[Editor Note: MasterResource has reviewed Alex Epstein’s The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels before, but new reviews are welcomed to better appreciate and promote one of the most important books of its genre (energy realism) since Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource (1981). For futher information about this review and its author, see below.]
Who would argue that producing and using fossil fuels is not only not shameful, but also positively virtuous? Alex Epstein would. And he has done so eloquently and thoroughly in his book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
Epstein aptly summarizes his book with its final sentence (p. 209): “Mankind’s use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous—because human life is the standard of value, and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it wonderful for human life.”…