Energy Sound Bites on Fossil Fuels, Part 3

Originally published: August 6, 2024

Over the last 2 weeks I shared Energy Sound Bites to support two core truths about fossil fuels:
1) We must think about fossil fuels in a balanced way. 2) Only by using fossil fuels can 8 billion people have the energy they need to survive and flourish.

Today, I’ll share Energy Sound Bites to support the third core truth: The climate positives of fossil fuels far outweigh the climate negatives.

As a reminder, the goal of Energy Sound Bites is to distill key facts and insights about energy, environmental, and climate issues into a form—100 characters or less—that’s short enough to remember and repeat whenever you need them.

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The climate positives of fossil fuels far outweigh the climate negatives

• When looking at the climate effects of fossil fuels, we must look at both negatives and positives.

  • We can’t just look at how warming increases heat waves, we also must look at lives saved from cold.

• Fossil fuels’ biggest climate positive is the ability to master climate danger.

  • Fossil fueled cooling allows us to dramatically reduce danger from heat.
  • Fossil fueled heating allows us to dramatically reduce danger from cold.
  • Fossil fueled irrigation allows us to dramatically reduce danger from drought.
  • Fossil fueled evacuation systems allow us to dramatically reduce danger from storms.

• By powering climate mastery fossil fuels can actually neutralize many of their climate challenges.

  • If fossil fuels increased drought 10% they could overwhelm that via irrigation and crop transport.

• Fossil fueled climate mastery has easily overwhelmed any climate challenges so far.

  • Fossil fueled climate mastery has helped us become safer than ever from climate.
  • The climate death rate is 98% less than it was 100 years ago.¹
  • The drought death rate is 99% less than it was 100 years ago.²
  • Climate has warmed about 1° C, a mild and manageable amount, over the last 170 years.³

  • Other climate effects are hard to discern, but in any case they are overwhelmed by mastery.

    • At 2°C warming, hurricanes are expected to be less frequent and between 1-10% more intense.⁴
    • Fire danger, which depends mainly on mastery, is down from 20 years ago and far down than 100 years ago.⁵
    • GDP-adjusted climate-related damages are flat despite many incentives for them to go up.⁶

• Nothing in mainstream climate science suggests climate challenges we can’t master

  • Even though Earth has gotten ~1°C warmer, more people still die from cold than heat (even in India)!

    • While we’re taught to fear heat-related death, cold-related death is a far bigger problem.
    • More people die of cold than of heat on every continent.
    • Near-term warming is expected to decrease temperature-related mortality.⁷

  • Warming from CO2 is concentrated in the coldest parts of the world during the coldest times.

    • While we’re taught to think of warming as “global,” in fact it is concentrated in colder places.
    • Mainstream climate science says warming will be concentrated in colder places (Northern latitudes).
    • Mainstream climate science says warming will be concentrated at colder times (nighttime).
    • Mainstream climate science says warming will be concentrated during colder seasons (winter).⁸

• Rising CO2 leads to diminishing warming.

  • While we’re taught warming will accelerate as CO2 levels rise, this contradicts mainstream science.
  • The “greenhouse effect” of CO2 is a diminishing effect, with additional CO2 leading to less warming.
  • Even the UN’s most extreme scenarios show warming leveling off as CO2 levels rise.⁹

• The IPCC projects impacts from warming that would be masterable with fossil fuels.

  • The UN IPCC is a catastrophizing organization—but even it projects masterable warming impacts.
  • The most plausible danger is rising sea levels, but extreme UN projections are just 3 ft / 100 yrs.¹⁰
  • We already have 100 million people living below high-tide sea level.¹¹

• If we destroy the freedom to use fossil fuels, climate danger will get worse along with everything else.

  • With “net zero,” climate danger of all types will dramatically increase.
  • With “net zero,” CO2 levels will rise more slowly, but billions of lives will be ruined.

• If we protect all energy freedom everything will get better, including climate mastery, and we’ll innovate alternatives faster.

  • With energy freedom, we’ll get better at mastering climate danger, natural or manmade.
  • With energy freedom, CO2 levels will rise but life will continue to get better and better.
  • With energy freedom, the rate at which alternatives are cost-competitive will accelerate.
  • Thus, energy freedom is the only moral and practical way to reduce CO2 emissions long term.

Michelle Hung contributed to this piece.

References