00:00:48.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:00:56.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:33.000And very few people think clearly about this topic and or have the courage to say what is necessary, that fossil fuels and the ability to use them is an amazing moral advancement for the human species.
00:03:11.000And I actually think it's obviously wrong if you think about this issue in a pro-human way.
00:03:16.000And specifically, if you do something very simple that everyone agrees you should do, but almost no one does when it comes to fossil fuels, which is carefully weigh both benefits and side effects.
00:03:26.000If you're thinking about taking a prescription drug, nobody says, oh, just ignore the benefits, only look at the side effects.
00:03:32.000And no one says, just look at the side effects, only the benefits.
00:03:34.000And no one says exaggerate one or exaggerate the other.
00:03:37.000Yet when it comes to fossil fuels, we live in a world of fossil fuel benefit denial.
00:03:41.000Most of our leading thinkers attribute no benefits to fossil fuels, despite the fact that they make it possible for us to eat with natural gas-derived fertilizer, diesel-powered machines.
00:03:52.000Both uses, by the way, are very, very hard to replace and have no near-term replacement.
00:03:56.000And so also we use fossil fuels to master climate.
00:03:58.000We're far safer from climate disaster than we used to be.
00:04:01.000The rate of climate disaster death has gone down 98%, largely because of things like fossil fuel heating, air conditioning, building sturdy buildings, drought relief by irrigation and crop transport.
00:04:13.000And so, if you ignore the benefits of a crucial life or death thing and you only pay attention to the side effects, that's wrong.
00:04:20.000And it also should, it's very deadly, but it also indicates you have a bias.
00:04:24.000And I believe the same bias that causes our leaders to ignore the benefits of fossil fuels also causes them to what I call catastrophize the side effects, to exaggerate them out of all proportion, particularly our climate impacts, and to ignore our ability to deal with them through our intelligence, including through energy.
00:04:41.000So, I think it's actually obvious once you look at the facts from a pro-human, like full-context perspective, benefits and side effects, that the world needs more fossil fuels.
00:04:50.000Certainly, should not be rapidly eliminating them.
00:04:52.000That would literally be the most deadly thing human beings have ever done if we did that on a 2050 timetable.
00:04:57.000So, Alex, let me just ask you to take a step back and define what is a fossil fuel.
00:05:01.000Let's just get to the, let's define our terms here.
00:05:04.000Some people act as if they know what it is and just walk us through the science of it, the geology of it, if you will.
00:05:12.000Yeah, I love that question because it's so important, and people don't talk about it.
00:05:18.000So, on a surface level, you could just the first pass is: just fossil fuels include oil, coal, and natural gas.
00:05:25.000And I put them in that order because that's the order of their prevalence in terms of economic prevalence.
00:05:30.000Oil is number one, coal is number two, natural gas is number three.
00:05:34.000And sort of the essence of it, which sounds a little bit technical, which is important, is that they are high-energy hydrocarbons derived from ancient dead life.
00:06:55.000And when we burn it, it releases both energy, but also water and carbon dioxide.
00:07:01.000And then, the other thing it can release, particularly when we talk about coal and oil, is because it derives from life and particularly plants or microorganisms from the past, that's the other part of it.
00:07:14.000It sometimes includes elements that are with that.
00:07:17.000For example, like nitrogen naturally occurs, or sometimes mercury naturally occurs.
00:07:21.000So, sometimes when you burn these hydrocarbons, they emit those things in the air.
00:07:26.000So, you can have sulfur dioxide, or you can have mercury emitted.
00:07:29.000And this is why we have different kinds of pollution control to limit those to safe or manageable levels.
00:08:03.000Why is it then that they've become so incredibly controversial and/or banning them?
00:08:09.000For example, when I visit college campuses with religious fervor, the environmentalists, as if they are trying to persuade me to some sort of metaphysical view of the world, will tell me that if I do not admit that there is an anthropic, anthropocentric, you know the termic, that is, view of climate warming, then I'm a climate denier, that it is human beings that are increasing the temperature of the earth.
00:08:36.000I find this to be a very sloppy way to view anything, but what's your take on that?
00:08:42.000Because they are so insistent on that phrase in particular.
00:08:47.000Well, I think that the notable thing which relates to the religious aspect is that this is treated as the only issue, and it's treated as the apocalypse.
00:08:57.000Because as I said, if you look at the nature of fossil fuels, one thing that happens when you burn them is you release CO2.
00:09:01.000CO2 is a fertilizing gas and a warming gas.
00:09:04.000And so you would expect some amount of warming impact.
00:09:07.000Now, you should all, there are also a lot of facts you should know, which I talk a lot about in the book Fossil Future in particular.
00:09:13.000So one thing is the warming effect impact is a slash impact is a diminishing effect.
00:09:39.000But then, of course, you have to think about any benefits of that warming impact and then certainly greening impact, which people don't do.
00:09:46.000And then you need to think of the benefits that come with the energy, including the benefit of what I call climate mastery, our ability to neutralize climate danger using machines powered by fossil fuels.
00:09:57.000And as I mentioned, this is so powerful that the rate of climate-related disaster death has gone down 98% in a century.
00:10:06.000So fossil fuels didn't take a safe climate and make it dangerous.
00:10:09.000They took a dangerous climate and made it safe.
00:10:12.000And so why are these people treating this as the one issue?
00:10:16.000And why are they treating it as apocalypse?
00:10:18.000And I do think you mentioned metaphysical.
00:10:20.000So one thing is they have a kind of metaphysical view that I call the delicate nurture assumption.
00:10:25.000And this is the view that unimpacted nature has three attributes.
00:10:29.000It's stable, so it doesn't change too much.
00:10:45.000And if you believe that nature exists in this delicate nurturing balance that's stable, sufficient, and safe, and that we're these parasite polluters who just ruin it, then you're always going to expect our impact to destroy the world.
00:10:57.000And this is why you have these Paul Ehrlichs who are always wrong.
00:12:16.000So just continue on those three characteristics of nature and if you agree with them or not.
00:12:21.000So it's the, yeah, so this idea of the delicate nurture assumption that nature exists in a delicate balance that's stable, sufficient, and safe, and our impact ruins it, and we're just parasite polluters.
00:12:31.000Insofar as you believe that, you're going to believe that human impact inevitably leads to catastrophe.
00:14:02.000So, Alex, I want you to expand on something you said earlier.
00:14:05.000You said thanks to fossil fuels, 98% of climate catastrophe has decreased or been limited.
00:14:11.000And it's so clear that many of our elites and/or their apparatchic followers are sheltered by a postmodern and modern lens.
00:14:22.000They think of climate catastrophe simply as the big stuff, the tsunamis, the hurricanes, and they think that warming is contributing to it, of which I don't subscribe to.
00:14:29.000But they don't realize that man's battle against nature has just recently been conquered.
00:14:37.000For example, I live here in Phoenix, Arizona.
00:14:39.000If it was not for fossil fuels, it was very hard to be able to build a stable civilization here before air conditioning in June, July, August.
00:14:49.000Another example would be just being able to inhabit most of Alaska, being able to shelter yourself from wind, being able to, you know, as you get older, not have to worry about it becoming negative 10 degrees.
00:15:00.000Talk about how we have forgotten, we have no memory of man's struggle against the elements.
00:15:08.000And we act as if now the only struggle we have is against hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, of which is legitimate.
00:15:15.000I don't think fossil fuels are connected to it.
00:15:20.000So I would put all of these in the same category if you're talking about being protected from heat, being protected from cold.
00:15:27.000But we're far climate-related disaster deaths include things like hurricanes, not really tsunamis, because not really climate-related in the same way.
00:15:56.000Would you rather live in the climate of 100 years ago or today?
00:16:00.000I mean, isn't it obvious that we'd all rather live today?
00:16:03.000And yet, we think about today's climate as uniquely dangerous.
00:16:06.000But what we find when we realize how safe we are from climate is that the real variable that counts in terms of safety from climate is how good are you at mastering climate?
00:16:16.000Above all, how good are you at neutralizing climate danger?
00:16:19.000For example, I mentioned earlier drought.
00:16:22.000How good are you at irrigating to avoid drought?
00:16:25.000And how good are you at transporting crops from areas that don't have drought to areas that have drought?
00:16:30.000We've driven drought-related deaths down by over 99%.
00:16:33.000Droughts routinely killed millions of people a year just 100 years ago, and they don't anymore.
00:16:39.000And it's fossil fuels that are driving this because they're powering the machines that irrigate the crop transport machines, et cetera.
00:16:45.000And so, if you realize how good we are at mastering climate with fossil fuels, this is so important because it means that any future changes, we can use the same mastery abilities, which means that for future changes to be a big problem, they would have to be a total difference in kind for anything we've experienced in the last hundred plus years where we've already been emitting CO2.
00:17:05.000So, if we've already been emitting CO2 and we're safer than ever from climate, why do people think it's going to be the apocalypse emitting more CO2?
00:17:12.000It has to be, I think, a religious faith thing.
00:17:15.000Well, and I think, yeah, I mean, I really believe that it is these are disciples and acolytes of Marxism that have then transferred their Marxism into a pagan, earth-worshiping, environmentalist cult that they're then able to better achieve their economic Marxist beliefs in harmony of worshiping the earth, and they remain really powerful.
00:17:38.000Rents are soaring at unprecedented highs.
00:17:41.000If you're renting or have a friend or family member, that is, now is a great time to make the move to homeownership.
00:17:47.000Look, you got to own renting, that's great, reset stuff.
00:17:50.000Andrew Del Rey and Todd Avakian at Sierra Pacific Mortgage have helped so many people make that leap from renting to owning with lots of programs that offer first-time buyers assistance with little to no down payment needed.
00:18:03.000I encourage you right now to visit my buddies, their website.
00:18:57.000We have to have a sense of urgency much greater than we have yet had and we need and we need to make some changes, creating the droughts and melting the ice and raising the sea level and causing these waves of climate refugees predicted to reach 1 billion in this century.
00:19:14.000Look at the xenophobia and political authoritarian trends that have come from just a few million refugees.
00:19:32.000One thing that indicates that this is a religion is just that every problem is tied to it, right?
00:19:38.000So anything that happens negatively in the world is the fault of quote-unquote climate change.
00:19:44.000And this should be particularly bizarre right now because it's pretty clear that a huge number of problems in the world are due to an energy crisis, high energy prices.
00:19:53.000And when you have high energy prices, that means high everything prices because energy is an input into every industry because every industry uses machines.
00:20:00.000So, for example, we're having all sorts of food problems due to high fuel prices for diesel machinery and especially high natural gas prices and modern natural gas is derived from fertilizer.
00:20:13.000So if he were looking objectively at reality, he'd see, hey, so many of the problems today are due to lack of fossil fuels.
00:20:19.000I'd say the other big cause is lack of freedom more broadly, including the lockdown approach to COVID, which is a big part of the supply chain crisis.
00:20:38.000If you want to just get down, Al Gore was an irrelevant failed presidential candidate who his one thing that he ever did as vice president was like being remotely involved in like a moon landing project.
00:20:51.000He scooped this up as a pet project, did Inconvenient Truth as a documentary, and is worth, I don't know, estimates say anywhere between $50 to $200 million personally.
00:21:14.000He's just done exactly what he did here, and it keeps leading to disaster because he keeps saying fossil fuel side effects are ending the world and they have no benefits.
00:21:31.000And so the exact thing he's doing here has caused the problems, but he is then causing more of the problems because he doesn't admit that the anti-freedom, anti-energy part is the problem.
00:21:41.000It's not that climate is making everything worse.
00:21:44.000So Alex, I want to play another piece of tape here of Al Gore.
00:21:47.000You would think the guy who can't predict anything, in fact, you're right, it's worse than being wrong.
00:21:52.000It's when the 180 actually ends up happening.
00:21:54.000So Al Gore says in 2009, play cut 77, get it ready, polar ice may be gone in five years.
00:22:05.000And some of the models suggest to Dr. Maslowski that there is a 75% chance that the entire North Polar ice cap during summer, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years.
00:22:31.000Yeah, I mean, it definitely hasn't happened.
00:22:34.000I mean, I think that's one of the more accurate things he said in that it's less inaccurate than the others, because his main narrative has been that fossil fuels are going to like kill or ruin the lives of billions of people.
00:22:47.000And they've actually made billions of lives, people, billions of people's lives better, including safer from climate.
00:22:53.000The whole thing about the Arctic, it's a really weird focus because the reason you get more warming in the Arctic is because warming tends to occur in colder places.
00:23:01.000That's actually really good news because we have far more cold-related deaths than heat-related deaths.
00:23:06.000And we'd rather it get warmer in the places where people are too cold than on the equator.
00:23:49.000On transport, second strategic transport project review published just two weeks ago confirms that the era of catering for unconstrained growth in private car use is well and truly over.
00:24:03.000Furthermore, we have set out how we will reduce car kilometers by 20% by 2030 and prioritizes making best use of enhancing existing infrastructure before investing in new capacity.
00:24:18.000The Scottish Government have commissioned research exploring demand management options to discourage car use.
00:24:25.000And using the research findings, we will work with local and regional partners to develop a demand management framework by 2025.
00:24:48.000Is an interesting question, but let's just first say this is really evil.
00:24:52.000So you think about how important to human life transportation is, and in particular, the automobile and what that makes possible in terms of individual fulfillment.
00:25:03.000You just even think of transportation.
00:25:05.000I'm planning a honeymoon right now that involves flying because I want to go see wildlife in Africa.
00:25:10.000Like they say that's totally unsustainable, which just gives the lie to, oh, they care about enjoying nature.
00:27:05.000I think that the part of it that is generational is that millennials and people and Gen Z and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we're like, the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't address climate change.
00:27:22.000And your biggest issue is your biggest issue is how are we going to pay for it?
00:27:38.000So, I'm speaking as a non-religious person.
00:27:41.000And so, I would need evidence of the end of the world.
00:27:44.000And the evidence that we have is that the world's getting better and better using fossil fuels.
00:27:50.000So, again, they've driven down climate deaths, they've improved every aspect of life.
00:27:54.000The most notable thing, and I write about this, this exact exchange in chapter four of Fossil Future, because I think it's revealing of something that's not just the end of the world.
00:28:02.000Isn't notice the thing at the end that she says about like you're worried about how much you have to pay for it, and that refers to claims that the price of energy will go up.
00:28:10.000AOC treats this as, oh, who cares about that?
00:28:14.000I'm talking about the livability of the planet.
00:28:16.000And my point is: no, no, no, you don't understand.
00:28:18.000The livability of the planet depends on the price of energy because the price of energy determines your ability to use machines to be productive and prosperous on a naturally deficient and dangerous planet.
00:28:30.000Without energy and machines, this planet is a terrible place that is completely unlivable by our standards and could not even support 2 billion people.
00:28:40.000After the break, I want to get to what I think to be the moral core.
00:28:44.000And because you talk about the moral case of fossil fuels, and I agree with it because you come at it from a pro-human perspective, which I love, even though we have different religious views.
00:28:53.000I don't think the other side actually values humanity the way you and I do.
00:28:56.000I think that is also one of the cores here.
00:28:58.000I think there is a view of humanity as being parasitic and being cancerous, and there's nothing exceptional or special about the species.
00:29:07.000And so, I want to, I think that at its core is an anti-human component, in fact, a disdain for us.
00:29:40.000I think there's something special and exceptional for human beings.
00:29:43.000I have a religious view of that as also an objective one.
00:29:46.000There's just something that is so people are beautiful for our ability to use reason and rational speech and our contribution to the world.
00:29:54.000But if you really reduce the environmentalist argument, if you read their literature, it does seem to eventually get towards a negative view of humanity that we, as you say earlier, we're parasitic, that we are leaching on the land, and that the solution, therefore, very well could be depopulation or stunting human growth.
00:30:16.000At the core of environmentalism in the modern era, is there a hatred of humanity?
00:30:24.000So, I think think about it, I think it really comes down to our environmental philosophy.
00:30:29.000So, what is our view of the relationship between human beings and our environment?
00:30:32.000And I've talked about one aspect of this already, which is this delicate nurturer dogma that nature exists in a delicate balance that human impact ruins.
00:30:40.000And that explains partially what's going on.
00:30:42.000And that's part of this view: oh, human beings are this self-destructive, bad species.
00:30:46.000But there's also something even more insidious, if that's possible.
00:30:50.000And I think it's reflected in the fact that most people view our environment today as getting worse.
00:30:58.000I mean, I think most people view our environment.
00:31:00.000They're inundated with it all the time, that it is more polluted, more toxic, more chaotic, more species going extinct.
00:31:08.000I mean, it's built into the narrative, into the zeitgeist.
00:31:13.000But yet, if you look at the statistics about how humans flourish in today's environment, you know, look at most broadly at the Earth, you see it's just an incredible increase in how hospitable the world is to human beings.
00:31:25.000I mean, life expectancy has never been higher, resources have never been higher as measured by income.
00:32:50.000So, what when people say nature, like nature is more important than humans are in the same footing, what they're saying is non-human nature is superior to humans.
00:32:59.000So, it's really not a love of nature, it's a hatred specifically of the best part of nature.
00:33:05.000Yeah, and this is where I think that there is this happy partnership, and sign me up for it between the religious, where we very clearly, I believe nature is there for us.
00:33:28.000So much of the modern world, though, we only have a minute remaining, does have a disdain for humanity, that we are inefficient, that we require so much nutrient to keep going.
00:33:39.000This is taught now in college classes.
00:33:41.000And then we wonder why people are killing themselves so much.
00:33:43.000It's like, yeah, you're actually not celebrating the human being of what we're capable of, of our flourishing, of our vitality, our vitality, our ability to take risk, to create.