Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ The greatest advocate for fossil fuels in the English language： an interview with Alex Epstein

00:00:00.000 tonight the greatest advocate for fossil fuels in the english language a feature-length interview

00:00:19.820 with my friend alex epstein it's december 30th and this is the ezra levant show

00:00:24.340 if you're trying to debate public policy which is something i do every day

00:00:43.980 you're always looking for new facts a new study to prove you're right or a new breaking news item that

00:00:50.460 accords with your narrative your story about the way the world works but just getting another fact

00:00:57.040 or another detail or more proof well that's part of arguing but i think when you can really make

00:01:04.260 progress is if you have a whole new way of thinking about it a new argument that you haven't heard

00:01:09.980 before i mean i think that's how you break people out of their rut if you bring something to their

00:01:16.920 attention that they never considered before maybe you could actually get them to change their mind

00:01:21.920 as opposed to just playing the same old game of ping pong back and forth with your opponents and i say

00:01:27.640 that because our special guest today is the man who i regard as thinks as thinking about energy and how

00:01:37.240 to provide energy to the world in ways that are unique ways that i just don't see being done by other

00:01:44.700 public intellectuals and certainly not being done by the energy lobby you know who i'm talking about

00:01:50.540 his name is alex epstein he's the publisher of fossil future a welcome uh sequel to the moral case for

00:02:00.660 fossil fuels and he joins us now via zoom alex welcome this is the most important great to see you

00:02:08.080 it's so important for professional arguers for people trying to actually persuade minds because

00:02:15.680 you have new ideas here that i have not heard before and i pay attention to this file

00:02:21.600 oh well i'd love to go into them and especially what you see as new but in general yeah i think that

00:02:28.660 one thing i learned from debating people because i've done a lot of debates i'll debate pretty much any

00:02:33.600 prominent person i can is that you know when you're on a stage and you're just disputing facts

00:02:39.440 with people it's very limited efficacy that you can have in part because people don't necessarily

00:02:45.000 trust you particularly if they expect to disagree with you so you often get these conflicting statements

00:02:49.760 of fact but what i found is when you go into framework so the basic ideas that influence everything else

00:02:56.940 then you can actually move people so an example i use a lot is when i am having a discussion i

00:03:02.600 careful i establish at the beginning hey should we carefully weigh both the negative side effects

00:03:08.180 and the benefits of fossil fuels versus just looking at the negative side effects and everyone

00:03:12.280 says well of course we should look at both and yet in practice people almost never look at the

00:03:17.380 benefits that's a way of framing the conversation such that people are actually looking much more at

00:03:23.060 the full picture or as i often call it the full context and it makes a huge difference and the more you

00:03:27.920 can frame things in a way that makes sense i would put it as common sense but not common practice

00:03:33.500 the more you can help people think about the issue rationally and the more they'll be open to maybe you

00:03:39.040 are right about the facts if you're giving them a framework that makes sense well and and that's what

00:03:44.580 your books are all about i mean your last book the moral case for fossil fuel it takes it head on

00:03:50.080 because i think too many people in the industry are self-hating oil and gas people they say yes

00:03:55.880 what i'm doing is wrong but it's the lesser evil that was sort of the argument i made in my book

00:04:00.520 ethical oil i said you know go around the world compared to oil from iraq or nigeria or saudi arabia

00:04:07.680 canadian american oil is better but you came out and said no no no it's not better oil is positively

00:04:15.380 good it's positively moral that it is a very brave principled stand but let me just tell you an

00:04:23.080 example what i mean about changing the way it's changing an argument changing as you say the

00:04:27.160 framework and it's chapter three of your book fossil future the anti-impact framework and i'm going to

00:04:35.240 make a confession here alex i bought into that you know the the anti-energy extremists always say well

00:04:41.960 we have to get to zero emissions we have to get zero impact we have to we have to erase any impact from

00:04:49.440 this energy and for some reason i accepted yes we must do that but but you make an an excellent point

00:04:56.980 why don't you make it here instead of me paraphrasing it you challenge the anti-impact framework

00:05:03.020 so the best way to sum up the anti-impact framework is you can think of it as a dual idea it's the idea

00:05:09.880 that human impact on nature is one intrinsically immoral and two inevitably self-destructive

00:05:17.220 so and i think it's helpful to think of it as a religious view because i do think it's a religious

00:05:21.600 view it's it poses as a scientific view but you can think of it as there's a commandment and so it's

00:05:25.620 kind of an earth or non-human worshiping primitive religion and so the commandment is thou shalt not 0.99

00:05:31.760 impact nature and then the idea is if you violate the commandment then you're going to go to hell then

00:05:37.000 the earth is going to be terrible you need to see like the perspective on co2 emissions is an example

00:05:41.800 of this it's just treated as the most important thing in the world is to eliminate our impact on

00:05:47.220 climate like that's treated as the number one goal in the world it's not to give everyone available

00:05:52.840 energy it's not what i i use the goal often of global human flourishing which makes a lot more sense

00:05:58.160 as a goal why the hell is our goal eliminate our impact on climate it's just a bizarre thing to put as

00:06:05.220 your primary goal perhaps it could be a derivative goal although i even question that but it goes to show

00:06:11.100 that we're just so saturated in this idea that human impact is intrinsically immoral and inevitably

00:06:16.660 self-destructive and if you think about it and and this is a i didn't know about energy for a long time

00:06:21.220 but when i was 18 i learned the following and it changed my life if you believe that our goal should

00:06:26.140 be to eliminate human impact you have to recognize that we survive and flourish by impact so this is a

00:06:33.640 fundamentally anti-human idea that our impact is bad it's just as immoral or anti-us idea as to as a lion

00:06:43.220 acting on eliminating lion impact or a bear acting on eliminating bear impact it's such a self-effacing

00:06:51.080 anti-human thing it's really and then the other element that that people get away with it using is

00:06:58.100 this idea that it's inevitably self-destructive so if we impact the earth the earth is portrayed as what i call

00:07:03.580 a delicate nurturer so it exists in this delicate nurturing balance it's stable it's sufficient you

00:07:10.200 know it gives us what we need as long as we're not too greedy and it's safe and all the danger is about

00:07:14.660 us impacting earth we are parasite polluters all we can do is take from the earth and make you know 0.78

00:07:20.380 make the earth ugly and ruin it this is just a totally false narrative earth is wild potential

00:07:25.300 it has huge potential but it's naturally dynamic deficient and dangerous and human beings are producer

00:07:31.320 improvers who largely make the earth much better via our impact so we need to embrace our impact

00:07:37.280 fundamentally as good for human flourishing we want to avoid anti-human impacts human harming impacts but

00:07:43.860 in general we should think of our impact as something that makes the earth you know a much more wonderful

00:07:49.220 beautiful place you know and and that thinking that you've just described there and and you you did

00:07:55.500 talk about that in the moral case for fossil fuels it is so new to people who are just in the

00:08:02.120 conventional wisdom on global warming and fighting climate action and all this these buzzwords i bet they

00:08:08.140 have never even heard of those ideas you mentioned that it's a quasi-religion environmentalism and i think

00:08:14.480 that's obvious i think as americans and people all around the world have fallen away from religion

00:08:20.580 uh both in practice and in belief well other things have filled that void you know people have to

00:08:26.600 believe in something they have to go ahead well i would say it's a void of philosophy so like i'm not

00:08:31.500 religious and i'm totally happy i don't believe in anti-humanism i think the anti-humanism is kind of a

00:08:38.000 bizarre thing and i don't think it's a secular thing i think it's a religious thing i mean the the the view

00:08:44.020 of earth as a delicate nurturer this is just a primitive view period you know worshiping the sun god and the rain

00:08:50.100 gods and this i mean it's really it's really embarrassing that this poses a science that you

00:08:55.400 just think oh that like the climate think you have the climate oh the climate is so wonderful like we

00:08:59.560 talk about it as this wonderful thing that we can only ruin and yet it's this incredibly dynamic and

00:09:05.800 dangerous phenomenon that's hugely variable uh that's changed a ton over history and that has been

00:09:11.180 a menace until we figured out uh how to master it so so i do think what i do think is true about the

00:09:16.840 argument you said is people need philosophy so you can think of religion as a category of philosophy

00:09:21.760 they need a set among other things of values that tell them hey here's what to do including hey here's

00:09:28.860 where you can find purpose in life and that kind of thing so i wouldn't put it as they need a religion 0.99

00:09:33.180 but yeah they do need philosophy a belief system this this yeah this this religion is like a big

00:09:41.140 regression because it's like an anti-human religion so it's not scientific but it poses us it's so it's

00:09:48.580 not scientific it's anti-human but it poses as scientific so that's that's why i think it's

00:09:53.760 particularly insidious yeah it's an interesting point because there are some people who say i'm not

00:09:59.260 religious but i'm a humanist um and but what you're saying is that this religion or even i would call it a

00:10:05.620 superstition i i would say environmental extremism is more a superstition than anything but you're right

00:10:10.480 it is primitive it's if we sacrifice uh uh a virgin on the on the pyramid and cut out her heart will 0.99

00:10:18.040 that appease you know the gods and make it rain but it really is that way if you if you uh punish

00:10:25.640 yourself if you if you inflict pain on yourself and live a a poor lifestyle will that and by the way

00:10:33.740 nature and climate are good but there is an evil force in nature called carbon it's one of the

00:10:41.920 it's one of the naturally occurring elements but apparently it's the bad guy i mean it really is a

00:10:47.680 a pagan primitive worldview and i can i can see that resonates through history i mean even in religion

00:10:57.300 the great flood you know there are there are these natural disasters there and and i think that the

00:11:03.740 way climate change is sold and and with prophets like greta tunberg that and a child shall lead them

00:11:10.380 and and she doesn't even you know i mean occasionally she throws to the odd fact but it's no i am i mean

00:11:15.960 she she's young she's not a child anymore she's an adult now but when she was 16 and 17 she looked like

00:11:22.280 she was 12 there's something about her like she just looks about five years younger than she is so

00:11:28.160 there was something miraculous about this child who would lead them and and you must obey the child

00:11:35.040 because she's pure unlike the the adults who were behind the curtain like the wizard of oz and if you

00:11:41.700 dare criticize this wonder this golden child well you just hate kids how do i mean it's but there's so

00:11:47.720 many themes that the anti-human environmentalist left plays on they've done a masterful job and let me

00:11:55.820 ask you this i mean i your case for for fossil fuels it's intellectual it's our great arguments great

00:12:04.220 ways of looking at things how does it fight against pure emotionalism like pictures of the dying

00:12:13.160 polar bear or uh or greta saying how dare you do this to me in my generation how do you fight against

00:12:21.220 pure raw emotion how do you do that without coming across as a uh out of touch while you're just an

00:12:28.700 old man with white man with your old white man arguments where your feelings how do you how do you

00:12:33.660 overcome that well i think if you'd notice greta's a perfect example in both the how dare you

00:12:39.940 and kind of the polar bear thing are themselves based on the anti-impact framework because it's

00:12:45.460 the idea hey it's wrong how dare you impact the climate how yeah that's an evil thing and we

00:12:50.620 shouldn't do that and then the idea of the polar bears are often it's partially their sympathy for

00:12:54.720 the polar bears but it also conveys hey like we've destroyed the arctic and that's going to destroy the

00:13:00.340 earth and the sea levels are going to rise etc etc etc and i think the key is there's nothing

00:13:06.400 inherently more emotional about that than what i call the human flourishing framework in fact i would

00:13:12.360 argue it is less emotionally resonant to make up these fables and to focus on polar bears like if

00:13:18.100 you look right now from a human flourishing perspective positively you can talk about how

00:13:22.400 fossil fuels have made the world miraculously good and and preserved billions of lives that would

00:13:27.400 otherwise end prematurely and that also give us the opportunity to enjoy and preserve the best parts

00:13:33.480 of nature including you know we've drastically increased the polar bear population that has

00:13:38.120 some harms to certain populations so we have to be careful about it but in general you can have very

00:13:43.040 positive emotions with how energy and human impact can make the world amazing and then you can also

00:13:49.540 have negatives in terms of like i would flip it on greta and her handlers and whoever's behind the

00:13:55.020 scenes and say hey look you've caused a global energy crisis we're now in europe people are afraid of

00:14:00.820 winter like it's game of thrones like this is there's nothing inherently more emotional about

00:14:06.900 impact is bad then human flourishing is good and harming human flourishing is bad and in fact the most

00:14:13.860 powerful arguments the anti-impact people have are false arguments that following them will benefit

00:14:20.300 human flourishing and using energy particularly fossil fuels will harm human flourishing so i think it's a

00:14:26.080 matter of making sure that we make emotionally resonant arguments conveying the truth yeah hey let me ask

00:14:34.180 you about something because i you know taking on their well-worn i mean they're they have phrases that have

00:14:41.080 been repeated so often they don't even sound like they're political anymore it's like you know we just

00:14:47.140 know now don't litter like that doesn't even feel ideological it's just a it's politeness it's a manner

00:14:53.180 it's a custom it's so commonplace i don't you know and it's sort of hard to believe that maybe 50 years

00:14:58.520 ago that that wasn't the way um but exactly because i can think of other things i mean just sorry to

00:15:06.920 interrupt but there's so there's the expressions but i think even more insidious are the terms that

00:15:12.200 people use and you mentioned industry and like i love the energy industry the fossil fuel industry but

00:15:17.360 one vice they have is they just passively accept terms that are generated by their enemies so we

00:15:23.260 could go into any number of them or none of them but like sustainability renewable esg like these

00:15:30.740 things were just when your enemy puts out new ideas you should be suspicious that those are

00:15:36.420 manipulative ideas and all the three i mentioned certainly are oh yeah and and they think that if they

00:15:42.420 grant the premise they can just sort of fight a slow retreat but once you've granted the premise

00:15:48.160 that for example patrick moore the the co-founder of greenpeace who has um come out as pro-nuclear

00:15:55.180 energy for example and he's we've done some events with a very interesting guy he head-on challenges

00:16:01.680 this phobia that this naturally occurring element called carbon is evil in fact he he says carbon

00:16:08.340 dioxide is good for a greening earth what's your take on like to take on something so bluntly like

00:16:14.740 that some people you know the the scales will fall from their eyes and they'll say yes i never thought

00:16:20.280 of it that way other people will say you're crazy how do you challenge something like carbon emissions

00:16:27.520 are bad carbon dioxide are bad what's your carbon footprint buy a carbon offset it's so ubiquitous it's

00:16:33.900 like don't litter of course don't litter how do you a professional a professional persuader

00:16:40.340 challenge something that is as crazy as saying to someone oh go ahead and litter like they they're

00:16:47.900 probably hearing it in the same way you're mad is this a joke i i'm is this you know are you pulling

00:16:54.580 a prank on me how do you say something so contrary to the prevailing winds and move people

00:17:02.060 i love this question i think it's it's there's a certain in like interest you can generate by

00:17:10.940 saying something that's directly contrary and look at both my book titles the moral case for fossil

00:17:15.920 fuels fossil future you know which contradicts the idea that fossil fuels are becoming a thing of the

00:17:20.620 past and certainly should be becoming a thing of the past so you can do that to intrigue people as

00:17:26.800 long as it doesn't sound insane like you know it doesn't sound like oh you're advocating a

00:17:31.980 holocaust or something like that right that would be i wouldn't advocate a holocaust but it's just 0.96

00:17:36.920 like you need to be um i mean if it's something like i mean generally most things that are true you

00:17:43.680 can put over in an intriguing way so i don't want to think about things that are false and talk about

00:17:47.800 how to put them over in an intriguing way but the key is if you say something like hey i i think co2

00:17:52.640 is good or has a lot of good to it i think the main way to persuade people is actually to step back

00:17:58.180 and focus on the methodology of how we think about it and so the example i gave before which i use a

00:18:04.240 lot is hey we need to consider the benefits and side effects or another way to think of it as the

00:18:07.960 positives and negatives so well if we just take co2 if i'm talking to someone i'll say hey like i

00:18:13.540 have a couple of ideas about how to think about co2 would you agree with it and then one is we need

00:18:18.400 to look at both positive and negative impacts of co2 with precision would you agree with that so yes we

00:18:25.540 can look at how they how it might cause more heat waves and how that's detrimental but we also have

00:18:30.400 to look at how warming can save lives from cold related deaths and we also need to look at how

00:18:35.080 more co2 can fertilize the earth and what most people say yeah i agreed to do that and so notice

00:18:41.820 like once they agree because i've given them a method that's very common sense and really impossible

00:18:47.660 to argue with then they'll start thinking about it in the right way and then they'll be open

00:18:52.200 to the controversial conclusion but i i start with an uncontroversial method that inevitably leads to

00:18:58.440 the controversial conclusion and then the other thing i add to that always is well we also have to

00:19:02.520 look at the energy that comes with the co2 right we can't just look at the the negatives and positives

00:19:06.960 of the co2 we need to look at the benefits of the energy and also any negatives if there are any which

00:19:12.480 fundamentally i don't think there are but the the energy that comes with it and so then when you do that

00:19:17.820 it's pretty obvious actually we need more fossil fuels and we need to emit more co2 for the

00:19:22.240 foreseeable future but it's it's such an uncontroversial way of thinking so that that's

00:19:26.940 really the secret the uncontroversial method like if you have a true controversial conclusion then

00:19:32.480 establish an uncontroversial method to get people to think about it in the right way you know i'm

00:19:39.040 thinking about your two books titles fossil future again you're implying there is one and the moral case

00:19:44.140 for fossil and i mean i suppose that's what i did with ethical oil which is like those two words

00:19:50.100 people were shocked by they were angry you know the professional anti they were angry at ethical oil

00:19:56.720 they didn't like to hear the word which is why i loved it so much um and it did get people to say

00:20:03.320 but then there was an argument there was an argument that you had i mean there was an argument yeah and

00:20:06.680 one thing you know sort of you mentioned well you didn't put it this way but i would think of it

00:20:10.720 ethical oil is a lot about the process of producing oil and you know this is a process

00:20:16.600 yeah and and so my argument is fundamentally about the product but saying this is a good product

00:20:22.240 it's not and ultimately you need both but the the thing you run into if you only talk about the process

00:20:28.780 is people can say oh well i have the most efficient cigarette factory like none of my employees smoke

00:20:34.480 making the cigarettes or like we have the most ethical mafia family like we do hits and

00:20:40.300 you know none of us do drugs and this uh they're like we account for all the money and this kind

00:20:44.860 of thing but you do you do need both and the way i think of it is you you you need the number one is

00:20:49.480 the value of the product but then it is important to look at the process and certainly the kinds of

00:20:54.520 issues you're you were raising and an early person to raise are very very morally relevant in terms of

00:21:00.200 things like our security and i think they are very very uh you know even more relevant today or just as

00:21:06.060 relevant as ever today and i think i think they resonate with a lot of people so i've i've been

00:21:10.620 in the last few years particularly in um i have a website energytalkingpoints.com that's very focused

00:21:15.840 on the best points for current events i've been focusing on that a lot more myself because it is

00:21:21.220 really really crucial and it is resonant with a lot of people you know it's funny um yeah i wrote

00:21:28.120 my book about a decade ago and i know you've been plugging away for about the same amount of time

00:21:32.620 and here we are in a real energy crisis and it's amazing russia invading ukraine and you can't 0.54

00:21:43.820 punish russia because to punish russia if you're germany are you going to cut yourself off from a 0.88

00:21:49.980 third of your energy i mean you you got to be careful russia doesn't put sanctions on you

00:21:54.000 and and i think that's a reason why so many opec countries were able to subsidize terrorist groups

00:22:02.360 like qatar was a major sponsor of isis and the i think the answer was because what are you going

00:22:09.260 to do you need to buy their oil and gas no matter what and in the west you had your greta tunbergs

00:22:16.400 you had your al gores you had your in this country david suzuki in the uk they banned fracking you had

00:22:23.060 all these dilettantes in the west that shut down fossil fuel energy while the bad guys in russia

00:22:31.640 and opec kept going and now we have a we have a real energy crisis and as you said in the uk they're

00:22:37.060 they can't afford it they're chopping down trees for firewood now they're like it's it's madness let

00:22:43.080 me ask you this other than to remark about how how we've lost 10 or 20 years because the west has

00:22:49.780 believed the greta's of the world but has there been an awakening by ordinary people to say what the

00:22:59.000 heck were we listening to them for we can't run this i'm in edmonton today it's minus 33 degrees

00:23:07.280 there's not a lot of electric cars going around like just to just it's so cold here i don't know

00:23:13.920 if electric vehicles do well when it is this cold certainly not on important vehicles like a fire truck

00:23:19.160 or or something like that is do just so let me ask you this when it's bloody cold like it is here today

00:23:27.140 and when you have energy shortages as you're seeing in western europe and when you have high prices

00:23:33.100 because of a war does any of this flip people over on these issues does it allow you to crack

00:23:40.680 uh their hard shell and and get them to look at these things again or do they just come up with

00:23:45.960 a new rationalization or do they just ignore it and pretend it's not happening i think it's you

00:23:51.680 can think of it as it's a big persuasive opportunity but it's not guaranteed because you do see these

00:23:57.840 wake-up calls and the way to think of a crisis is it's a it's always in one way or another a failure

00:24:03.060 of the establishment do you think of say 9-11 or the financial crisis of 2008 in both cases people

00:24:09.500 say hey the establishment clearly did something wrong because we're really really unhappy about this

00:24:14.420 thing that happened and it's a crucial thing who is implicated by the crisis and who is vindicated

00:24:21.140 by the crisis right and that is i that's why if people go to energy talking points.com i have a lot

00:24:27.200 of stuff half a dozen probably more uh pieces on the energy crisis because i think it's crucial

00:24:32.740 that the right people are implicated but what you notice is the people who actually caused the crisis

00:24:39.020 uh are totally denying responsibility for it so one recent thing is the international energy agency

00:24:45.660 which at this point like they should not have energy in their title which would be the international

00:24:50.140 anti-energy agency you know they've been publicly advocating for stopping oil new oil and gas development

00:24:56.040 in 2021 think about that this is the international energy agency and they publicly advocated for this

00:25:01.280 in 2021 when now in 2022 we obviously need more oil and gas and we obviously did back then and they're

00:25:08.880 not admitting any responsibility at all they just put out these they just put out a glowing report on like

00:25:13.920 renewables are amazing and they're in the future even though they're failing all over the place and even

00:25:18.440 though their supply chains are a total disaster because people are trying to have all these crash programs

00:25:23.480 that make no sense at all in terms of the how rapidly you're doing them and particularly when you have an

00:25:29.060 anti-development environment that they're contributing to where it's super hard to mine

00:25:32.460 and manufacture things so there's such and you can take the biden administration saying hey we have

00:25:38.100 nothing to do with this i doubt trudeau is taking a lot of responsibility uh the little that i know about

00:25:43.400 him so it's it's very important though to say hey look this is very clear the energy crisis is a lack of

00:25:49.720 fossil fuel crisis and it's fundamentally caused by the anti-fossil fuel movement that has

00:25:55.160 systemically opposed fossil fuel investment fossil fuel production fossil fuel refining fossil fuel

00:26:02.460 transportation it's obvious this is what they said they were doing and they got the result of less

00:26:07.340 fossil fuel but their promise that solar and wind would magically replace fossil fuels came false and

00:26:12.580 that's why they're all begging to dictators now so it was just it's just very important that people get

00:26:17.800 that and then also that we have a positive alternative so this is one reason i'm happy it took me so long to

00:26:23.100 do fossil future because it came out this year and it's really perfect timing for people to be because

00:26:28.940 people are more open to wait maybe we do need a fossil future because the people said we needed to

00:26:33.420 rapidly eliminate fossil fuels they they're clearly somehow involved in this crisis even though they're

00:26:37.940 denying it yeah you know even as i was asking that question i was thinking the answers i've heard the

00:26:43.160 answers they say oh these high prices suddenly make alternative energy more competitive so very high gas

00:26:51.120 places prove solar is the way solar and wind are now cheaper than natural gas and and then you

00:26:57.120 have pure denialism like uh uh various european leaders including the chancellor of germany said to

00:27:03.180 canada which has a huge reserve of shale gas of natural gas um please send us some lng and trudeau

00:27:12.320 literally said i don't think there's a business case for it that's what he said he's a well-known

00:27:17.280 businessman and entrepreneur of course uh so germany signed a massive deal with qatar you know it's uh

00:27:23.360 so i guess the answer is they'll come up with any excuse to stay on their agenda but they're pretty

00:27:28.640 they're they're pretty weak excuses that the one about oh renewables are now competitive i called this

00:27:35.000 the tanya harding case against fossil fuels it's like oh well you know i kneecapped my opponent and so

00:27:40.400 now i'm more competitive like okay but it's your fault that fossil fuels have gone up in price and

00:27:46.040 even then we still need fossil fuels people are still desperate to pay today's prices for fossil

00:27:50.960 fuels so it should make people appreciate the industry more and i do think these anti-fossil

00:27:55.140 fuel arguments are a lot harder to make now but we can't assume that people will just see the truth

00:28:00.020 on their own we need to be very aggressive about saying hey here's what's responsible here's the

00:28:05.540 alternative now in your last chapter you say something which i'm gonna ask you about because

00:28:13.140 i'm not i need help with it you three words why i'm optimistic you know i'm glad you are as i get

00:28:24.000 older and i realize that all my efforts sometimes are are they in vain if we move the needle at all

00:28:30.160 maybe we don't know what would have happened had we not been advocating the way we have maybe

00:28:34.200 maybe we avoided some disaster maybe maybe we had success we didn't know but you know i i think in

00:28:40.900 my country of canada my home province of alberta has driven away so many massive oil sands companies

00:28:47.980 killed mighty projects and those companies just go to the bad actors in the world whether it's a former

00:28:54.120 soviet republic or or the middle east or venezuela so i suppose energy is coming out of the ground and

00:29:01.580 not some positive but you know when i wrote ethical oil versus now the oil patch you know i'm not going

00:29:09.660 to say it's gutted because it's still operating but an enormous no pipelines have been built there were

00:29:15.080 five pipeline proposals all were killed billions of dollars of projects that were on track were

00:29:22.340 canceled and moved elsewhere now you say you're optimistic give me some of that

00:29:28.320 well canada is a particular tragedy so let's just acknowledge how sad that situation is for canada

00:29:37.320 and around the world i mean think about imagine just a totally different set of events where

00:29:43.440 everyone acknowledges hey this this is this oil sands thing is amazing right we have this huge

00:29:48.820 natural like oil seep we know where it is we have great technology for harnessing it the technology is

00:29:55.300 improving and canada can help empower the world with it i mean imagine how much better we'd be off

00:30:00.700 right now as a world in terms of just the availability of oil and then of course if canada

00:30:04.940 had built any or all of these pipeline projects so it is a tragedy there are comp i mean europe is a

00:30:11.180 tragedy in a different way although i tend to be much more i like can hate canada much more than i like

00:30:16.100 europe for various uh reasons but canada it's kind of like the u.s but even more extreme it takes

00:30:21.840 bad european ideas as the vanguard even though why do we take europe's ideas again like what track

00:30:28.200 record of success have they had in the last hundred years that should make us worship europe as the

00:30:33.400 source of great ideas and abandon our own ideas for that okay so why am i optimistic though i think

00:30:38.980 it's it's fundamentally because i have i'm seeing like i'm on the inside of changing people's thinking

00:30:46.540 about energy from this anti-human primitive religious way to a pro-human truly scientific

00:30:53.600 and and you know and proper way and what i'm seeing that with my own work is i'm seeing it the growth

00:31:01.320 really start to happen as i as i get better and the arguments get better so i had moral case for

00:31:07.820 fossil fuels which is a certain level i think fossil future is a much higher level then i also have

00:31:12.120 created energy talking points.com which is really crucial because it helps elected officials

00:31:16.280 influencers and citizens have the best arguments on every issue for free at their disposal and what

00:31:23.800 i'm noticing is you're seeing a spread of new people starting to make these kinds of arguments now

00:31:29.420 it's still like small relatively speaking but like think about the people now making these arguments i'm

00:31:34.400 not taking credit for everybody but there is this kind of movement and i have had significant role in

00:31:38.740 movement so you take like bjorn lomborg michael schellenberger steve kunan uh mark mills and

00:31:45.700 you're starting to see uh there's a new player called doomberg which is really is really really

00:31:49.460 popular on substack now you're seeing the financial world there's a lot of like financial people

00:31:54.600 commenting on it bitcoin people commenting on it uh people in electricity are getting better

00:31:59.200 like more and more people are learning these humanistic arguments and then the other you're

00:32:05.040 starting even some industry people like uh chris wright of liberty oilfield services uh adam anderson

00:32:10.100 of a company called inovex that up to the north face you're seeing these things that weren't happening

00:32:14.980 at all and 10 years ago 15 years ago i was almost a lone voice and you're seeing it grow and then

00:32:21.120 you're seeing the other side has no answer at all their answer is to smear us you know the washington

00:32:26.700 post had this bizarre thing where they tried to cancel me because they claimed that i didn't care

00:32:31.040 about poor people so i made a an argument they couldn't refute about how poor people need fossil

00:32:36.380 fuels and their genius response was to argue alex epstein doesn't really care about poor people

00:32:40.500 well that is not true and it's not a valid counter argument if somebody makes an irrefutable argument

00:32:46.120 so you're seeing like they're using character assassination all these really weak things and they

00:32:51.120 just don't have an answer they're still on such a primitive level they still think it's you know the

00:32:56.120 year 2000 and they can just get rid of you by calling you a climate change denier

00:32:59.880 and not actually have to think about our climate impacts in the context of uh of the benefits as

00:33:06.420 well as think about our climate impacts in an even-handed and precise way so i'm just seeing

00:33:11.880 this energy humanist phenomenon grow and then with the energy crisis we have more openness than ever so

00:33:17.740 i just encourage your viewers and listeners like take advantage of the resources that i and others have

00:33:23.980 created particularly make sure you take advantage of energy talking points.com because

00:33:27.740 it's just it's so much easier for you than it was for me 10 years ago and that was my goal is to make

00:33:35.060 it easier and and the in the openness to this issue is far greater than it has been during my intellectual

00:33:40.820 lifetime because when you have a crisis it's different like in the 70s people were really open

00:33:45.940 to pro-energy policies you know the u.s democrats in the late 70s were obsessed with coal and nuclear

00:33:52.740 and they would have dreamed for today's american energy situation now they hate it unfortunately

00:33:58.280 their heirs hate it but when you have an energy crisis it really does open people's minds and so

00:34:04.400 there's a lot to take advantage of and we have the resources to really persuade a lot of people

00:34:08.860 let me just ask you one last question i really appreciate how much time you're giving us today

00:34:13.340 you say you've debated a lot of people and i know you haven't i know you appear on tv a lot which is

00:34:18.500 a great way to talk to so many people um i think i gave at least a hundred speeches in support of my

00:34:25.820 book ethical oil in canada u.s uh even europe but only three debates and maybe it's me maybe it's a

00:34:35.780 personality thing or maybe i don't know but i i think this applies to others who are skeptics of

00:34:42.740 global warming movement the other side doesn't like to debate and and i i wonder if you can explain

00:34:50.840 how do you get the other side to debate you when they're not used to it when they probably would call

00:35:00.700 you a denier or try and cancel you as you say you know they tried to do um i find this is applies to

00:35:09.320 all political fields these days i find that the left doesn't they believe in de-platforming rather

00:35:14.900 than getting on the platform and sharing it with you maybe i'm just expressing my own personal

00:35:19.780 experience but how do you debate and do you debate people who are on your level or do you have to

00:35:24.640 pick a really lowly person who's looking for some celebrity airtime because because i i don't see the

00:35:31.740 other side in this argument willing to engage they say well you mentioned the holocaust earlier

00:35:36.260 they would think it's tantamount to debating a holocaust denier they use that word denier

00:35:42.180 how do you get the other side to debate you well so one thing is insofar as their argument is i won't

00:35:48.760 debate a climate change denier i mean i have a very clear answer to that which is i believe we impact

00:35:54.040 climate i just do not believe it's a catastrophe that justifies that justifies denying eight billion

00:35:59.440 people fossil the fossil fuels they need to flourish so i have a pretty like that i can get rid of

00:36:04.720 that argument pretty quickly so so it's it's pretty implausible some people have refused to

00:36:09.280 debate me because of that but and more broadly what they try to do is they try to present it as

00:36:13.420 a purely scientific debate so there's one prominent person that i won't name who says i won't debate him

00:36:18.980 because he's not a scientist but fossil fuels that's an interdisciplinary issue and actually the

00:36:25.100 most important aspect of it is definitely not climate science it's energy and energy economics so as an

00:36:30.380 expert on those things i'm certainly qualified to have a debate and i certainly know a lot more

00:36:34.720 about climate science than almost any of these climate scientists knows about uh energy so they

00:36:40.280 have these superficial things yeah they most don't want to do it and it doesn't happen that often

00:36:44.900 but i'm sort of very publicly aggressive about doing it and i have gotten some prominent people so

00:36:51.280 earlier this year i got uh one of the most prominent catastrophists willing to do is this guy

00:36:55.520 andrew dessler out of texas a&m and i have a lot of issues with this guy but he he is willing to get

00:37:02.160 on stage and debate people he debated steve coonan uh i think twice this year and he debated me and then

00:37:10.180 we did a kind of debate show on michaela peterson's show although that was we were at on at different

00:37:14.880 times there's a guy the last one i had at ut austin was a professor named john doggett and he was the

00:37:20.360 only one at the school who was willing to debate me but he didn't really debate me because we were

00:37:24.520 debating on should the world go net zero and he acknowledged at the end alex is right if we did

00:37:30.520 net zero it would be the apocalypse so his view was like hey we should aspire to it somehow we should

00:37:36.180 somehow like slowly move in this direction but nobody here's the thing everyone says net zero by

00:37:41.860 2050 is the goal nobody is willing to debate that that's what i'm arguing i'm arguing let's debate the

00:37:47.680 proposition that every company almost every prominent company all these academics the thing all these

00:37:53.180 governments the thing everyone is committing to will any of you debate it and basically none of them

00:37:57.780 will and when they get on the stage like this happened with general wesley clark whom i admire

00:38:01.860 in a lot of ways but i debated him and he agreed on the call in advance yeah i think we should be net

00:38:06.460 zero in fact i think we should be net carbon negative by 2050 once you get on the stage no it's just like

00:38:11.720 i think hey i think we should explore alternatives that's not what the un said they didn't say explore

00:38:16.680 alternatives they said get rid of net co2 emissions by 2050 so it's not easy but i do i am pretty

00:38:24.040 aggressive about it and i do i do have i this makes people so mad but i published criteria for debating

00:38:30.720 because what will happen is random people some of whom have no basic command of the english language

00:38:36.220 will say hey alex like i'll debate you and if i was just a debater i would enjoy sort of like crushing

00:38:42.220 these people randomly uh but because i'm primarily a writer and a researcher and a thinker uh i don't

00:38:47.780 have unlimited time to debate random people so i just i have a very simple thing i said either

00:38:52.420 somebody can if you can find an audience of a hundred thousand people or more who are willing

00:38:57.320 to see this online i will debate anyone because that's like if you can do that i'm willing to do it

00:39:01.620 i don't care who you are uh or i said if somebody wants to host an event with me and pay me my

00:39:07.160 speaking fee uh sure i'll do it too and then the response was oh alex is demanding that you pay him

00:39:13.480 to debate even though i definitely did not say that i just said that's one thing that i'll do but

00:39:18.500 if anyone can get an audience of a hundred thousand people or more then i will have that and they want

00:39:23.740 to actually have a debate then i'm happy to have a debate but that is a very small universe which is

00:39:28.620 why i only get about two debates a year well uh i'd love to see it and hopefully uh hopefully you'll

00:39:36.620 continue to have those debates and they'll get a lot of viewership great to catch up with you the

00:39:40.540 books are fossil likewise future which of course is um follows in the footsteps of the moral case for

00:39:48.300 fossil fuels i should tell you yep oh yeah and we'll have the link under this video that people

00:39:53.160 it is well i mean even just the summary of the book uh on your substack page is very in-depth um i

00:40:00.900 should tell you that at the office i have an i love fossil people's coffee mug that i drink out of

00:40:05.660 every day alex great to see you i wish i wish you all the best in 2023 i think you were doing

00:40:11.900 good not for the industry but for humanity and for the benefit of all people and i thank you for it

00:40:18.740 and and as always i learn a lot from talking with you thanks my friend thanks ezra i hope to see you

00:40:23.460 soon right on there you have it alex epstein you can get his books at the links below that's our show

00:40:29.360 for today until next time on behalf of all of us at rebel and i'm in our western outpost today

00:40:34.820 to you at home good night and keep fighting for freedom

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Rebel News Podcast - December 31, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ The greatest advocate for fossil fuels in the English language： an interview with Alex Epstein

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