American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2015 - 118

ConventionCoverage: Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Association
framing, he said, the logical conclusion
is to pursue policies that will help eliminate
"evil" fossil fuels. "When the industry
concedes or does not at least challenge
the green energy ideal, why should people
believe anything different?" he asked.

The Right Yardstick
Whether green energy or fossil fuels
constitute the ideal energy source leads
to a deeper question, Epstein said.
"By what standard or ideal are we
judging right and wrong?" he posed. "I
argue that the yardstick we apply to fossil
fuels and green energy is totally wrong
and immoral. If we use the right yardstick,
then fossil fuels are good. If we keep
using the wrong yardstick, we will keep
getting bad policies."
The conventional yardstick for measuring energy and morality seeks to minimize human impacts on nature, he said,
which prefers projects with a smaller
footprint. Using that standard, Epstein
argued, building cities or having children-both of which impact the environment significantly-should be discouraged.
"The industry has been brainwashed,
in the sense of accepting green energy as
a moral ideal, which is a deeply wrong
perspective," he asserted. "This gets to
my interest in this issue, because my
background is in philosophy. When I
started exploring energy, I realized that
fossil fuel energy is by far the most virtuous industry, in terms of promoting
life for billions of people. And yet, the
way we think about it causes us to deem
it as evil."
The climate change discussion is being
argued in an irrational manner, because
it is discussed as a scientific concern
rather than a moral one that considers
both fossil fuels' benefits and detriments,
he stated. Even the premise of climate
change is suspect, Epstein said, because
it assumes that the impossibility of stasis
is the desired state of affairs. "Notice,
we are not at all focused on the human
effect; we only are focused on the changing
climate. Notice, it is not climate danger,
or climate catastrophe. Why is the focus
on change?"
Focusing on one aspect makes the invalid assumption that any human impact
on climate must be evil, Epstein said.
There may be benefits to higher carbon
dioxide levels in the atmosphere, such as
increased plant growth, he posed. "Maybe
warming is good. Why don't we ever
think of that? Because we believe it is

David Powell, a member of the Eastern
Kansas Oil & Gas Association, introduces
keynote speaker Alex Epstein at the association's annual convention, held Sept.
16-17. In his remarks, Epstein noted it
was the first time a former classmate of
his had introduced him.

evil for us to change things, regardless
of whether it is positive or negative,"
Epstein held. "I am challenging that dogma. I am saying that things are positive
or negative according to whether they
impact human life positively or negatively.
If we are changing things overall for the
better, that is good."
Being Pro-Human
Proponents of renewables have been
claiming wind and solar energy are almost
ready to replace fossil fuels for more
than 40 years, Epstein pointed out. Germany's example tests those claims, he
maintained. Despite spending the equivalent of billions of dollars on green energy
projects, he reported, Germany is suffering
because of the intermittent nature of wind
power.
"We are taught to call solar and wind
renewables. That is a vague term. We
should call them unreliables, because that
is what they essentially are," Epstein

held. "This is why Germany is at record
coal capacity even though it has so much
subsidized solar and wind energy."
If the world fully embraced many of
the green community's goals-most importantly replacing all fossil fuel use with
renewable energy-it would be absolutely
disastrous for billions of people, particularly the poorest populations, which would
be forced to switch from reliable to unreliable power sources, Epstein argued.
"Yet, the people who want to ruin life
are considered the ideal and the people
who want to help it are considered evil,"
he mused. "Being green is considered
more important than being pro-human.
That is the key," he said.
If the moral standard was based on
how something affected humans, Epstein
argued people in the fossil fuel industry
should be called heroes. Since 1980,
fossil fuel use has quintupled in China
and India while their mortality rates have
plummeted.
"One of the best measurements of human well-being is human income," he
said. "People talk about how money
cannot buy happiness, but how happy
are you when you do not know where
you next meal is going to come from?"
Instead of thinking in a green way,
Epstein advocated a human-oriented viewpoint and told EKOGA to communicate
that stance to others. Members of the oil
and gas industry have full possession of
the facts, but framing them correctly is
more important, he argued.
"Without the right framework, you
will not be able to think about facts rationally, and you will not be able to communicate," he concluded. "Everyone has
a role. The thing I do best is to create a
resource that allows people to educate
themselves and their friends. I am not
here to make you feel good; I am trying
to empower you. The Moral Case for
Fossil Fuels is a tool to empower your
own thinking and persuade others." r

EKOGA Reviews Positive News
Coming From Federal Officials
MAYETTA, KS.-The regulatory outlook for the oil and gas industry is less
than bright, but David Bleakley, chairman
of the Eastern Kansas Oil & Gas Association's Rules and Regulations Committee,
told the association's annual convention
that there were some good tidings on the

118 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

federal front.
Bleakley observed one positive announcement came from the federal courts,
when the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas ruled in early September that U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
did not follow its rules when it listed the

American Oil and Gas Reporter - October 2015

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