplace, is not true.

    2:14 These are all bad things for the environment. Clearing forests and draining swamps are destructive. How do you not realize this.

    2:23 Both of which are harming the soil and making it closer to unusable. There are estimates that the year 2029 will be our last-ever harvest because the soil is being destroyed.

    2:29 the world is not safer, or cleaner, or even more habitable. If you're wondering why the African crisis is so bad and why can't they just live like African tribes did peacefully hundreds of years ago, it's because of us and fossil fuels.

    2:37 This is true, and has started killing the earth in the process. Not to mention that "reliable" is not a word I would use for fossil fuels.

    2:45 No, we're getting worse, because the risks are piling up and starting to take effect.

    2:50 This is because Los Angeles enacted regulations minimizing pollution and the use of fossil fuels. The exact same thing applies to the Thames.

    3:06 The US being safe is debatable. The US being healthy is false. The US being clean is intentionally and maliciously misleading. The US has ranked #1 in global emissions for almost two straight decades, and is currently in the top 5 most polluted countries in the world.

    3:19 the water point does not work for reasons I've already brought up.

    3:43 heat waves and cold waves are killing thousands of Americans each year.

    3:57 "We" is misleading here. Access to healthy food from grocery stores, year-round, is only in middle and upper class communities in highly developed countries.

    4:01 Natural beauty that we're slowly destroying.

    4:16 The life expectancy in many nations is decreasing by the year, namely Sierra Leone and Somalia.

    4:22 Our society lives much better. But the Earth is not even close to a better place to live. We've made it so much worse it's laughable.

    4:29 Because our life will soon not be better than ever if it continues down this path. You're looking solely into the past and present and not at all into the future.

    4:48 If by "mastering nature" you mean "shrinking an entire continent 40%", "making countless species extinct and thousands of others endangered", "punching a hole in the ozone layer", "deforesting at catastrophic rates", "polluting the air beyond conceivable repair", and "destroying thousands of miles of coastline, including trees and animals, by raising the ocean levels by several feet", then yes, we've survived and flourished.

    4:52 this is precisely how the planet will get destroyed by human beings.

    This video is maybe the worst PragerU video I've ever seen. I'm barely 18, about to head in college, and can refute almost every point made in this video off of the top of my head with basic knowledge and reasoning. This is intentionally harmful and misleading and we will lose Earth if we continue to think like this.

  15. Okay so as you said,
    ‘breathing in the smoke of fire all day was worth the warmth’
    Then we developed fossil fuel technology and likewise you consider it worth the progress to pollute the atmosphere. I won’t argue that it hasn’t had a substantial impact on our day to day comfort.

    However, to then suggest that we shouldn’t now pursue green energy sources which can give us the benefits of global energy without as heavy downsides for the environment is CRAZY?!
    Truthfully even if you deny climate change, the air quality in cities is still poor and we CAN change that by pursuing green energy. There is no reason other than feeding the greedy corporate chase for endless profits to praise Oil and claim that recognising the impacts it has on our climate and campaigning for new energy sources is somehow hurting the fossil fuel’s feelings.

    If we are truly in the pursuit of a cleaner and safer environment for ourselves then now that we’ve come this far on the back of fossil fuels, let’s now take this opportunity of the emerging green energy field, to make our environment once again safer and cleaner by switching from burning harmful gases to collecting solar, geothermal, tidal and wind energy.

    Stop praising oil companies. Embrace the evolution of technology rather than the stagnation of it for the benefit of a few CEOs and Oil Barrons.

    Flat out “We need to think how we can improve the planet for human beings“ is the greatest argument against fossil fuels. We’ve used them to great benefit, it is now time that we absolutely should be seeking alternatives.

  17. The US population in 1776 was just 2.5 million. So the pollution from fireplaces would have been miniscule compared to the millions of cars on the road today. And we didn't drain swamps, reclaim land, clear forests, and built roads to create a safer, cleaner, more-habitable world. It was done to make money. I don't even understand how you could come to any other conclusion or how destruction of natural habitats makes the planet cleaner and safer.

    While I agree with him when it comes to water cleanliness and diseases for the most part, if all we do is compare ourselves to our distant past, then there's no reason to improve what's wrong today.

  22. We have no other form of energy that are as portable as oil. But there are even better use for it. All the idiots making noise about getting off oil, they tend to forget we need the by-products just as much, actually oil may be regarded one day as too precious to burn away as fuel. But the refining process nowadays, we will always have some gas and diesel left over as part of the products. If we do get off oil, what will we do with them, maybe dump it all into the river?? and invite Greta Thunburge to swim in it ??

  28. Yes. It's a mistake to act as though fossil fuels haven't done any good, or haven't been important. It's also a mistake to think that trying to transition to a less-efficient source of energy is a good solution to the problems we have. That said, I'm open to new discoveries in energy technology, and the incorporation of more, and more efficient sources of energy can only be a good thing, provided they don't come with significant drawbacks.

    Nuclear is great! A wonderful source of cheap power, which is safe, green and easily-maintained. However, you need responsible citizens to care for and protect it from terrorist thugs, and it's not the sort of thing you can set up in your basement. This would be a great power solution for any area which is close enough to a major population center that the abundance of energy it produces would be used, but not so close, that the crime in such areas would threaten the plant itself. The potential of Thorium reactors in particular offers a safer, easier method of running a nuclear plant today.

    Solar is a decent power source for individual homes in places that get lots of sun, but the materials needed to build the panels are costly and not easily obtained, the panels can be easily damaged or broken by local wildlife if they're not put on a roof or somewhere else up high. Of course, this is not a good solution for mountainous or wooded areas, or places with lots of tall buildings around, and would be almost totally useless in areas that get little sunlight. Even at its best, solar energy generates a much smaller amount of power than gas or nuclear can. There's also the risk of electrical fires to consider, which isn't small. Solar panels have a history of catching fire with little provocation, much like Teslas do, and for the same reason, and if it's on your roof when that happens, the fire might be hard to put out. Overall, solar has its uses, but yields little power with big risks and drawbacks.

    Wind is quite possibly the least efficient and safe means of generating power. Even assuming that you live in a broad, flat location that gets plenty of wind, the blades of the wind generator, as well as the pole it's placed on need to be made of very strong and expensive materials, in order to harness the power of the wind, without being knocked over by it. This type of power is also very dangerous for local birds, so it would be better to try to farm wind power out on a platform on the ocean, far enough away that birds wouldn't approach, rather than try to set them up on land. This would also limit the risk to nearby structures, if the pole did topple. However, the problem then becomes how to get the power back to land without it releasing electrical charges into the water. All of this is so expensive, that there's virtually no chance the power will pay for itself, considering how little power wind generates.

    Hydrogen can be used to generate a huge amount of force, and therefore a huge amount of power. The problem is that the force is generated almost instantly, to the point where it's almost impossible to safely contain or harness it, with our current level of technology.

    I've heard stories of other potential sources of power being proposed. One young boy was able to design a magnetically-powered generator, which used an electric charge to disrupt the rotation of a wheel of magnets just enough to allow it to continually rotate. The force of the magnetic pull apparently generated nine times as much power as it expended, but even if this feat could be reproduced, the expensive magnets he used would make it impractical for mass-production or use.

    There was also a man who claimed to be able to use low-level energy pulses to ignite seawater, potentially opening up an even more abundant source of energy than oil, but he said he'd need a couple of years to make it work in an efficient, marketable manner, and that was over four years ago. I've heard nothing of his claims since then.

    So unless someone has a better and more efficient power source to propose than the ones listed, which works well, and isn't so expensive to run, while also generating a high enough level of power, to maintain our current levels of energy consumption, it looks like oil is going to have to be a part of our energy production methods for a little while longer.

  36. Amazing clarity that rings more true the further down the rat hole the green movement takes us. We need to stop the nonsense and acknowledge all the truths that Alex presents if anything to save ourselves from…our own guilt driven by those who desire to manipulate us and use a ultra complex system such as the climate as their guide

  39. "These fuels power machines that allow us to transform our naturally hazardous environment into a far healthier environment."
    Maybe in wealthy countries, but our continued use of fossil fuels is making the naturally hazardous environment WORSE for poorer countries in the global south.

  41. Environmentalists incorrectly believe that the Earth is some kind of pristine place of purity and harmony, that humans, like a parasite are wrecking. In fact, the Earth is a hostile place that will kill you. Humans have made it more livable with each passing decade.

  43. Your points are absolutely right , but we still should consider about scarcity of natural resources like water supplies and forests and try to make industrial processes more efficient and less harmful.