“We all have a stake in the war over fossil fuels, and it’s a war that will ultimately be won or lost depending on whether we can win the moral and environmental high ground.”

As I wrote in Friday’s post, the challenge of persuading the public in favor of fossil fuels is really one of conveying the fact that fossil fuels improve the planet for human life, in such a way that you quickly capture the moral high ground and the environmental high ground—as against taking defensive stands on these issues (or none at all).

At the Center for Industrial Progress, we do a lot to help companies move hearts and minds by applying these ideas to their communications projects, and we’ve also begun a campaign to take our strategy to the public directly.…

“It’s estimated that, in large part thanks to new, coal-powered infrastructure, between 1 billion and 2 billion people now have access to clean drinking water that didn’t 20 years ago.”

So far this week, I’ve argued that fossil fuels actually improve the environment for human beings, and applied that idea to two important strategies for any debate on the value of fossil fuels: taking the moral high ground and taking the environmental high ground.

I apply both in the following excerpt from my book, Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet.

How the Coal Industry Should Defend itself

Once you understand that coal and other fossil fuels improve our environment, your ability to defend them is incomparably greater.

Let’s work through an example: the controversy over coal exports in the Pacific Northwest.…

“In this century the bulk of humanity will live in large densely populated cities. If the citizens of of these cities are to attain a high quality of life they will require large centralised energy generation. This is not a matter of ideological preference, but of engineering reality.”

– Robert Wilson, The Future of Energy: Why Power Density Matters, Energy Collective, August 8, 2013.

“There is no doubt that we in the United States need to alter our energy strategy. The question is how we will change it. A rational energy strategy must be determined by scientific evaluation of fact and logical analysis of performance and economics–not by emotion, political considerations, and ‘feel good’ methodologies.”

– Jerry Graf (below)

Other than the damage to the economy from the waste itself, the real problem with mandating and subsidizing non-viable energy technology projects is that this distracts us and diverts resources from other efforts to improve our energy production strategy.…

The recent death of George P. Mitchell has revived the discussion of shale gas and brought the extraordinary life of Mitchell into the limelight.

Son of poor Greek immigrants, he embodied the prototypical “rags-to-riches”. His development of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) has been his highlighted attribute and brought justified recognition for his contribution to the global energy supply.

When considering the economic benefits that shale gas production through fracking bring about, it is no wonder why Mitchell continues to win awards, such as “Houstonian of the Century,” even posthumously.

The Bigger Picture

What appears to be absent from most of Mitchell’s praise is his growing contribution to strengthening the global position of the United States. The prodigious supply of U.S. natural gas already has weakened energy-dominate regions, which include Russia and OPEC, and has created a greater potential for foreign partnerships.…