The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels

What if everything you’ve been told about fossil fuels—their danger, their pollution, their threat to the planet—is fundamentally wrong? In The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, Alex Epstein issues a provocative challenge to conventional wisdom. He argues that instead of being a destructive addiction, our use of coal, oil, and natural gas has been the foundation of human progress—and that dramatically reducing fossil fuel consumption would lead to mass suffering and death. According to Epstein, cheap, plentiful, reliable energy from fossil fuels has empowered humanity to overcome nature’s dangers, extend life expectancy, and create healthier, wealthier societies. His question for readers is simple: if energy is the ability to do work and improve life, shouldn’t we want more of it, not less?

Epstein contends that humanity’s moral standard for environmental decisions should be what promotes human flourishing, not what minimizes impact on nature. He introduces three key effects of fossil fuels to prove this point: the greenhouse effect, the fertilizer effect, and the energy effect. The greenhouse effect, he argues, is real but not catastrophic; the fertilizer effect shows how CO2 enhances plant growth; and the energy effect demonstrates how fossil fuels make climates safer and more livable through technology and development. These are not abstract theory for Epstein—they’re measurable realities backed by data showing a decline in climate-related deaths by 98% over the past century and skyrocketing global life expectancy.

Why Energy Is Central to Human Flourishing

Epstein begins by redefining energy as “machine calories”—the fuel that powers civilization much like food powers our bodies. Just as human calories enable motion and thought, “machine calories” enable refrigerators, cars, hospitals, and clean water systems. Without them, we revert to a world of scarcity and suffering. When he recounts a story from The Gambia about a baby who died because the hospital lacked electricity for an ultrasound and incubator, it’s a visceral reminder that access to energy is not a luxury; it’s a life-or-death necessity. You begin to see energy not as a technical topic but as the foundation of comfort, safety, and opportunity.

The Misguided War on Energy

For over thirty years, Epstein points out, experts predicted catastrophe: resource depletion, rampant pollution, and runaway global warming. Yet history tells a different story. As fossil fuel use nearly doubled since 1980, life expectancy rose, air and water quality improved, food production expanded, and climate-related deaths plummeted. To Epstein, this isn’t paradoxical—it’s proof that fossil fuels empower us to manage nature’s hazards rather than be victims of them. He contrasts these results with failed predictions from figures like Paul Ehrlich and John Holdren, who forecasted famine and collapse. (“By the year 2000,” Ehrlich claimed, “England will not exist.” It’s still very much there.)

A Human Standard of Value

Underlying Epstein’s entire argument is the philosophical question: by what standard do we decide right and wrong? Environmentalists often operate on a “nonimpact” standard—the idea that the moral ideal is to minimize human effect on nature. Epstein flips this. He insists that our standard must be human flourishing. We should thank the fossil fuel industry for building a world of comfort and longevity, not blame it for empowering our survival. He quotes Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged to capture this idea: civilization is not man’s war against nature—it’s his victory over it.

What This Book Ultimately Offers

Across nine chapters, Epstein develops a logical case for why fossil fuels are not only sustainable but morally necessary for human progress. He explores the superiority of fossil fuel energy compared to alternatives like solar and wind (which he calls unreliable parasites), the role of technology in transforming dangerous climates into livable ones, and how development powered by fossil fuels has eradicated disease, reduced pollution, and increased safety. He ends with a rallying call: to reject the Green movement’s moral prejudice against human impact and replace it with a philosophy of Industrial Progress—the belief that transforming nature through energy and technology is virtuous, not evil. If humanity’s success is measured by the quality of life we create, then the moral act, Epstein concludes, is to produce more energy for everyone.

“We don’t take a safe climate and make it dangerous,” Epstein writes. “We take a dangerous climate and make it safe. High-energy civilization, not a stable climate, is the driver of climate livability.”

This overarching idea transforms the entire conversation about the environment. Fossil fuels aren’t humanity’s curse—they’re our greatest tool for survival and progress. Instead of asking how we can have less impact, Epstein wants you to ask: How can we use energy to create a better world for human life?

Epstein insists that understanding energy means understanding how civilization itself functions. In his words, “energy is the ability to do work.” Human beings are naturally weak and fragile, but through technology powered by fossil fuels, we have multiplied our strength a hundredfold. Every machine, from farm equipment to MRI scanners, needs calories—machine calories. Thinking about energy this way lets you see why every modern miracle depends on fuel. Without it, machines stall, lights go out, and progress freezes.

From Human Weakness to Machine Power

Before industrialization, life depended solely on muscle and firewood. A farmer’s yield, a builder’s strength, or a merchant’s labor was constrained by physical exhaustion. The advent of machines powered by fossil fuels shattered that ceiling. Now, every American has the equivalent of ninety-three human workers operating for them every day through the energy they use. The modern electric grid, transportation systems, and manufacturing processes all rely on fossil energy’s density, affordability, and reliability—qualities other renewables have never matched.

The Human Cost of Energy Poverty

Epstein never lets readers forget the human faces behind energy statistics. Globally, 1.3 billion people have no electricity, and over 3 billion lack adequate energy access. He recounts the heartbreaking story of doctors in The Gambia powerless to save babies because the hospital couldn’t afford steady energy for incubators and ultrasounds. Such examples illustrate his blunt moral claim: energy deprivation kills far more people than climate change ever will. Until clean energy can be cheap and dependable for billions—not just a luxury experiment for the wealthy—fossil fuels remain humanity’s indispensable ally.

Efficiency vs. Scalability

Epstein challenges you to see that the energy debate isn’t about simplicity—it's about scale. Solar panels may power a cabin, but not a city. Wind turbines may light a farmhouse, but not an industry. Fossil fuels are unique because they scale easily—they already power seven billion lives. He jokes about “hazelnut energy” from a Saturday Night Live sketch: technically possible, but absurdly inefficient. By contrast, fossil fuels offer concentrated, stored sunlight from millions of years ago, already prepared for large-scale transformation.

Machines: Our Modern Servants

Energy gives humans leverage. Economist Milton Friedman once said, “The great achievements of capitalist industry have meant little to the rich—they already had servants. What capitalism did was give servants to the common man.” Epstein builds on that idea: fossil fuels liberated humanity from slavery and exhaustion, replacing human labor with machine labor. Machines are egalitarian servants—powered not by others’ suffering but by abundant energy. That transformation defines civilization. Without it, every step backward from fossil fuels is a descent into scarcity.

“Every machine calorie counts,” Epstein reminds readers. “To starve our machines of energy is to starve ourselves.” Fossil fuels don’t enslave humanity—they free it to live, think, and thrive.

Epstein dismantles the “renewables will save us” narrative by exposing the practical failures of solar, wind, and biomass. His critique isn’t ideological—it’s logistical. These sources, he explains, are dilute, intermittent, and resource-hungry. They cannot generate consistent power for billions of people at an affordable cost. He challenges the reader to think about reliability first: energy that vanishes at night or depends on fair weather isn’t energy—it’s hope.

The Problem of Diluteness

Sunlight and wind contain energy, yes—but very little in concentrated form. To harness them, you need massive infrastructure: mirrors, rare-earth magnets, silicon panels, steel towers, and concrete foundations. The scale makes “free energy” ironically resource-intensive. Burning coal or gas already offers concentrated energy; renewables, by contrast, require nature’s forces to be gathered and stored artificially. That process costs money, time, and land.

The Problem of Intermittency

Reliability, in Epstein’s moral calculus, is everything. A hospital, data center, or even kitchen must have guaranteed power, not ‘sometimes’ electricity. Wind stops, the sun sets, clouds move. Without a cheap method of storing electricity at scale—a feat no one has achieved—renewables are parasites that require fossil fuel “hosts” to back them up. He notes that even Germany, the world’s poster child for solar and wind, still relies heavily on coal to maintain grid stability while paying neighboring countries to take excess power during sunny days. Renewable surges disrupt as much as they deliver.

The Hazelnut Energy Analogy

In one memorable metaphor, Epstein cites Saturday Night Live’s Jimmy Fallon joking that powering cars by hazelnuts would be “as wise as fueling them with Fabergé eggs.” The comparison sums up renewables perfectly: clever in theory, costly in reality. The free sun and wind aren’t truly free once you account for all the mining, refining, and logistics required to harness them. Cheap, reliable energy must be cheap and reliable at every step—not just at the moment sunlight hits a panel.

Biomass: Food vs. Fuel

Epstein also takes on the global push for biofuels. Turning corn or sugarcane into ethanol sounds sustainable, but it competes directly with food production, raising prices and pressuring farmland. His graph showing the parallel climb of food prices and biofuel output reveals this moral irony: the poor pay more to feed machines that power the rich. It’s a humanitarian cost masked as environmental virtue.

Epstein concludes that the test for any energy technology is simple: “Can it provide cheap, plentiful, reliable energy for billions?” If it fails that test, it’s not progress—it’s regression disguised as virtue.

While much of the world sees fossil fuels as climate villains, Epstein argues they’ve made the climate dramatically safer. He supports this with staggering data from the EM-DAT International Disaster Database: since 1930, climate-related deaths—storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires—have fallen by 98%, even as CO2 emissions soared. Rather than fueling danger, fossil fuels power the machines, infrastructure, and mobility that protect us from nature’s chaos.

From Climate Victims to Climate Masters

Epstein defines “climate livability” in human terms: how well we survive and thrive in any condition. Energy is our key tool for adaptation. Fossil fuels enable sturdy homes, weather forecasting, irrigation during droughts, and rapid disaster response. In high-energy nations like the U.S. or Japan, the same storms that devastate poorer countries cause virtually zero fatalities thanks to technology and wealth. This contrast proves, Epstein says, that “energy is the climate safety net.”

Nature Is Not Nurturing

Challenging the romantic idea of a naturally healthy planet, Epstein observes that the raw climate is indifferent to human life. Whether it’s the heat of deserts or the cold of Alaska, nature isn’t gentle—it’s lethal without protection. He reminds readers that Southern California, often seen as paradise, is naturally a near-desert made livable only by irrigation and air conditioning. Technology turns danger into desirability.

Mastering the Sea

Epstein illustrates “climate mastery” with the Netherlands—a nation half below sea level but safe and thriving thanks to human ingenuity. Through dikes, dams, pumps, and energy-driven engineering, the Dutch have lived with rising water for centuries. It’s not a miracle—it’s industrial design. The same logic applies to future sea-level changes: adapt, don’t panic. His examples turn fear into faith in human capability.

Climate Freedom

Energy also brings what Epstein calls “climate freedom”—the ability to move or stay anywhere and make it livable. Thanks to fossil-fueled transportation, we can choose climates we enjoy or transform ones we don’t. Whether escaping heat with AC or cold with heating oil, humanity’s mobility and comfort depend on powered machines. Even if future generations faced major climate changes, our best defense would not be restrictions—it would be more energy and technology.

Epstein reframes the question: “The key issue isn’t—‘Is the climate changing?’ It’s—‘Do we have the energy and technology to handle whatever climate we face?’” With fossil fuels, the answer is yes.

No technology is without risk, Epstein admits, but he believes that risk management, not restriction, is the moral response. He contrasts the industrial smog of 19th-century England with modern America’s cleaner air—even as fossil fuel use rose. The takeaway? Innovation tames hazards. Antipollution technologies, from scrubbers to filters, have reduced major pollutants by over 70% since 1970 without curbing energy use. Progress isn’t about perfection—it’s about continual improvement.

Every Industry Has Side Effects

Epstein urges consistency when judging technologies. Fossil fuel production involves dangerous materials, yes—but so do wind turbines, which rely on toxic rare earth mining that devastates communities in places like Baotou, China. Singling out fossil fuels as “dirty” while calling wind “clean” is dishonest. Every form of energy creates by-products; some manage them better. Coal pollution has fallen thanks to chemical scrubbers and filtration, turning former waste into industrial commodities. The moral approach, Epstein says, is to minimize risk with technology, not abolish it.

The Fallacies That Distort Judgment

• Abuse-Use Fallacy: Misusing a technology doesn’t justify banning it. If car crashes exist, we don’t outlaw cars.
• False Attribution Fallacy: Correlation isn’t causation. Fracking wasn’t responsible for methane in water—naturally occurring sources were.
• No-Threshold Fallacy: Assuming any amount of a substance is toxic, ignoring dosage and context.
• Artificial Fallacy: Assuming “natural” is good and “man-made” is evil—despite arsenic and cyanide being natural.

Government’s Proper Role

Epstein calls for pollution laws rooted in science and rights: protect individuals from harm while letting industries innovate. The goal isn’t zero impact—it’s balanced progress. History shows that as wealth rises and energy use expands, environmental quality improves. That’s development, not degradation. For Epstein, to restrict fossil fuels today isn’t moral precaution—it’s economic and humanitarian cruelty.

“We don’t take a safe environment and make it dangerous,” he writes. “We take a dangerous environment and make it far safer.” Fossil fuels aren’t a threat—they’re the cure for poverty and pollution.

Behind Epstein’s environmental arguments lies a philosophical duel: Should we judge human activity by its impact on nature or by its benefit to humans? He calls the former the Green standard (nonimpact), and the latter the human standard (flourishing). To him, environmentalism went wrong when it turned anti-human—treating development as evil and nature as sacred. His alternative philosophy, Industrial Progress, celebrates the ingenuity that transforms a hazardous planet into a livable one.

Green Ideals vs. Human Values

Epstein critiques thought leaders like Bill McKibben and Paul Ehrlich, who lament humanity’s “impact” and see fewer people, fewer desires, and fewer ambitions as moral goals. He points to quotes where activists wish for humanity’s extinction or a deadly virus to restore “balance.” Such reasoning, he argues, treats human existence as a crime. By contrast, his human-centered view sees impact as meaningful creation. Developing land, curing disease, building cities—all are evidence of humanity fulfilling its nature as a thinker and builder.

Industrial Progress as Virtue

Epstein defines progress as transforming the environment for human benefit. Industrial civilization, powered by cheap energy, is the pinnacle of this virtue. To develop is not to destroy the environment but to improve it—purifying water, reducing disease, creating leisure, and sustaining beauty. Even nature’s aesthetic pleasures, like exploring rainforests or mountains, require fossil fuel–enabled mobility and health. Without industrial progress, “camping” reverts from recreation to survival.

A Moral Reversal

By reframing impact as life-giving, Epstein turns environmental morality upside down. He regards fossil-fueled development as the world’s greatest benefactor, not destroyer. Industrial civilization doesn’t pollute—it heals. Economic growth leads to cleaner air, safer water, and longer lives. To him, the true immorality is suppressing energy which saves lives and enables creativity.

Industrial progress, Epstein concludes, is not mankind’s fall from grace—it’s our triumph over nature’s indifference. “We don’t need to save the planet from human beings,” he writes, “we need to improve the planet for human beings.”

Epstein ends with an audacious claim: our way of life is not only sustainable—it’s progressive. Fossil fuels will last for centuries, and by the time they run low, human ingenuity will have already created better solutions. Sustainability, he argues, is a misleading concept: it focuses on repetition rather than advancement. The key to enduring prosperity is not using the same resources indefinitely but continually creating new ones through knowledge and freedom.

The Myth of Scarcity

At every stage, pessimists predicted depletion. Yet proven fossil reserves have increased as consumption rose. Why? Because resources are not gifts of nature—they’re products of ingenuity. Oil was useless until science turned goo into fuel; aluminum was worthless until smelting made it usable. The Earth, filled with matter and energy, is full of potential resources waiting to be discovered. What we call “finite” is really “undeveloped.”

Human Ingenuity as the Ultimate Resource

Borrowing from economist Julian Simon, Epstein argues that the ultimate resource is the human mind. Innovation, not restriction, extends our lifespan and options. Shale energy, fracking, and clean industrial technology didn’t appear through conservation—they came from freedom to experiment. Every generation inherits both the wealth and knowledge created by its predecessors, enabling exponential progress. Your smartphone, your home, your food system—all are layers of ingenuity built upon past innovation.

Gratitude Toward Past Generations

Epstein invites readers to feel gratitude instead of guilt toward fossil fuel users of the past. Their development bought us time, comfort, and knowledge. Every watt generated and every barrel extracted created the conditions for the next breakthrough. We owe our prosperity not to restraint but to creation. The best way to honor future generations, he insists, is to keep creating resources through productive freedom, not limit them through “sustainability” mandates.

Why Time Is the Real Resource

Time, Epstein says, is the one resource we can’t replenish. Fossil fuels buy us time—time to live longer, innovate faster, and solve more problems. Every restriction on energy steals time and opportunity from billions waiting to rise out of poverty. Sustainability policies threaten not just comfort but survival. Progress, not preservation, is the path to a truly sustainable civilization.

“We are not scraping the bottom of the barrel,” Epstein writes. “We are standing on the tip of an endless iceberg of possibility.” The future isn’t about consuming less—it’s about creating more.