by Alex Epstein
Author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” and “Fossil Future”
Our rigged conversation about energy and climate
Just as legal systems can be rigged, so can cultural conversations
We are all familiar with the idea of a legal system that is rigged against certain types of people. For example, in the classic To Kill a Mockingbird, the legal system of (fictional) Maycomb County, AL, has a deep racist bias against black individuals that dismisses strong evidence of their innocence and embraces pseudo-evidence of their guilt.
A rigged legal system inevitably leads to immoral results—as captured by the saga of Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird, a good man who, after resisting the sexual advances of a white woman, was arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for rape.
Just as it is possible for a legal system to be rigged, so it is also possible for a culture’s intellectual conversation to be rigged. To continue with the example of racism, it is unfortunately commonplace throughout history for the conversation about particular racial minorities to be rigged. One element this almost always involves is ignoring the positives of individuals in the disfavored group and exaggerating or fabricating negatives.
For example, in (the unfortunately numerous) anti-Semitic cultures it is commonplace to ignore any positive attributes and contributions of individuals of Jewish descent, while fabricating the idea that all Jews are miserly and uncaring.
4 common ways in which cultural conversations are rigged
4 common dimensions in which a culture’s intellectual conversation can be rigged are:
- Bad thinking methods. For example, with racist conversations, the aforementioned examples of ignoring positives and exaggerating or fabricating negatives.
- Misleading terminology. For example, criticisms of Jews as “greedy” misleadingly associate 1) financial success earned by productive achievement, a good thing, with 2) getting money by uncaringly exploiting others, a bad thing.
- False assumptions. For example, racist cultural conversations falsely assume that an individual’s ideas and character are determined by their skin color.
- Anti-human values. For example, racist cultural conversations treat some categories of human beings as intrinsically non-valuable.
Rigged conversations are common—no conspiracy required
To say that a conversation is “rigged” is not to assert a conspiracy in which a few people covertly decide to craft a cultural conversation with bad thinking methods, misleading terminology, false assumptions, and/or anti-human values. (Although this can happen.)
It is to recognize that very frequently, for whatever set of reasons, cultural conversations operate on bad thinking methods, misleading terminology, false assumptions, and anti-human values that rig them against coming to true and pro-human conclusions.
And the cultural conversation that I study, the conversation around energy and climate, is rigged to a degree that almost no one can imagine.
To counter the rigging you must first understand it
To help you counter the rigged nature of this conversation, I will identify 12 distortions that rig our global energy and climate conversation to reach the deadly conclusion that we should rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use to prevent climate catastrophe.
By making you aware of these distortions, I hope to
- Help you point them out explicitly whenever they occur (which is all the time).
- Help you lead and have energy/climate conversations without these distortions.
After explaining the 12 distortions I’ll share some of my favorite “talking points” that reframe—de-rig—the conversation, so that we can make others see the truth.
12 distortions around which the energy and climate conversation is rigged
- (Bad thinking method) Looking only at the negative side-effects of fossil fuels, while ignoring the massive and unique benefits of fossil fuels.
- (Bad thinking method) Only looking at the positives of solar and wind while ignoring obvious negatives. E.g., praising solar and wind as “secure” because they don’t depend on Russia like oil and gas do, when in fact they depend on China far more than oil and gas depend on Russia.
- (Bad thinking method) Only looking at the negatives of CO2 emissions while ignoring the positives (such as greater plant growth and the prevention of cold-related deaths—which far outnumber heat-related deaths).
- (Bad thinking method) Engaging in “partial cost accounting” for solar and wind—claiming they are cheap by only looking at some of their costs (e.g., solar panels, wind turbines) while ignoring other huge costs (e.g., the cost of 24/7 life support for an unreliable input that can easily go near-0).
- (Bad thinking method) Ignoring the massive climate-related benefits of fossil fuels—their benefits in helping us master climate danger—even though these benefits have thus far overwhelmed any negative climate side-effects of fossil fuels.
- (Misleading terminology) Using the vague term “climate change,” which conflates some human impact on climate (which the vast majority of climate scientists agree with) with catastrophic human impact on climate (which is not supported by climate science and economics).
- (Misleading terminology) Using “climate crisis” or “climate emergency” as the basic noun to refer to the state of today’s climate—thereby asserting a catastrophe without needing to provide any evidence.
- (Misleading terminology) Using the terms “energy” and “electricity” interchangeably, even though the vast majority of the energy that powers our machines is not electricity but the direct burning of fossil fuels for transportation, industrial heat, or residential heat. This (along with “partial cost accounting,” helps promote the false idea that solar and wind electricity can rapidly replace all fossil fuel energy.
- (False assumption) Treating climate (and, more broadly unimpacted nature) as a “delicate nurturer”: a stable, sufficient, safe phenomenon that human impact ruins, when in fact climate (and more broadly unimpacted nature) is dynamic, deficient, and dangerous—and human impact makes it a lot safer (e.g., irrigation radically reduces drought-related deaths).
- (Anti-human value) Treating today’s global energy use as sufficient or even excessive, when in fact most of the world is desperately lacking in energy. E.g., 3 billion people use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator.
- (Anti-human value) Treating human impact on climate, and more broadly human impact on nature, as intrinsically bad. E.g., assuming all “climate change” is bad even though rising CO2 clearly leads to beneficial greening and warming will clearly save many lives in many places (far more people die of cold than of heat).
- (Anti-human value) Making eliminating human impact on climate at all costs (e.g., “net zero”) our number one global climate, energy, and political goal—instead of embracing the proper, pro-human goals of maximizing climate livability, human empowerment, and human flourishing.
Countering our rigged conversation about energy and climate
Understanding the distortions around which our energy/climate conversation is rigged is one key to countering them, because once you understand these distortions you can explicitly and effectively point them out.
3 other keys are:
- Explaining what you think is the right way to think about energy and climate issues—not just criticizing the wrong ways.
- Explaining the essential facts about energy and climate that are relevant to policy-making—not just counters to various myths.
- Advocating a positive energy and climate policy—not just negatively reacting to bad ones…
See Alex Epstein’s “Energy Talking Points” website here
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