The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

In the winter of 2009, a college student at a California farmers' market challenged everything we thought we knew about energy and human progress. When confronted by a Greenpeace activist demanding an end to fossil fuel use, philosopher Alex Epstein made a startling claim: humanity should use more fossil fuels, not less. This seemingly radical position would soon reveal one of the most profound untold stories of our time.

For decades, we've been taught that fossil fuels represent humanity's greatest mistake, a destructive addiction threatening our planet's future. Yet beneath this narrative lies a hidden history that challenges everything. What if the very energy sources we've been conditioned to fear have actually created the longest, healthiest, most prosperous lives in human history? What if the data reveals not catastrophe, but unprecedented human flourishing? This exploration unveils how coal, oil, and natural gas transformed civilization from desperate survival to remarkable abundance, and why understanding this transformation matters more than ever for our future.

The 1970s marked a turning point in how humanity viewed its relationship with energy. Leading intellectuals and scientists proclaimed with absolute certainty that fossil fuel use would lead to imminent catastrophe. Paul Ehrlich, the decade's most influential ecological thinker, declared that "the battle to feed humanity is over," predicting massive famines and civilizational collapse. The Club of Rome's bestselling "The Limits to Growth" used sophisticated computer models to prove we would run out of oil by 1992 and natural gas by 1993.

These weren't fringe voices but mainstream authorities. John Holdren, now President Obama's science advisor, warned that carbon dioxide-induced famines could kill a billion people before 2020. The media amplified these dire forecasts, with Life magazine reporting that urban dwellers would need gas masks to survive air pollution by 1985. Energy expert Amory Lovins insisted we already had too much electricity, dismissing the very foundation of what would become the digital revolution.

The proposed solution was radical restriction of fossil fuel use, combined with immediate transition to renewable energy sources like solar and wind. These technologies were heralded as cutting-edge replacements that could power civilization while saving the planet. Political leaders embraced these warnings, with President Carter declaring we could "use up all proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade."

Yet something remarkable happened that completely contradicted these predictions. Instead of restricting fossil fuel use, humanity nearly doubled it between 1980 and 2012. This increase was most dramatic in developing nations, where countries like China and India increased their fossil fuel consumption by over 400 percent. According to every expert forecast, this should have triggered unprecedented catastrophe. Instead, it produced the greatest improvement in human welfare in recorded history.

The transformation of human civilization through fossil fuel energy represents one of history's most dramatic turning points. For over 99 percent of human existence, people lived in what can only be described as energy poverty. Without access to cheap, plentiful, reliable energy, the average person possessed the power equivalent of a 100-watt lightbulb, barely enough for basic survival. Most humans spent their entire lives in grueling physical labor simply to secure enough calories for the next day.

Coal changed everything by providing humanity's first source of concentrated, stored energy on a massive scale. The steam engine, powered by coal, amplified human capability beyond anything previously imaginable. As economist William Stanley Jevons observed in 1865, coal became "the material energy of the country, the universal aid, the factor in everything we do." This wasn't hyperbole but recognition of energy's fundamental role in human progress.

The oil revolution that followed proved even more transformative. Unlike previous energy sources, oil provided portable power with an extraordinary strength-to-weight ratio. A single gallon of gasoline contains 31,000 calories, equivalent to fifteen days of human energy. This portability enabled the transportation revolution that connected global markets, facilitated rapid communication, and made possible the complex supply chains that define modern civilization.

Natural gas completed the fossil fuel trinity by providing clean-burning energy that could quickly scale up or down to meet changing electricity demands. Together, these three energy sources created something unprecedented in human history: the ability for ordinary people to live like the wealthy elites of previous centuries. Modern Americans have access to the energy equivalent of ninety-three human workers, transforming everyone into energy-powered supermen capable of miraculous feats of productivity and creativity.

The relationship between fossil fuels and climate represents perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of energy policy. While it's true that burning fossil fuels releases carbon dioxide, creating a mild warming effect through the greenhouse mechanism, the predicted climate catastrophes have consistently failed to materialize. Computer models from the 1980s predicted dramatic temperature increases that never occurred, with reality showing far more modest warming than any major climate model suggested.

More importantly, the focus on potential climate risks has obscured fossil fuels' remarkable climate benefits. As fossil fuel use has increased dramatically over the past eighty years, climate-related deaths have plummeted by an incredible 98 percent. This means humans are fifty times safer from climate dangers today than they were in the early twentieth century. Whether facing droughts, floods, storms, or temperature extremes, modern fossil fuel-powered civilization provides unprecedented protection through sturdy buildings, rapid disaster response, efficient transportation, and advanced warning systems.

The environmental story follows a similar pattern of predicted disaster contradicted by actual improvement. Despite massive increases in fossil fuel use since 1980, air quality in developed nations has dramatically improved, with major pollutants declining by over 60 percent. Water quality has similarly improved, with the percentage of people worldwide having access to clean water rising from under 80 percent to over 90 percent. These improvements reflect fossil fuels' enabling of water purification systems, waste treatment facilities, and pollution control technologies.

Even more striking is fossil fuels' role in environmental restoration. The carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels acts as atmospheric fertilizer, dramatically increasing plant growth worldwide. Agricultural yields have soared, helping feed a growing global population while allowing marginal farmland to return to forest. This "global greening" effect represents one of the largest environmental improvements in human history, yet it receives virtually no attention in climate discussions.

The human impact of increased fossil fuel use over the past four decades reads like a catalog of miracles. Global life expectancy has risen from sixty-three to seventy years, meaning hundreds of millions of people have gained years of life they never would have experienced. Child mortality has fallen from 115 to 47 deaths per 1,000 births, translating to millions of children who survived infancy thanks to fossil fuel-powered medical care, heating, transportation, and food production.

Perhaps most remarkable is the conquest of malnutrition and hunger. Despite dire predictions that increasing population would outstrip food production, global undernourishment has plummeted by 40 percent since 1990. This achievement required the fossil fuel-powered transformation of agriculture through mechanized farming, synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation systems, and global transportation networks. Modern agriculture essentially uses fossil fuels to convert ancient solar energy into contemporary food abundance.

The developing world has experienced the most dramatic improvements. Countries that embraced fossil fuel development, particularly in Asia, have seen unprecedented rises in living standards. China and India, despite increasing their fossil fuel use by over 400 percent, have experienced corresponding increases in life expectancy, income, and overall quality of life. These nations have lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty through industrialization powered primarily by coal, oil, and natural gas.

The benefits extend far beyond basic survival to encompass human flourishing in its fullest sense. Cheap energy enables education by freeing children from labor, facilitates scientific research through labor-saving devices, powers the medical equipment that performs life-saving procedures, and creates the transportation systems that connect families and cultures. Every aspect of human development, from art and literature to space exploration, depends fundamentally on access to abundant, affordable energy.

The concept of sustainability, as commonly understood, fundamentally misunderstands how human progress works. Rather than facing finite limits that require rationing and restriction, humanity stands at the beginning of an era of unprecedented resource abundance. The key insight is that resources aren't simply extracted from nature but created through human ingenuity and energy. Oil wasn't a resource until humans developed the knowledge and technology to find, extract, and refine it into useful products.

Today's proven reserves of fossil fuels represent only a tiny fraction of the hydrocarbons that exist in Earth's crust. Technological advances like hydraulic fracturing have already unlocked vast new oil and gas resources previously considered unreachable. Coal reserves alone could power current global civilization for over 3,000 years. Beyond that, advancing technology continues to turn formerly useless raw materials into valuable resources, from oil sands to methane hydrates to entirely new extraction techniques not yet imagined.

The question isn't whether we'll "run out" of energy resources, but whether we'll have the freedom and ingenuity to continue creating new ones. Each generation inherits not just the physical infrastructure built by its predecessors, but more importantly, the accumulated knowledge of how to transform matter and energy to meet human needs. This knowledge base grows exponentially, meaning future generations will have capabilities we can barely comprehend.

The moral imperative for continued fossil fuel development becomes clear when considering the 1.3 billion people who still lack access to electricity and the billions more who have inadequate energy for truly prosperous lives. Restricting the development of our best current energy technologies in favor of expensive, unreliable alternatives doesn't serve future generations, it condemns present ones to energy poverty. True sustainability means using today's best energy sources to create the knowledge, wealth, and technology that will power tomorrow's even better solutions.

The hidden history of fossil fuels reveals a profound contradiction between expert predictions and actual outcomes. For over forty years, leading authorities have forecasted environmental catastrophe and civilizational collapse from fossil fuel use, yet every measurable aspect of human welfare has dramatically improved as fossil fuel consumption increased. Climate safety has reached unprecedented levels, environmental quality has improved markedly, and human flourishing has expanded to billions previously trapped in poverty and early death.

This pattern reflects a deeper truth about human progress: we don't survive by minimizing our impact on nature, but by intelligently transforming our environment to meet our needs. Fossil fuels represent concentrated solar energy from millions of years ago, providing the power to build water treatment plants, hospitals, transportation systems, and all the infrastructure of modern civilization. The moral case for fossil fuels ultimately rests on recognizing that human life is the standard of value, and that abundant energy is humanity's most powerful tool for flourishing. Rather than viewing fossil fuel use as a necessary evil to be phased out, we should embrace it as a supreme virtue that enables billions to live longer, healthier, more fulfilling lives while creating the knowledge and wealth that will power an even better future.