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bak no lnx 9 22

lots of bad twt code

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aha hmmn do they look for cidgel before cop eg UK server -gate?

mma

Ahead of COP30, right-wing media misrepresented Bill Gates' memo to declare climate change is over

Climate scientists question why Gates is pitting poverty reduction against climate action

Special ProgramsClimate & Energy

Written by Allison Fisher

Research contributions from Ilana Berger

Published 11/14/25

Bill Weir, CNN’s chief climate correspondent, correctly predicted how right-wing media would respond: “This will be used by detractors and denialists to say that the story is shifting.”

On *CNN News Central’*s day one coverage of COP30, Erica Hill laid out some of the impact of Gates’ memo at a time when the United States is already turning its back on the “world’s largest climate summit”:

But there it seems Gates was wrong. Right-wing media figures, who regularly downplay the climate crisis are likely among those who “think climate is not important,” and they are not disagreeing with the memo. They have celebrated it and used it to further downplay the climate crisis, attack climate science as “fraudulent,” and advance right-wing narratives and misinformation related to global warming, including denying sea level rise, suggesting that current climate change is unremarkable because the climate has been changing for billions of years, and pushing the “global cooling” myth.

6/22/22]

10/29/25]

10/30/25; Washington Post, 9/16/16; Media Matters, 12/17/12; 5/22/19]

Newsmax host Rob Finnerty falsely claimed that Gates is “saying that it’s [climate change] not real.Finnerty said, “Now think about what Democrats have done to all of us in reaction to the climate hysteria created by people like Bill Gates over the last five decades: wind farms, electric cars, carbon footprint, bike lanes, electric buses, eating less meat, renewable energy. We could go on all night and all of it was total garbage. … Bill Gates, who's been right there with always-wrong Al Gore warning us of impending doom for years now, saying that it's not real.” Newsmax, *Finnerty*, [10/31/25]

Right-wing streamer Zack Hoyt, known online as Asmongold, told his audience that Bill Gates no longer believes in climate change and quotes Trump’s Truth Social Post.“You know who else doesn't believe in climate change recently? Bill Gates. Bill Gates has dramatically changed his position on climate change, acknowledging for the first time that there is no doomsday risk for, of global warming. … We just won the war on the climate change hoax. Bill Gates has finally admitted that he was completely wrong on the issue.” [YouTube, AsmongoldTV,

11/1/25]}:

3/25/24]

Additionally, The Guardian pointed out that a number of climate scientists have criticized Gates for using “‘straw man’ arguments about the threat to humanity and ‘false dichotomies’ between spending on climate or aid for the poor.”

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The 'Climate Change' Danger - LewRockwell

Lew Rockwell

Epstein thinks that the danger from global warming has been exaggerated, but though he presents extensive evidence in support of this, his main ...

lewRockwell.comANTI-STATE•ANTI-WAR•PRO-MARKET

The “Climate Change” Danger

By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

September 22, 2025

Donate

The Left constantly subjects us to propaganda about the alleged danger posed by “climate change” or “global warming.” They assure us that we must “follow the science,” which, it is claimed, has proved that the rise in global temperatures caused by fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, will soon result in catastrophe unless we “green” the economy. Under brain-dead “President” Joe Biden, extensive steps were taken towards “greening.” Fortunately, Donald Trump has rolled back some of these steps, but the constant barrage of the Left is a continuing menace.The Politically Incorr...Morano, MarcBest Price: $8.67Buy New $14.99(as of 05:10 UTC - Details)

The Left reacts with horror to any attempt to question “climate change.” They say that skeptics should be denied their right of free speech, just as they called for the suppression of those who warned of the dangers of Covid vaccinations, who it turned out were entirely correct. Noam Chomsky has said that Trump’s efforts in his first term to end “greening” made him a worse war criminal than Hitler.

One problem many people have is that they find it difficult to evaluate the alleged evidence offered by scientists who claim that “climate change” poses a dire threat, but in his remarkable book Fossil Future (Portfolio2022), Alex Epstein changed the terms of the debate about the danger of “global warming” and the alleged need to take drastic action in response to this. The opponents either question the evidence that disaster impends or argue that the threat can be handled without revamping the economy.

Epstein thinks that the danger from global warming has been exaggerated, but though he presents extensive evidence in support of this, his main contribution lies elsewhere. He argues that modern civilization depends on fossil fuels and that far from curtailing their use, we need to spread them to the impoverished parts of the world. So great are the benefits from using the fuels that only a true “end of the world” nightmare caused by CO2 emission could require that we shift to other energy sources, and despite the alarmists’ caterwauling, this nightmare is most unlikely to occur. Moreover, Epstein holds that the benefits of fossil fuels are so obvious that only a defect in thinking could have induced people to ignore them. He is a philosopher as well as an energy economist, and he expertly identifies the false thought pattern that has led to our current confusions.

Epstein says, “Whenever we hear about what the ‘experts’ think, we need to keep in mind that most of us have no direct access to what most expert researchers in the field think. We are being told what experts think through a system of institutions and people…. Understanding how this system, which I call our ‘knowledge system,’ works and how it can go wrong is the key to being able to spot when what we’re told the ‘experts’ think is very wrong—about fossil fuels or anything else.”

On the issue of energy, Epstein argues that the system has gone very wrong, indeed, owing to the fact that its leading lights are in the grip of a philosophy that views human beings as an upsetting intrusion on the earth: through their feverish pursuit of growth, people have interfered with the “delicate balance” of nature. Having done so, people must repent and “green” the economy, though some experts opine that it would be better to get rid of us altogether. Concerning this bizarre philosophy, Epstein remarks: “Why does our knowledge system always expect extreme negative impacts from cost-efficient energy’s side-effects and always expect that we will be unable to master these impacts? Because of a false assumption that leads anyone holding it to expect that all forms of significant impact on nature will inevitably be self-destructive. I call this the ‘delicate nurturer’ assumption … [which is] that Earth, absent human impact, exists in an optimal, nurturing ‘delicate balance’ that is as stable, sufficient, and safe as we can hope to expect.”

:{:{You might be inclined to object that scientific findings deal with facts, not philosophies: if “climate scientists” predict that continued global warming will have dire consequences, don’t we have to judge their arguments strictly as they stand, without regard to their proponents’ views about the proper place of human beings, however repellent we may find these views? Epstein responds that predictions are far different from claims about what has happened in the past, which can often, though not always, be assessed objectively.}:

Climate predictions are for the most part highly speculative, and the antihuman ideology of the “catastrophists,” as Epstein calls the climate alarmists, should incline us to view what they say with doubt, all the more so if they have wrongly predicted catastrophes in the past. “Such predictions [about climate] necessarily rely on highly complex science and models that are difficult for non-researchers to assess … it is both far easier and highly informative to assess our knowledge system’s, including designated experts’, track record of climate prediction” (the “designated experts” are those whom the system treats as authoritative).

One of these “experts,” Michael Mann, famed for his controversial “hockey stick” graph, is weighed in the balance and found wanting: “Designated expert Michael Mann has written: ‘We probably already exceed the [planet’s] carrying capacity by a factor of eight.’” It is unlikely that someone with this opinion will be eager to suggest policies that promote human welfare, and the same holds true of the notorious Paul Ehrlich, who has many times wrongly predicted disaster but whose oracular status nevertheless remains undiminished. Mann, by the way, is one of those who wants to suppress and even imprison climate skeptics. Why listen to them?}:

If the designated experts were not blinded by partisan passion, what would they see? The answer, Epstein says, is that Nature untouched by man is no “delicate balance” but rather an ever-dynamic, often hostile place. To survive and flourish in it, we must specialize in what we produce and use powerful machines in doing so. Such machines immensely multiply our natural energy and enable us to master the environment to our advantage. Only the fossil fuels— viz., coal, oil, and natural gas—can be used to produce these machines in a cost-efficient way. Wind and solar power are paltry by comparison. Hydroelectric and nuclear power fare rather better, but even they are no match for the fossil fuels, and furthermore, fossil fuels are often required to produce and implement the other forms of energy.

:{:{The Truth about Energy...Corsi Ph.D., Jerome R.Best Price: $10.35Buy New $17.98(as of 11:36 UTC - Details)}:

Epstein says about the fossil fuels: “Contrary to our anti-impact, anti-energy knowledge system these are not trivial benefits that are already overwhelmed by fossil fuels’ negative side-effects on the livability of our world—they are fundamental to the livability of our world. The current benefit of the world’s massive use of ultra-cost-effective fossil fuel energy is a radical increase in the productive ability of billions of people—via ultra-cost-effective fossil-fueled machine labor and the enormous amount of mental labor it frees up, along with fossil fuel materials—that makes the world unnaturally livable, i.e., conducive to human flourishing.”}:

:{:{It is here that the primary source of the book’s originality lies, together with the author’s cogent analysis of the conflicting opinions’ philosophical underpinnings. Other critics of the global catastrophists propose palliative measures to cope with what they deem a much lesser threat than their opponents envision; they suggest, for example, a shift to nuclear power and the limitation of such pollution as remains through “cap and trade,” a carbon tax, and the like.}:

Epstein, by contrast, is uncompromising. Not only does he want to maintain the use of fossil fuels; he relishes the prospect of the extended use of these fuels, particularly in poor areas of the world, where people without this resource languish. “Since 1980, the percentage of humanity living on less than $2 a day has gone from 42 percent to under 10 percent today. This wondrous development is the result of increasing and expanding productivity, which is driven by the increasing and expanding use of fossil-fueled machine labor and the enormous amount of mental labor it frees up. But there is still far more progress to be had…. Expanding fossil fuel use will enable everyone, especially the world’s poorest people, to become more productive and prosperous.”}:

:{:{But has Epstein dismissed the perils of untoward climate changes too quickly? Don’t floods that result from a rise in temperature pose real dangers, for example? Epstein responds by again appealing to the benefits of technology, made possible by fossil fuels. Technology enables us to achieve what Epstein calls “climate mastery.” He cites in this connection a telling statistic. Despite the temperature rise that occurred in the twentieth century, deaths from climate have sharply decreased.}:

“In reality, dangerous temperatures—which overwhelmingly come from too much cold, not too much heat—are a smaller danger than ever thanks to two forces: fossil-fueled climate mastery and modestly warming temperatures…. Before human beings had fossil-fueled machines to master dangerous climates, they were overwhelmed by natural temperature dangers, both heat and (especially) cold…. Heat-related deaths are a much bigger problem in the unempowered world today, which is yet another reason why empowerment is a moral imperative.”}:

Let’s do everything we can to stop the “climate change” fanatics from destroying our economy!

The Best of Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. He is the author of Against the State and Against the Left. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Previous article by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.: Are Tariffs Good for American Workers?

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We unraveled the $122 million web of climate denial, political extremism, and Trump ties to Project 2025

Mapped: How 6 Billionaire Family Fortunes Fund Project 2025 - DeSmog

As scrutiny of Project 2025 continues to grow, defenders of the Heritage Foundation-led initiative, which would reshape federal governance and give the next Republican president unprecedented new powers, say it’s the criticism — not the 922-page plan itself — that’s too extreme.

In a piece published last month, Fox News cited prominent conservatives who feel there’s “nothing radical” about the endeavor. The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board has accused detractors of “panic-mongering” and tried to reframe Project 2025’s sprawling “Mandate for Leadership” blueprint as more boring than scary — a milquetoast white paper that simply “melds the work of some 400 scholars and analysts from an eclectic mix of center-right groups.” This echoes Heritage’s insistence that Project 2025, while conservative, is anything but fringe.

But the findings from DeSmog’s recent investigation into Project 2025’s funding sources tell a very different story. Our wide-ranging analysis of public financial disclosure forms found that the groups on Project 2025’s advisory board — whose experts largely helped to draft the plan — are heavily funded by just six family fortunes. Since 2020, foundations linked to these billionaire families have contributed over $122 million to Project 2025 groups, including at least 290 individual donations to 49 nonprofits that contributed to the Mandate for Leadership documents or are on the initiative’s advisory board. We’ve mapped the funding ties between the billionaire families and the Project 2025 individuals and organizations in an interactive graphic, below.

Groups that received funds from the six family fortunes are far from the political mainstream, according to DeSmog’s analysis, including entities that actively deny the science of anthropogenic climate change — as well as organizations that have been classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center. DeSmog’s review also uncovered additional ties between the six families and the Trump/Vance ticket, though both candidates have tried to distance themselves from the initiative in recent months. Indeed, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein — the billionaire founders of the Uline packaging company, whose charitable donations tie them closely to Project 2025 — are among the former president’s biggest donors.

Project 2025 styles itself as populist, moderate, and far from the politics of Washington. Heritage Foundation President Kevin D. Roberts hails it as a plan for the perennially downtrodden, hard-laboring folks “who shower afterwork instead of before.” Its funding sources — elite, extreme, and closely tied to the Trump campaign — suggest exactly the opposite.

The Donors

Though the Mandate pledges to “prioritize the economic prosperity of ordinary Americans” and pry influence away from “America’s corporate and political elites,” the funding that produced it comes from the upper echelons of the billionaire class.

And not just any billionaires. The six family dynasties providing significant support to Project 2025 — Bradley, Coors, Koch, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein — all have long histories of fighting for financial and environmental deregulation. Three of the six families have promoted climate denial consistently enough to appear in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database, which tracks the people and organizations doing the most to undermine decarbonization efforts.

They include oil and gas magnate Charles G. Koch and his Koch Family Foundations; the Scaife Family Foundations, which tap vast wealth from the Mellon aluminum, oil, and banking fortune; and chemicals-and-electronics industrialist Barre Seid, whose recent, record-setting $1.6 billion gift to a nonprofit controlled by Federalist Society co-chair Leonard A. Leo has been a major source of Project 2025 money.

While the Heritage Foundation suggests a diverse conservative coalition gave rise to the Mandate for Leadership, the six family fortunes’ giving patterns were remarkably similar. Of the 49 Project 2025 groups, 37 percent received funding from at least three of the six families. 70 percent of the 49 groups received funding from at least two of the families. (In a few cases, the donations were to sister 501(c)4 lobbying arms that share offices and staff.) The average donation was over $420,000.

*Related:See DeSmog’s coverage of Trump Megadonor Tim Dunn’s Plan That’s More Extreme Than Project 2025

Links to Climate Denial

For decades, oil and gas magnate Charles G. Koch and his late brother David fought vigorously for environmental deregulation, including by supporting groups that sow doubt about the science of manmade climate change. Foundations linked to Koch gave at least $9.6 billion to 15 Project 2025 groups since 2020. But four of the lesser-known families — Bradley, Scaife, Seid, and Uihlein — gave even more, and all six family fortunes helped to fund Project 2025 groups that have denied the science of manmade climate change.

Of the 10 groups that the six families funded most heavily, seven are in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database. That includes more than $11 million to the Heritage Foundation; $8.3 million to Turning Point USA, which has provided a platform for well-known climate deniers like Alex Epstein; and $4.6 million to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, which in 2015 published an op-ed claiming warming is “obviously not initiated by the burning of fossil fuels”. In total, foundations linked to the six families gave to 15 Project 2025 groups with entries in DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database.

That wasn’t the only form of extremism DeSmog uncovered. Four Project 2025 organizations that received donations from the six billionaire fortunes since 2020 are classified as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a leading civil rights watchdog group. These include the Alliance Defending Freedom, an anti-LGBTQ group that received over $1.6 million in donations from Bradley and Koch; The Center for Immigration Studies, an anti-immigrant group that received $650,000 from Scaife; Eagle Forum, an anti-government and anti-immigrant group that received over $100,000 from Koch and Uihlein; and Family Research Council, an anti-abortion group that received $25,000 from Seid.

Of the six billionaire families, only Coors-linked foundations — run by heirs to the Coors brewing fortune — did not donate to at least one SPLC-designated hate group.

Links to the Trump Campaign

For months, Donald J. Trump has publicly disavowed Project 2025, claiming to know nothing about the initiative. That stance conflicts with subsequent media reports, including resurfaced video of the former president and current Republican presidential nominee saying, as a keynote speaker at a 2022 Heritage Foundation event, that Heritage would “lay the groundwork & detail plans for exactly what our movement will do.” The Washington Post reported that Trump flew in a private plane to the event with Heritage President Kevin Roberts.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, has also been the subject of intense scrutiny for numerous ties to Project 2025 — including writing the foreword to Roberts’ forthcoming book. DeSmog’s investigation also uncovered numerous ties between Vance and Project 2025 advisory groups, including a previously unreported 2017 keynote speech at a Heritage event.

But while the candidates continue to downplay any Project 2025 connections, one link is unavoidable: a billionaire family that heavily supports Project 2025 groups is among their campaign’s biggest donors, according to Federal Election Commission data.

In May, Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, the founders of the Uline packaging company, each donated $5 million to Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC supporting Trump’s reelection. That’s not including the more than $48 million Richard contributed to Restoration PAC, a pro-Trump political action committee, last quarter alone. Restoration PAC has spent over $12.9 million this year on political advertising, including ads supporting Trump and attacking his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since 2020, the Ed Uihlein Foundation, which is run by the Uihleins and named in honor of Richard’s father, has donated at least $13.4 million to 13 different Project 2025 groups.

The map below is interactive. Click on a donor to see the groups it funded with dollar amounts, or a nonprofit to see which of the six family fortunes made donations.

[GFX]

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exxon-fights-mass-ags-probe-climate-dissent

Valerie Richardson - The Washington Times - Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Alex Epstein had a three-word response after learning this week that Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey had included him in her investigation into climate change “fraud”: Buzz off, fascist.

Only he didn’t say “buzz.”

Mr. Epstein is a proud fossil fuel advocate, a believer that the benefits from cheap, reliable energy are more than offset by any still-under-debate problems from rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. His views are laid out in his 2014 book “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” (Penguin Random House).

For this, he finds himself on the prosecutor’s radar. His advocacy group, the Center for Industrial Progress, was named in an April 19 subpoena issued by Ms. Healey’s office demanding 40 years of communications between ExxonMobil and a dozen free market groups and universities.

ExxonMobil released a copy of the subpoena Wednesday as part of its motion for an injunction filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, in which the fossil fuel giant accused Ms. Healey of waging a politically motivated fishing expedition aimed at muzzling her ideological foes.

“Attorney General Healey is abusing the power of government to silence a speaker she disfavors,” said the motion.

Her office swung back Wednesday by accusing Exxon of engaging in “an unprecedented effort to limit the ability of state attorneys general to investigate fraud and unfair business practices and to protect Massachusetts consumers, investors and the public.”

The investigation centers on whether Exxon committed consumer and securities fraud stemming from the company’s challenging of the catastrophic climate change narrative.

“Our investigation is based, not on speculation, but on inconsistencies about climate change in Exxon documents which have been made public,” Healey spokeswoman Cyndi Roy Gonzalez said in the statement. “The First Amendment does not protect false and misleading statements in the marketplace.”

Ms. Gonzalez also called the point made by Exxon that it does not even do business in Massachusetts “completely preposterous” and “a clear attempt to delay and distract from the real issues.”

In its motion, Exxon said the Democrat Ms. Healey had made a “preordained determination” of the company’s guilt. Certainly, she has made no secret of her feelings about Exxon.

She was one of 17 attorneys general — 16 Democrats and one independent — who vowed at a March 29 press conference to use the system to pursue “fraud” allegations against fossil fuel companies and their supporters engaged in climate “denial.”

Ms. Healey said at the press event that “there’s nothing we need to worry about more than climate change.”

“Fossil fuel companies that deceived investors and consumers about the dangers of climate change should be, must be held accountable,” Ms. Healey said. “That’s why I too have joined in investigating the practices of ExxonMobil. We can all see today the troubling disconnect between what Exxon knew, what industry folks knew and what the company and industry chose to share with investors and with the American public.”

At least two other attorneys general at the press conference — New York’s Eric T. Schneiderman and the Virgin Islands’ Claude E. Walker — also have launched Exxon probes.

Exxon has moved to quash the Virgin Islands subpoena, which calls for documents and communications between the company going back 30 years with more than 100 think tanks, universities and academics.

Mr. Walker wound up dropping a subpoena in May against the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is pursuing sanctions against the prosecutor. The institute is one of the dozen groups named in the Massachusetts subpoena against Exxon.

Institute President Kent Lassman said the latest subpoena “demonstrates the growing threat to the civil liberties posed by a multistate coalition of attorneys general who choose politics over the Constitution.”

“The fight to defend free speech and the ability of all Americans to pursue the issues they believe in is essential,” Mr. Lassman said.

Exxon, which announced in 2007 that it had stopped funding free market nonprofits, issued a statement Wednesday taking issue with the assertion that it has engaged in climate “denial.”

“The great irony here is that we’ve acknowledged the risks of climate change for more than a decade, have supported a carbon tax as the better policy option and spent more than $7 billion on research and technologies to reduce emissions,” said Exxon spokesman Alan Jeffers. “It should make people question what this is really all about.”

Critics of AGs United for Clean Power have accused the attorneys general of turning up the heat on Exxon in order to finagle a windfall along the lines of the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement reached with the states, which guaranteed a payout of $206 billion over 25 years.

“What makes this even more ridiculous to my mind is that ExxonMobil has not denied that somehow climate change is not taking place,” said John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, which also was named in the subpoena.

“There is, however, a robust debate about what the cause of that is, how severe it is and what ought to be done about it,” Mr. Malcolm said. “It seems to me that the AGs here are going after a deep pocket and also going after, indirectly, those people who disagree with what is the politically correct view with respect to climate change.”

The other organizations named in the Massachusetts subpoena are the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, the American Enterprise Institute, Americans for Prosperity, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the American Petroleum Institute, the Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, the George C. Marshall Institute, The Heartland Institute and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

The subpoena demands what Exxon described as millions of documents dating back to Jan. 1, 1976, although the company argued in its motion that the four-year statute of limitations on potential fraud charges would exclude the vast majority of the documents.

In its motion, Exxon also cited the coalition’s involvement with climate change advocates, who prepped the attorneys general in the hours before the New York press conference. Documents show climate change groups have been advocating for state legal action against climate “deniers” as far back as a 2012 conference in La Jolla, California.

According to Exxon, the collusion between the Democratic attorneys general and climate change advocates “unmask the investigation launched by the Massachusetts Attorney General for what it is: a pretextual use of law enforcement power to deter ExxonMobil from participating in ongoing public deliberations about climate change and to fish through decades of ExxonMobil’s documents in the hope of finding some ammunition to enhance the Massachusetts Attorney General’s position in the policy debate concerning how to respond to climate change.”

Some Republicans, including attorneys general and members of Congress, have blasted the Democrat-led coalition’s pursuit of climate “fraud” as an abuse of prosecutorial power.

LAMAR?

Republicans on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee asked for information last month on the “coordinated efforts” against fossil fuel companies and climate skeptics by the attorneys general and climate groups. They have refused to comply with the request.

Meanwhile, Mr. Malcolm rejected the implication that Heritage Foundation scholars have challenged climate disaster scenarios in exchange for funding from fossil fuel companies.

“I don’t have any idea whether we receive a dime [from them],” said Mr. Malcolm. “But I can say this: Even if we did get money from them, the opinion of Heritage scholars are not bought and paid for. We would issue whatever opinions we would issue regardless of whether they gave us any money.”

Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.

ggl 7 24 healey resolution?

[### First The Government Went After ExxonMobil -- Now They' ...

Forbes

https://www.forbes.com › Opinion](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/2016/06/16/first-the-government-went-after-exxonmobil-now-theyre-going-after-me/)

Jun 16, 2016 — Alex Epstein is founder of the Center for Industrial Progress and author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. Click here to contact him. Alex ...

[### Mass. AG, told to 'f... off,' not commenting; Advocate calls ...

Legal Newsline

https://legalnewsline.com › stories › 510940372-mass-a...](https://legalnewsline.com/stories/510940372-mass-ag-told-to-f-off-not-commenting-advocate-calls-her-a-thug)

Jun 28, 2016 — Alex Epstein, founder of the for-profit advocacy group and think ... Healey's subpoena is being justified "with an allegation of fraud ...

bOSTON (Legal Newsline) - Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey isn't publicly addressing the think tank founder who told her to "f... off" after she issued a subpoena seeking his group's communication with ExxonMobil regarding climate change.

Alex Epstein, founder of the for-profit advocacy group and think tank Center for Industrial Progress, earlier this month tweeted his email response to Healey's demand for info: "Re: your demand to seize my emails; F... off, fascist," though what he wrote was not edited.

"She is a fascist and I gave the response she deserved," Epstein told Legal Newsline in an email.

"I’m not responding to that thug, who calls herself an Attorney General, with a detailed response. Her actions make clear that this is not a civilized argument between us."

Healey's office declined a Legal Newsline request for further comment. In a widely reported statement released shortly after Exxon's moved to stop her investigation, Healey defended her office's investigation, which has drawn plenty of criticism..

“For many months, Exxon Mobil has engaged in an unprecedented effort to limit the ability of state attorneys general to investigate fraud and unfair business practices and to protect Massachusetts consumers, investors and the public,” Healey spokeswoman Cyndi Roy Gonzalez said. “Our investigation is based, not on speculation, but on inconsistencies about climate change in Exxon documents which have been made public. The First Amendment does not protect false and misleading statements in the marketplace. Exxon’s assertion that we cannot investigate it because the company has not engaged in business here in Massachusetts is completely preposterous and is a clear attempt to delay and distract from the real issues. We will continue to fight aggressively on the basis of our clear legal authority to obtain the information that we need to ensure the Massachusetts public is protected.”

Healey included the Center for Industrial Progress in an April 19 subpoena demanding four decades of communications between ExxonMobil and 11 other groups. Epstein found out about that when ExxonMobil released a copy of that subpoena earlier this month as part of its motion for an injunction, filed in federal court in Texas.

Epstein, author of *The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels*, released in 2014, responded to Healey's subpoena with the tweet heard 'round the climate change debate world: "Re: your demand to seize my emails; F... off, fascist."

The other groups named in the subpoena are Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty; American Enterprise Institute; Americans for Prosperity; American Legislative Exchange Council; American Petroleum Institute; Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University; George C. Marshall Institute; the Heartland Institute and the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

ExxonMobil is suing Healey over her investigation into allegations the world energy giant lied about climate change in an effort to mislead the public and its own shareholders.

Exxon's complaint, filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, claims Healey wants the documents "in the hope of finding some ammunition to enhance the Massachusetts Attorney General’s position in the policy debate concerning how to respond to climate change."

Healey's investigation joined the one begun by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

"Since at least 2012, climate change activists and plaintiffs' attorneys have contemplated different means of obtaining the confidential records of fossil fuel companies, including the use of law enforcement power to obtain records that otherwise would be beyond their grasp," Exxon's complaint says.

Healey's subpoena is being justified "with an allegation of fraud that ExxonMobil supposedly committed against consumers and shareholders by not sufficiently communicating the government's view of the dangers of CO2," Epstein said.

Epstein said he has no doubt why he is being targeted in this case.

"This is part of an orchestrated effort by several AGs, guided by the leadership of Al Gore, to harass political opponents on energy policy with the abuse of government power," he said.

That orchestrated effort is a clear violation of his constitutional rights, Epstein said.

"The fact that my organization, which is funded by no one (including ExxonMobil) was targeted reveals that the 'crime' being prosecuted is expressing opinions that government officials do not like," he said.

"I wrote a bestselling book called The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, so the government may invade my privacy and, by the logic of its position, eventually throw me in jail."

On March 29, Healey joined with 16 other attorneys general at a press event in which all promised to use their offices to pursue fraud allegations against energy companies and those who deny climate change.

“In my view, there’s nothing we need to worry about more than climate change,” Healey said at that press event. “It’s incredibly serious when you think about the human and economic consequences.”

Epstein said he hasn't decided whether he will issue his own court challenge over the subpoena. He also said he hasn't been contacted by anyone in Healey's office but admitted he's not especially interested in speaking with them.

"The only contact I am interested in is the news that the suit has been withdrawn and that she and her colleagues have resigned for violating their oath to follow the US Constitution," he said.

karen kidd

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[### Exxon fights Massachusetts AG's 'political' probe into ...

Washington Times

https://www.washingtontimes.com › news › jun › exxon...](https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/15/exxon-fights-mass-ags-probe-climate-dissent/)

Jun 15, 2016 — Exxon Mobil Corp. moved this week to quash Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's subpoena ... Alex Epstein had a three-word response after ...

[### “SOD OFF, SWAMPY” ON STEROIDS: Global Warming ...

Instapundit

https://instapundit.com › ...](https://instapundit.com/236348/)

Alex Epstein had a terse response to a subpoena sent by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey Wednesday. Healey demanded the oil giant ExxonMobil hand ...

[### Alex Epstein

DeSmog

https://www.desmog.com › Database Entries](https://www.desmog.com/alex-epstein/)

Following his naming in a subpoena for communications with ExxonMobil, Epstein ... This latest inquiry by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is ...

[### Alex Epstein Leaves MA Attorney General Maura Healey ...

The Objective Standard

https://theobjectivestandard.com › Blog](https://theobjectivestandard.com/2016/06/alex-epstein-leaves-ma-attorney-general-maura-healey-naked-with-a-gun/)

Jun 17, 2016 — Alex Epstein's responses to an illegitimate subpoena from Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey left her naked with a gun.

[### Global Warming Skeptic Responds To Massachusetts AG's ...

The Daily Caller

https://dailycaller.com › 2016/06/15 › global-warming-...](https://dailycaller.com/2016/06/15/global-warming-skeptic-responds-to-massachusetts-ags-subpoena-fk-off-fascist/)

Jun 15, 2016 — Alex Epstein had a terse response to a subpoena sent by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey Wednesday. Healey demanded the oil giant ...

[### Alex Epstein - Champion Of Industry

Forbes

https://www.forbes.com › sites › alexepstein](https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexepstein/)

Alex Epstein is the author of the New York Times best-selling book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels and an expert on energy and industrial policy.

[### Center for Industrial Progress (CIP)

DeSmog

https://www.desmog.com › Database Entries](https://www.desmog.com/center-industrial-progress/)

Actions. June 2016. Alex Epstein's Center for Industrial Progress was listed among organizations named in a Massachusetts subpoena ... Healey is one in a ...

[### Dear AG Healey (Rated R for language)

Power Line

https://www.powerlineblog.com › archives › 2016/06](https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2016/06/dear-ag-healey-rated-r-for-language.php)

Jun 16, 2016 — Alex Epstein had a terse response to a subpoena sent by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey Wednesday. Healey demanded the oil giant ...

==

### The fossil fuel industry and right-wing media are losing their minds over Biden's decision to pause part of a dangerous LNG buildout

fox BS

==

see Healey MA lawsuit (with UK sp?)

http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/15/global-warming-skeptic-responds-to-massachusetts**-ags-subpoena-fk-off-fascist/

Epstein had a terse response to a subpoena sent by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey Wednesday.

2 disambig this main

// deniers and covid

===

cspan booktv steamboat?

===

===

https://www.dailykos.com/stories**/2023/3/8**/2156891/-Alex-Epstein-Cites-MLK-in-Fossil-Fuel-Propaganda-After-Blaming-MLK-for-Black-Crime

the _{industry-backed}_ climate deniers at the Heartland Institute held their big climate disinfo conference last week, with hours and hours of mostly old, almost exclusively white, and predominantly male _{free market fundamentalists}_ talking to each other. While Heartland's weekly climate _{newsletter claimed}_:{ to have gotten over 100,000 views on the stream, the YouTube videos from the 2-day denialfest struggle to }_{crack just 1,000 views}_:{.:(style="box-sizing:border-box;margin-top:0px"/maxresdefault.jpg):{.}:

Even more pitiful is that they brag about getting coverage, but all they can point to _{are three stories}_, two of which are very critical of Heartland's conference. Scott Waldman at _{E&E}_ described it as "who’s who of climate deniers," and focused on _{Trump election denial lawyer }_(_{detained pantless}_) Jeffrey Clark, who "held up a piece of cardboard on which he had written 'meta control'" to illustrate his discussion of the "communistic purposes" and the "self-interested… dark forces" behind climate change.

the second story Heartland had to promote (because there was nothing kinder) was from _{Inside Climate News}_, where Kristoffer Tigue covered the conference in the context of how it disproves the propaganda about the GOP's _{supposed climate conversion}_. He described Heartland as having "a long history of spreading misleading and false claims about global warming" and being "widely viewed by climate advocates as a disinformation machine." (Fact check: true, but it's not just climate advocates! _{Journalists}_ like Emily Atkin have _{referenced Heartland}_ as being part of _{the disinformation machine}_, author Shawn Laurence Otto _{called it back in 2012}_, as have _{professors}_ and scientists like _{Michael Mann}_, and Duke historian Nancy MacLean even listed Heartland in an Orion Mag piece headlined "_{The Disinformation Machine}_.")

Somewhat disappointingly, by comparison, the _{third link Heartland had to show for its work}_ was from fringe right-wing blog Ace of Spades HQ, which is only worth mentioning for the sake of acknowledging the disinfo conference’s third media hit. We'll just mention that this post praising Heartland's conference ends with an old song about spring being a little late this year, which is funny, because it was in the 80s in February when Heartland held the conference in Orlando, _{a cool 20°F above average}_.

But those articles actually weren't the only coverage that Heartland got! It received a second favorable write-up from _{Cowboy State Daily}_, another right-wing blog. There's little worth saying about it, except that itfocused on comments by Alex Epstein, the_{Big Oil whipping boy}_ who was Heartland's keynote speaker.

It was interesting to see the Cowboy State's reporting that Epstein, in addition to his standard spiel, also said that conservatives need to reframe the climate and energy issue. Specifically, Epstein turned to none other than "Martin Luther King" to support his case, because the Reverend/Dr./Nobel laureate — supposedly — just reframed "the issue of civil rights around the idea that people should be judged by the content of the character and not their skin color" and found success by linking policies "to a goal people agreed with."

While white people have exploited, appropriated and bastardized King's advocacy for years, this is a particularly egregious example when you know about Alex. Not only is Epstein invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to sell a product that _{disproportionately}_ _{hurts}_ _{Black communities}_, in a way that shamelessly invokes King's "Dream" as though it were merely a marketing gimmick or crisis communications trick, but also it's not even an intellectually honest speech by Epstein, because Alex has a history of trashing the very legacy that he now co-opts for his fossil fuel propaganda.

Epstein's racist history was covered by _{The Washington Post last year}_, and _{his reaction}_ didn't exactly _{clear him of the allegations}_. Back in college, _{Epstein argued}_ against recognition of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a federal holiday. He noted that "Black crime has increased steadily since King’s time," and then wrote, and published, on purpose, in a college newspaper, that "because of the bad ideas he promoted, Dr. King is responsible for a great part of the destruction that has occurred in America today, especially among black Americans."

Yes, demonstrating his early adeptness at disinformation, a young Epstein blamed Martin Luther King Jr.'s "bad ideas" for causing the Black struggle, as though campaigning against about structural racism is what actually somehow caused the symptoms of that structural racism decades later.

Alex Epstein is on the record, in writing, of disapproving of Martin Luther King Jr's "bad ideas" about race. So why is Epstein invoking those very ideas now, to sell fossil fuels?

Because _{that's how propaganda works}_, and this is as hamfisted as it gets.

Epstein’s hypocritical past might just be why Heartland chose to promote two stories embarrassing them, instead of the one that let Epstein embarrass himself.

===

---

http://redgreenandblue.org/2023/03/15/climate-disinformation-daily-caller/

Climate disinformation is what the Daily Caller DOES | Red, Green, and Blue

Red, Green, and Blue

Related · Daily Caller has a fact checker! (But is now run by Koch-trained career disinformer Michael Bastasch) · No, Marc Morano, nobody wants a ' ...

as internal text messages _{prove}_ what most have _{long known}_ about _{Fox News}_ (that it’s a conservative propaganda machine posing as a news outlet), it’s important to remember that these days, Fox is hardly alone. While Murdoch’s Fox and Wall Street Journal are the unquestioned Big Leagues of right-wing disinformation, there’s a whole set of bush league outlets serving as training grounds.

By Climate Denier Roundup

The Tucker Carlson-founded Daily Caller is one of the primary examples of how Fox and the Koch-funded climate change counter-movement are intertwined.

Back when they were mostly Koch-funded, _{Koch-trained Michael Bastasch}_ was regularly running climate disinformation featuring Koch-funded climate deniers. These days, their funding has diversified a bit thanks to _{Carlson’s feud with Kochs}_, though giving the Daily Caller money still appears to increase the odds of the outlet _{writing favorable content about you}_.

But _{**Bastasch** returned}_ last year as Managing Editor of the Daily Caller’s _{non-profit tax dodge foundation}_, after a stint at Fox News writing for _{election-lie-spreader Laura Ingraham}_.

Since his return, we’ve been watching closely to note any changes, and at this point can say it definitely appears that Bastasch is using his position to spread climate disinformation through multiple channels at the Caller, not just the “Big Tent” opinion vertical _{we noted last week}_.

_{In the past}_, most of the Caller’s climate disinfo would come from just one or two employees who appeared to be tasked with turning press releases from Koch cronies into “news” as their job on the “energy” beat (like Thomas Catenacci, who now works for, _{you guessed it, Fox News}_).

But these days, attacks on climate change science, policy, and experts have become a feature of coverage across the website and its various staffers.

It really stood out between 5 and 7 p.m. last Wednesday, when the Daily Caller published a triple-play of climate disinfo: defending a fossil-fuel loving white supremacist, cherry-picking climate change from a US National security assessment, and attacked environmentalists organizing on TikTok to #StopWillow.

The first was from “news and commentary writer” Brianna Lyman, who provided _{a short write-up framed as criticism}_ of Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), who “accused one of the witnesses of being racist.” Who, you might ask? Well, despite the fact that ‘who/what/where/why/when’ is a basic tenet of journalism, Lyman didn’t identify the person at the center of the House committee meeting, and in fact, described Bush as “criticizing the oil industry before turning her attention toward an unidentified witness.”

Which is an absolutely astonishing thing for a supposed journalist to write, because Congressional _{hearings are very easy to look up}_.Alex Epstein, one of the “so-called ‘energy experts’” called by Republicans, is who Rep. Bush called “a philosopher who has previously espoused white supremacist views,” before Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) interjected to try and censor her by calling for the comment to be removed from the Congressional record.

But naming Epstein would require doing actual reporting, and apparently all Lyman did was watch a _{video clip of the hearing}_ (that she embedded in the story). If you’d like to see what real reporting of the hearing looks like, as opposed to someone running cover for a fellow traveler, _{Timothy Cama covered it for PoliticoPRO}_ and named _{Alex Epstein}_ right up front.

Roughly thirty-six minutes after Lyman’s article defending a racist was posted, the Daily ‘_{whoopsie we keep hiring racists}_‘ Caller published a piece on the US intelligence community’s Annual Threat Assessment. The headline of “reporter” Micaela Burrow’s coverage? “_{Intel Community Warns Fight Over Green Energy Tech Will Worsen Global Tensions.}_”

The 10-paragraph write-up quotes the assessment just twice to justify the story’s thrust that fighting climate change will somehow make the world more dangerous. That’s probably because the _{40-page assessment}_ only devotes 2 pages to climate, and then otherwise focuses on a bunch of things that the Daily Caller doesn’t spread disinfo about.

Finally, rounding out a very busy day for the Caller, “Associate Editor” Ailan Evans’ _{hit piece ran at 6:49}_, attacking the #StopWillow campaign on TikTok because one of the participating groups is funded by “a Swiss billionaire with a documented history of philanthropy and political donations, primarily to left-wing causes and candidates.” Though it’s dressed up as some sort of scandalous revelation, at no point does Evans attempt to explain how or why this is somehow bad.

But that’s the kind of training you get from the Daily Caller. Both Evans and current _{Fox Production Assistant}_ Kendall Tietz were _{2021 fellows}_ of the Daily Caller’s American Journalism Institute, where they train the next generation of political hacks to pretend to be journalists.

So next time you hear about some bizarre disinformation, rank political propaganda, or shameless defense of racism on Fox News, remember that it’s not an accident, they’retrainedto be that awful. There’s a whole farm league of conservative propaganda shops like the Daily Caller — the _{frack-backed}_ Daily Wire and _{Heritage}_‘s _{Daily Signal}_ come to mind — and while they’d all oppose a Universal Basic Income as socialism, they’re proof that as long as would-be-journalists are willing to play ball for the highest bidder, they’ll never want for work.

---

ref

ENERGYWIRE | House Republicans’ attempt to scold President Joe Biden for his massive releases from the federal government’s oil stockpile was quickly overshadowed by allegations of “white supremacist” commentary and lies.

The House Oversight and Accountability Subcommittee on Economic Growth, Energy Policy and Regulatory Affairs dedicated its first hearing of the Republican majority to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, using it as an attempt to denounce Biden’s sales of more than 200 million barrels of crude as a political maneuver that threatened national security.

But the Wednesday hearing quickly went off the rails.

Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, the panel’s top Democrat, argued that Alex Epstein, one of the Republican’s pro-fossil-fuel witnesses, had “previously espoused white supremacist views,” citing his writings in theDuke Review, a conservative newspaper, during his studies at Duke University more than two decades ago.

“The African and African American studies department has 23 classes. In many of these classes, African culture is presented, not as inferior to Western culture, but on equal footing with it. The same is done with Latin American, Indian,...

---

vid

Witnesses and testimonies:Mr. Alex Epstein

President

Center for Industrial Progress

:{

Document}:

Dr. Ilia Bouchouev

Managing Partner

Pentathlon Investments, LLC

:{

Document}:

Demond Drummer (Minority Witness)

Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy

The New School

:{

Document}:

===

lots of youtube

ayn rand inst objectivist philos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xJbJDEVOyM

misesmedia

143K subscribers

When it comes to energy and the environment, Americans not only get the wrong facts, arguments, and narratives—they get the wrong philosophy. Alex Epstein, who recently published perhaps the most important book of our time, joins Jeff and Bob to explain. Get Alex's new book Fossil Future: https://Mises.org/Fossil:{}00:00:{ Introduction}00:44:{ Fossil Future}04:30:{ The Future of Fossil Fuels}06:57:{ Framing the Debate on Energy Production}12:28:{ Dishonesty in Climate Science}24:20:{ CO2 Emissions}31:33:{ Is Nuclear Energy Still Possible?}34:06:{ Energy vs. Electricity}38:06:{ Western Climate Policy in Developing Countries}40:44:{ Motivations Behind Climate Change Policy}:

===

2022 desmog

Don’t Worry, Just Adapt!

Another narrative emerging from the denial and delayer camp is that “adapting” to climate change will be our lifeline: Those perpetuating it end up downplaying the impacts of the climate crisis because they say we will be able to adapt to it.

In a May 31 Slate article about Alex Epstein’s new book Fossil Future, which advocates for fossil fuels, Nitish Pahwa writes: “The new style of climate denial is here: It’s not that carbon emissions aren’t increasing, or aren’t warming the world, but look, you’re doing fine right now, right? So, we’ll be just fine!”

On May 20, Stuart Kirk, the head of responsible investing for HSBC’s asset management division, said at a Financial Times conference, “Who cares if Miami is six meters underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six meters underwater for ages, and that’s a really nice place. We will cope with it.” Kirk was later suspended for his comments.

[vid]

stuart Kirk, head of responsible investing for HSBC’s asset management division, was suspended for his comments to investors in which he downplayed the risks of climate change.

This argument implies that working to slow climate change is futile and offers adaptation as “the only possible response” to the climate crisis, according to Roberts and his colleagues in their “Discourses of delay” analysis.

---

ref  https://slate.com/technology**/2022/05**/alex-epstein-fossil-future-climate-change-argument.html

no lnx many

If you are concerned about our warming world, you should know who Alex Epstein is. The libertarian intellectual, who’s presented himself as the “next generation in energy thought,” has long hammered at a thesis that’s the next big thing in climate denial: Fossil fuels are not leading to an uninhabitable Earth, but have actually improved Earth’s natural and built habitats and contributed to “human flourishing.”

Because of this, the unfettered development of oil and gas and coal is a “moral” imperative; if you oppose this “irrefutable” fact, you’re a genocidal, racist, anti-human, and anti-science fool who would rather have billions of people slip into poverty and/or die for the benefit of “nature,” which, Epstein argues, kills more humans on its own than any climate effects do. It’s a set of ideas he’s boosted for the past two decades through work with the Ayn Rand Institute, the Cato Institute, and his own “for-profit” think tank, the Center for Industrial Progress.

Epstein, a master at having it both ways, realizes that you, the average Slate reader, probably consider his mission to achieve unlimited fossil fuel production to be at odds with global concerns over human-influenced impacts on climate and nature. And trust him, he shares your concerns and would not like to be described as a “denier.” But he’s also really worried about how our “knowledge system”—big newspapers, prominent scientists, the United Nations—distorts scientific findings and exaggerates climate-related warnings and predictions, which is why he pals around with conspiracy theorists like Lauren Boebert, Dennis Prager, Scott Adams, and Candace Owens.

By the way, as much as Epstein respects the Koch brothers, his ideology would never be influenced by their dark money network, even though he’s worked for decades at multiple institutions financially supported by the oil and policy magnates. Plus, he wants to debate opponents in good faith and is opposed to “ad hominem” attacks, which is why he refers to climate-concerned politicians as “fascists” and “monsters” while mobilizing his supporters to demand the termination of journalists who perform factual analyses of his oeuvre.

Epstein has of course been criticized by several climate-focused journalists, scholars, activists, and scientists, and has made a big show of holding debates with thinkers like Bill McKibben. These critiques have not stopped his ideas from gaining currency within U.S. politics, especially following the publication of his first bestseller, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, in 2014. His concepts have been embraced and regurgitated by publications like the Wall Street Journal, companies like Chevron, Koch-backed PACs like the Club for Growth, politicians like Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and organizations like Young America’s Foundation. Epstein has testified to Congress multiple times on the need for fossil fuels—invited by Sen. Jim “Snowball” Inhofe—and enjoyed the support of the far-right, explicitly anti-democratic political operative Peter Thiel. And now, Epstein’s used his elevated profile to release another tract building upon his moral worldview, titled Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less.

With the blessing of Penguin Random House’s Portfolio imprint, which bills itself as providing nonfiction for “ambitious people” and also published Epstein’s previous book, Fossil Future offers a newer, more reassuring flavor of doubt regarding the consequences of human-influenced climate effects. Oil and gas and coal aren’t actually ruining Earth’s habitats for all forms of life, and they’re also not neutral—in fact, fossil fuels are making things better for all of us, thanks to their natural density and economic efficiency.

But even if they do lead to rising carbon levels and emissions, it actually won’t be that bad, at least not as horrific as the economic fallout of transitioning away from fossil fuels would be. Epstein argues that fossil fuels will actually protect us from their own adverse side effects, that phenomena like mass human displacement and ocean acidification won’t really be issues, and that all government standards meant to stem greenhouse gas emissions must be done away with. To retain the standard of living billions of Earthlings enjoy, and to bring this “flourishing” to the billions more Earthlings who don’t yet enjoy it thanks to influence by “anti-human” climate activists, unlimited fossil fuel production is the only way forward.

Epstein presents himself as a young naïf who, before 2007, was led astray by climate “catastrophizers” into believing there are no benefits to fossil fuels. That’s an unlikely story, considering he’d been publishing pro-oil and anti-environmentalism pieces as far back as 2004, but it makes for a good morality tale and fashions him into a handy audience surrogate. He claims to have written Fossil Future “primarily for the countless honest, good people who expect to strongly disagree with me.” The book is marketed as an “honest, pro-human, pro-science analysis” praised by such supposedly credible figures as Scott Pruitt and Mark Mills. With Fossil Future, Epstein earnestly writes, he wishes only to present one side of a “debate,” and to convince skeptical readers that his thesis is “definitive.”

In the interest of fairness, I’ll start with the rare moments Epstein makes valid points. Much of the setup for Fossil Future’s thesis rests on historic predictions of climate change–fueled disasters that didn’t end up panning out, such as ’70s-era projections of “global cooling,” as well as past environmentalists’ warnings of “peak oil” depletion and a “population bomb.” As Fossil Future makes sure to emphasize, there were projections from prominent studies that overshot the amount of temperature warming we’d see by certain years—though it’s worth noting that even when you factor in such overshoots, the vast majority of historical climate change projections were found to have been accurate. (The idea that the reason certain past models missed specific benchmarks could be that environment- and climate-friendly measures were adopted in the years following such studies never seems to cross this author’s mind.)

Epstein also fairly notes that the classification of who counts as a “climate scientist” can be somewhat broad and unspecific, and that it hasn’t helped the case of climate activists that some of these scientists opposed the buildout of nuclear fission, a viable (and relatively safe) clean energy source, while perhaps championing biomass, which is neither.* He also lays out the hypocrisy of companies like Apple claiming to be “renewable” through employing dubious “carbon offset” accounting, which—yeah? That’s not good. That’s about all the book gets right, however, and a lot of these arguments are ones that climate advocates themselves have advanced.

It’s important to define the philosophical place from which Epstein approaches his evaluation of human-caused climate effects: by seeing human-industrial impacts as not only a net good, but as the only just way of the world. He mentions his support of animal testing for medicine and science, a stance he claims to share with “most people” (not really), because our “primary moral goal” should be seen to “advance human flourishing,” not “prevent animal suffering and death.” If you’re not on board with this, Epstein writes, you are thinking from an “anti-human” stance and are totally fine with people dying.

If you perceive this line of argument as reductive and generalizing, well, let me tell you it’s exactly that kind of reasoning that underpins the rest of the book. Per Epstein, banning DDT was wrong, mass die-offs of fish in the oceans would be fine because the only actual loss would be to the fishing industry, and humans were mere patsies who existed mainly to be killed en masse by natural disasters before they learned to “master” nature using fossil fuel–powered industrial machines and tools. (He later makes the case that it actually could be fine for the planet to reach blazing temperatures, because in past eras, when global temperatures were far hotter than now, primates were still able to thrive. OK, so which one is it?)

Epstein reduces millennia of human history to the preindustrial age and everything after, making some convenient elisions in the process. He claims that systems like mass agriculture, fire management, and storm resistance assumed their full and best form only after the first oil wells were dug. The incredible accomplishments and advances in all these fields made by ancient civilizations and Indigenous peoples get zero mention, which checks out for a man with a lifelong belief in the “superiority” of “Western culture.” He makes straw men out of climate activists’ critiques of human impact on nature, claiming that they’re actually opposed to all human effects on natural environments and would rather have “people in Africa” die than get access to energy. Literally a simple Google search would make anyone realize this is poppycock, considering how cautious many international energy-transition partnerships have been, keeping in mind current resources and economics while gradually installing green energy sources. But that’s the level of rigorous study exhibited within this screed.

Near the beginning, Fossil Future includes two graphs showing how, as fossil fuel production increased, so did the human population. If fossil fuels actually worsen our habitats, how come there are so many humans? Checkmate! Epstein tries to build off such data to prove that fossil fuels are responsible for human “flourishing,” even though he admits that the large majority of the world currently lives in poverty. But to him, the reason that many other countries are poorer and lack energy access is clearly because they don’t have enough fossil fuels. Naturally, the continuing exploitation of formerly colonized nations is never mentioned. He points to India as a paragon of fossil fuel development, which has resulted in the well-being of its massive population—an interesting section to read, as millions of Indians’ power lines have been knocked out recently by climate change­–strengthened heat waves.

The author downplays the growth of renewables over the decades, purporting to show that solar and wind just inherently don’t have the same “cost-effectiveness” of fossil fuels, which is why they depend on government subsidies, lead to environmental damage when they are built, and don’t dominate the power grid. This is, of course, a way to sidestep the massive environmental degradation fossil fuel companies have inflicted over centuries (with the support of government subsidies all the while), and continue to inflict with the support of current subsidies and federal land auctions. Epstein is not wrong that electricity-powered plants have helped to clean up water supplies for mass consumption, although he undercuts himself here when he claims there is basically nothing wrong with fracking—sorry to you if your groundwater was polluted by its effects.

I could go on regarding the myriad ways Epstein misrepresents history and science and activism, whether by stating that “net zero” means total fossil fuel elimination (which is definitionally not the case), or claiming that increased carbon dioxide will just be more “plant food” (which is incredibly misleading), or spewing the pseudoscientific claim that only certain parts of the world will become warmer, which is good because humans like warmth. (They also love frequent, long-lasting droughts and heat waves, naturally.) But I’ll wind down by looking at another stat Epstein hitches his train to: the idea that “climate deaths” have dropped over time. It’s difficult to count deaths that can be directly blamed on climate change, to be sure, as attribution science has been careful not to overstate such assumptions, while surveys of such deaths have bafflingly excluded causes of death like pollution. And it’s not untrue that weather warning and resilience systems powered by technology have saved lives, even as high-impact storms have increased in amount and severity. But if you look at the entire scope of climate-affected natural processes—everything from pollution to large hurricanes to pathogens to crop die-offs to farmers’ livelihoods to infrastructure collapse to power loss from frozen gas lines and still more—the relatively low numbers we point to as “climate deaths” seem a little more deceptive.

At the end of the day, it still feels somewhat futile to counter all these individual points of argument. Alex Epstein’s lengthy, tedious, repetitive tome returns to one idea, over and over again: We live in a society powered by fossil fuels, and no matter the problems we have now, the “flourishing” of modern society dictates that we only need more, more, more. In effect, Fossil Future reads like an earnest, book-length version of Matt Bors’ “You Participate in Society” comic-turned-meme: If you hate fossil fuels, you hate the humans (like you and me) who’ve benefited from them as a power source, and therefore, you are only to be mocked.

The most troubling thing about Epstein, though, may be that he’s basically already won. The United States is set to keep drilling more oil and natural gas to try to stem current price instabilities, even under a “climate president.” The same major newspapers Epstein derides as catastrophizing about the issue still regularly publish op-eds that downplay the severity of global warming. Others not of Epstein’s intellectual bent have either implicitly or explicitly considered climate effects to be “manageable.” The new style of climate denial is here: It’s not that carbon emissions aren’t increasing, or aren’t warming the world, but look, you’re doing fine right now, right? So, we’ll be just fine! So, congrats to Alex Epstein, congrats to Penguin Random House, congrats to all the backward poors in non-Western civilizations, and congrats to all of us who will surely live lives ever more empowered and thriving, even as ecological collapse kills more of us year after year.

Correction, June 3, 2022: This piece originally misstated that nuclear fusion is a viable power source. Nuclear fission provides a viable power source; fusion reactors are still in a research and development stage.

---

some lnx

If you are concerned about our warming world, you should know who Alex Epstein is. The libertarian intellectual, who’s presented himself as the “next generation in energy thought,” has long hammered at a thesis that’s the next big thing in climate denial: Fossil fuels are notleading to an uninhabitable Earth, but have actually improved Earth’s natural and built habitats and contributed to “human flourishing.” Because of this, the unfettered development of oil and gas and coal is a “moral” imperative; if you oppose this “irrefutable” fact, you’re a genocidal, racist, anti-human, and anti-science fool who would rather have billions of people slip into poverty and/or die for the benefit of “nature,” which, Epstein argues, kills more humans on its own than any climate effects do. It’s a set of ideas he’s boosted for the past two decades through work with the Ayn Rand Institute, the Cato Institute, and his own “for-profit” think tank, the Center for Industrial Progress,

epstein, a master at having it both ways,realizes that you, the average Slate reader, probably consider his mission to achieve unlimited fossil fuel production to be at odds with global concerns over human-influenced impacts on climate and nature. And trust him, he shares your concerns and would not like to be described as a “denier.” But he’s also really worried about how our “knowledge system”—big newspapers, prominent scientists, the United Nations—distorts scientific findings and exaggerates climate-related warnings and predictions, which is why he pals around with conspiracy theorists like Lauren Boebert, Dennis Prager, Scott Adams, and Candace Owens. By the way, as much as Epstein respects theKoch brothers, his ideology would *never* be influenced by their dark money network, even though he’s worked for decades at multiple institutions financially supported by the oil and policy magnates. Plus, he wants to debate opponents in good faith and is opposed to “ad hominem” attacks, which is why he refers to climate-concerned politicians as “fascists” and “monsters” while mobilizing his supporters to demand the termination of journalists who perform factual analyses of his oeuvre.

Epstein has of course been criticized by several climate-focused journalists, scholars, activists, and scientists, and has made a big show of holding debates with thinkers like Bill McKibben. These critiques have not stopped his ideas from gaining currency within U.S. politics, especially following the publication of his first bestseller, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, in 2014.

His concepts have been embraced and regurgitated by publications like the Wall Street Journal, companies like Chevron, Koch-backed PACs like the Club for Growth, politicians like Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and organizations like Young America’s Foundation. Epstein has testified to Congress multiple times on the need for fossil fuels—invited by Sen. Jim “Snowball” Inhofe—and enjoyed the support of the far-right, explicitly anti-democratic political operative Peter Thiel. And now, Epstein’s used his elevated profile to release another tract building upon his moral worldview, titledFossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less

with the blessing of Penguin Random House’s Portfolio imprint, which bills itself as providing nonfiction for “ambitious people” and also published Epstein’s previous book, Fossil Future offers a newer, more reassuring flavor of doubt regarding the consequences of human-influenced climate effects. Oil and gas and coal aren’t actually ruining Earth’s habitats for all forms of life, and they’re also not neutral—in fact, fossil fuels are making things better for all of us, thanks to their natural density and economic efficiency. But even if they do lead to rising carbon levels and emissions, it actually won’t be that bad, at least not as horrific as the economic fallout of transitioning away from fossil fuels would be. Epstein argues that fossil fuels will actually protect us from their own adverse side effects, that phenomena like mass human displacement and ocean acidification won’t really be issues, and that all government standards meant to stem greenhouse gas emissions must be done away with. To retain the standard of living billions of Earthlings enjoy, and to bring this “flourishing” to the billions more Earthlings who don’t yet enjoy it thanks to influence by “anti-human” climate activists, unlimited fossil fuel production is the only way forward.

Epstein presents himself as a young naïf who, before 2007, was led astray by climate “catastrophizers” into believing there are no benefits to fossil fuels. That’s an unlikely story, considering he’d been publishing pro-oil and anti-environmentalism pieces as far back as 2004, but it makes for a good morality tale and fashions him into a handy audience surrogate. He claims to have written Fossil Future “primarily for the countless honest, good people who expect to strongly disagree with me.” The book is marketed as an “honest, pro-human, pro-science analysis” praised by such supposedly credible figures as Scott Pruitt and Mark Mills. With Fossil Future, Epstein earnestly writes, he wishes only to present one side of a “debate,” and to convince skeptical readers that his thesis is “definitive."

in the interest of fairness, I’ll start with the rare moments Epstein makes valid points. Much of the setup for Fossil Future’s thesis rests on historic predictions of climate change–fueled disasters that didn’t end up panning out, such as ’70s-era projections of “global cooling,” as well as past environmentalists’ warnings of “peak oil” depletion and a “population bomb.” As Fossil Future makes sure to emphasize, there were projections from prominent studies that overshot the amount of temperature warming we’d see by certain years—though it’s worth noting that even when you factor in such overshoots, the vast majority of historical climate change projections were found to have been accurate. (The idea that the reason certain past models missed specific benchmarks could be that environment- and climate-friendly measures were adopted in the years followingsuch studies never seems to cross this author’s mind.) Epstein also fairly notes that the classification of who counts as a “climate scientist” can be somewhat broad and unspecific, and that it hasn’t helped the case of climate activists that some of these scientists opposed the buildout of nuclear fission, a viable (and *relatively* safe) clean energy source, while perhaps championing biomass, which is neither.* He also lays out the hypocrisy of companies like Apple claiming to be “renewable” through employing dubious “carbon offset” accounting, which—yeah? That’s not good. That’s about all the book gets right, however, and a lot of these arguments are ones that climate advocates themselves have advanced.

It’s important to define the philosophical place from which Epstein approaches his evaluation of human-caused climate effects: by seeing human-industrial impacts as not only a net good, but as the onlyjust way of the world. He mentions his support of animal testing for medicine and science, a stance he claims to share with “most people” (not really), because our “primary moral goal” should be seen to “advance human flourishing,” not “prevent animal suffering and death.” If you’re not on board with this, Epstein writes, you are thinking from an “anti-human” stance and are totally fine with people dying.

if you perceive this line of argument as reductive and generalizing, well, let me tell you it’s exactly that kind of reasoning that underpins the rest of the book. Per Epstein, banning DDT was wrong, mass die-offs of fish in the oceans would be fine because the only actual loss would be to the fishing industry, and humans were mere patsies who existed mainly to be killed en masse by natural disasters before they learned to “master” nature using fossil fuel–powered industrial machines and tools. (He later makes the case that it actually could be fine for the planet to reach blazing temperatures, because in past eras, when global temperatures were far hotter than now, primates were still able to thrive. OK, so which one is it?)

Epstein reduces millennia of human history to the preindustrial age and everything after, making some convenient elisions in the process. He claims that systems like mass agriculture, fire management, and storm resistance assumed their full and best form only after the first oil wells were dug. The incredible accomplishments and advances in all these fields made by ancient civilizations and Indigenous peoples get zero mention, which checks out for a man with a lifelong belief in the**“superiority” of “Western culture.**”

He makes straw men out of climate activists’ critiques of human impact on nature, claiming that they’re actually opposed to all human effects on natural environments and would rather have “people in Africa” die than get access to energy. Literally a simple Google search would make anyone realize this is poppycock, considering how cautious many international energy-transition partnerships have been, keeping in mind current resources and economics while gradually installing green energy sources. But that’s the level of rigorous study exhibited within this screed.

Near the beginning, Fossil Future includes two graphs showing how, as fossil fuel production increased, so did the human population. If fossil fuels actually worsen our habitats, how come there are so many humans? Checkmate! Epstein tries to build off such data to prove that fossil fuels are responsible for human “flourishing,” even though he admits that the large majority of the world currently lives in poverty. But to him, the reason that many other countries are poorer and lack energy access is clearly because they don’t have enough fossil fuels. Naturally, the continuing exploitation of formerly colonized nations is never mentioned. He points to India as a paragon of fossil fuel development, which has resulted in the well-being of its massive population—an interesting section to read, as millions of Indians’ power lines have been knocked out recently by climate change­–strengthened heat waves.

the author downplays the growth of renewables over the decades, purporting to show that solar and wind just inherently don’t have the same “cost-effectiveness” of fossil fuels, which is why they depend on government subsidies, lead to environmental damage when they are built, and don’t dominate the power grid. This is, of course, a way to sidestep the massive environmental degradation fossil fuel companies have inflicted over centuries (with the support of government subsidies all the while), and continue to inflict with the support of current subsidies and federal land auctions. Epstein is not wrong that electricity-powered plants have helped to clean up water supplies for mass consumption, although he undercuts himself here when he claims there is basically nothing wrong with fracking—sorry to you if your groundwater was polluted by its effects.

I could go on regarding the myriad ways Epstein misrepresents history and science and activism, whether by stating that “net zero” means total fossil fuel elimination (which is definitionally not the case), or claiming that increased carbon dioxide will just be more “plant food” (which is incredibly misleading), or spewing the pseudoscientific claim that only certain parts of the world will become warmer, which is good because humans like warmth. (They also love frequent, long-lasting droughts and heat waves, naturally.)

But I’ll wind down by looking at another stat Epstein hitches his train to: the idea that “climate deaths” have dropped over time. It’s difficult to count deaths that can be directly blamed on climate change, to be sure, as attribution science has been careful not to overstate such assumptions, while surveys of such deaths have bafflingly excluded causes of death like pollution. And it’s not untrue that weather warning and resilience systems powered by technology have saved lives, even as high-impact storms have increased in amount and severity. But if you look at the entire scope of climate-affected natural processes—everything from pollution to large hurricanes to pathogens to crop die-offs to farmers’ livelihoods to infrastructure collapse to power loss from frozen gas lines and still more—the relatively low numbers we point to as “climate deaths” seem a little more deceptive....

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ref1

ars tech

our editor-in-chief obviously hates me. That's the only conclusion I could reach after he asked me to watch an abysmal attack video targeting renewable energy—a video produced by a notorious source of right-wing misinformation.

But despite its bizarre mishmash of irrelevancies and misdirection, the video has been widely shared on social media. Perhaps you've seen it, or maybe you just to want to be ready when a family member brings it up in an argument. What, if anything, is true in this farrago of bad faith?

Yes, it’s awful

The video is hosted by "Prager University." My only previous exposure to the organization's videos had beenthis excellent one on the Confederacy by Colonel Ty Seidule, a professor of History at West Point who has since been placed on the Pentagon commission that will examine bases named after Confederate generals. Seemed legit!

Now that I've had to look more closely, however, it turns out that Prager U is not a university—it's run by a talk radio host. Its videos frequently contain misinformation, especially when the subject is climate change. The content is so bad that Google, which is often slow to react to misinformation on its platforms, has slapped fact checks on a number of Prager U videos.

Even without the Prager U branding, the host of this video would cause some concern. Mark Mills is associated with the Manhattan Institute, a free-market think tank with a long history of rejecting any government involvement in markets. This has left the group with a reflexive loathing of any attempts to address global warming.

Mills himself is not necessarily a reliable source on renewable power, as he's been heavily involved in companies focused on nuclear power and fossil fuel extraction. Mills has also spoken at the climate meeting hosted by the notorious trolls at the Heartland Institute.

All that is to say that my expectations here were low; the reality turned out to be worse.

The problems with the video go beyond simple matters of bias; the whole thing is just terribly argued. We can't possibly go into detail on all of the problems, but we can list a few issues that stood out.

Overall, the video shows a sloppy disregard for facts and offers a biased presentation of the ones Mills gets right, along with a lot of misdirection. If solar panels were so inefficient that we would need to pave over all of Arizona and New Mexico with them, then yes, that would matter. But they're not, so why does Mills even bring it up as a concern?

There are some valid issues here, of course. Mills is right that environmental degradation, abusive labor practices, and repressive governments plague our supply chains. But they plague all our supply chains—not just those for renewable energy. And he's correct that we haven't figured out how to recycle wind turbine blades that reach their end of life. But again, that sort of issue isn't unique to renewable energy.

Critically, the one thing missing from all of this is a recognition of the risks of climate change, which is the whole reason we're trying to shift to wind and solar as quickly as possible. That is apparently because Mills doesn't see much in the way of risks. But here in the real world, those risks are considerable and rising. No discussion of renewable power is competent if those risks are ignored, yet Mills ignores them.

Why now?

So yes, the video is terrible. But I've also grown to think it's significant, and not just because it has found a huge audience on social media. The video signifies two things.

First: a decade ago, the same video would have been about why climate change either isn't happening or isn't a risk. The fact that this one isn't about climate change is a clear indication of how badly that fight has been lost by those who want us to keep using fossil fuels. We've seen record temperatures year after year, and all the things we expected to see have arrived with them: raging fires, massive storms, and droughts. Sure, a handful of people remain unconvinced, but that population has shrunk to the point where nobody pays them much attention.

Second: if the fight about the fact of climate change is over, it has also grown increasingly irrelevant. In the US, President Biden now promises four years of pushing for expanded renewable energy. And the economics are in place to drive renewable power regardless of policy or the environment—which explains why red-state Iowa generates 41 percent of its electricity from wind power. In many areas of the country, wind power is now cheaper than the fuel for a natural gas plant. A zero-emissions grid is now relatively cheap. As a result, 80 percent of the power added to the US grid this year will be emission-free.

the economics are now such that utilities in much of the US will install as much renewable power as their grid can manage while keeping the lights on, as it's now the cheapest way to get power—even if you already have more fossil fuel plants than you need.

And that's "the real world" that this video fails to see, a world where there's no good reason to continue using fossil fuels at the level we have been. So if you don't have good reasons to oppose renewables but still want to see fossil fuels expand, you go with whatever bad reasons you can come up with.

Which nicely explains this video.

===

ref 2 his twt

maxine joselow destroy his life/family, demo climaTE jrnl not valid b/c climate is long term

https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1508823313182695428

*Warning*

Tomorrow the

@washingtonpost

plans to "cancel" me and my new book Fossil Future by publishing a 100% slanderous hit-piece labeling me as "racist."

 https://twitter.com/i/status/1508823313182695428

...

:{:{ }:

@washingtonpost

's smear campaign against me has 4 main steps: 1. Refuse to engage my arguments. 2. Hunt down things I wrote at 18 that seem controversial. 3. Falsely portray those *individualist* writings as "racist." 4. Use "racism" to discredit my work.... Please join me in calling for The Post to spike the piece, fire the "journalist," and publicly apologize}:

wapo refuse to engage my arguments, including the many parts of Fossil Future where I condemn and ridicule racism as deeply immoral and absurdly pseudoscientific.

"Fossil fuel eliminators" can't refute me so they try to smear me....

...when you look at the

@washingtonpost

's "allegations and information" about my "racist" views at ages 18 and 19 [duke u] in the context of what I actually said, it becomes clear that I was *not remotely racist* and that the WP is trying to *destroy my work and life for political reasons*.

:{

}:

...portray 18-year-old me's criticisms of certain MLK actions--e.g., affiliating with Communism, supporting policies that proved destructive to black individuals--as racist. The criticisms were *individualist*, not at all racist.

...

when you look at the

@washingtonpost

's "allegations and information" about my "racist" views at ages 18 and 19 in the context of what I actually said, it becomes clear that I was *not remotely racist* and that the WP is trying to *destroy my work and life for political reasons*.

...

Use the totally false smear of me as "racist" to attack the motives for my energy arguments.:{:{Reporter }:

@maxinejoselow

wrote that she plans to portray me as not really concerned about "poverty in developing nations in Africa"}:!

:{

}:

step 5

...try to discredit my extensive *energy* expertise by citing acomplete non-expert (climate scientist Andrew Dessler) with an enormous axe to grind (he's been widely ridiculed for recent debate performances against me).

...you're new to my work, follow me

@AlexEpstein

for extreme clarity on energy, environmental, and climate issues from a humanist perspective. Also, subscribe to my newsletter, featuring lots of concise, powerful, well-referenced energy talking points.

...fYI not only can you buy Fossil Future from typical booksellers, students and educators can get a *free* copy from

@yaf

. Please spread the word so that thousands of young people are exposed to the truth about our energy, environmental, and climate future.

yaf.org

Fossil Future by Alex Epstein - Young America's Foundation

Request your free copy of Fossil Future by Alex Epstein from Young ...

Alex Epstein

@AlexEpstein

·

Mar 30

Update on 

@washingtonpost

's plan to "cancel" me as "racist": the Managing Editor has not only failed to apologize, she is *praising* the "climate reporter" who responded to my major energy/climate book by falsely accusing me of racism 23 years ago.

:{

}:

Vile.

Quote Tweet

Krissah Thompson

@Krissah30

·

Mar 30

In the course of reporting a story, The Washington Post’s @maxinejoselow has been subjected to vitriol and baseless attacks on social media. She conducts her work with fairness and to the highest standard, and we are proud to count Maxine among our talented staff of journalists.

Show this thread

Alex Epstein

@AlexEpstein

·

Mar 30

Dear Editor 

@Krissah30

, did you even look at the video I made detailing the horrific plan to *destroy my life* with "racism" allegations that are *total distortions* of my *individualist* writings at age 18?

:{

}:

If you won't spend 1 hr, watch this 4-min clip.

Quote Tweet

Alex Epstein

@AlexEpstein

·

Mar 29

When you look at the @washingtonpost's "allegations and information" about my "racist" views at ages 18 and 19 in the context of what I actually said, it becomes clear that I was *not remotely racist* and that the WP is trying to *destroy my work and life for political reasons*.

Show this thread

...

Alex Epstein @AlexEpstein · Mar 30 Here's by far the best report so far on the @washingtonpost 's attempt to "cancel" me and Fossil Future with totally false accusations of "racism." Thanks @revivingreason of @TheObjStd for getting all the facts right.

:{

}:

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hersey march 30 a really white dude

:{

}:

In sports, sometimes a frustrated loser will, instead of playing the game fairly, simply foul the best player on the opposing team. Some of the harshest penalties are reserved for such unsportsmanlike conduct because this conscious intent to harm another player is abominably unjust.

This conduct is not confined to sports. Journalists are capable of similar injustices and should be subject to appropriate penalties. This is true of Maxine Joselow of the Washington Post,who recently penned a hit piece slandering the author, philosopher, and energy expert Alex Epstein.

Epstein’s 2014 book *The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels* clearly and convincingly argued that climate change is nowhere near—and will not become—catastrophic. By contrast, eliminating or drastically curtailing fossil fuel use will cause catastrophe because it’s our only cheap, plentiful, and reliable form of energy. Further, if we care about human flourishing, we should not only celebrate fossil fuels and those who turn otherwise useless muck into the power source for civilization, but we should also use more such fuels on net, especially in developing countries where lives literally depend on removing anti-fossil-fuel restrictions.

Through full-context evaluation and meticulous research, Epstein has managed to substantially change the debate over fossil fuel use.In so doing, he has become a thorn in the side of climate activists. So, it’s unsurprising that his forthcoming book, *Fossil Future*, has raised their ire. What is surprising is the lowly nature of the response: outright lies and ad hominem.

Joselow, a self-described “climate reporter,” committed these offenses in an as-yet-unreleased article for theWashington Post. After Epstein’s publicist sent Joselow an early review copy of Fossil Future, Joselow responded “as a courtesy” with “a detailed list of the allegations and information” she planned to publish.:{ Instead of engaging with the book’s arguments, Joselow attempted to undercut them by attacking the character of their source, accusing Epstein of racism on the basis of two articles he wrote between the ages of eighteen and nineteen while an undergraduate at Duke University. On its face, the tactic is devious, but the twisting of Epstein’s words makes Joselow’s smear even more obscene. Epstein has explained the misrepresentation in a }video:{, which I highly recommend both as an explanation of the particulars of this case }:and:{ as a guide and warning to those regularly consuming news media. Here, I’ll only briefly restate a few essentials.}:

In articles for theDuke Review, Epstein argued for the superiority of Western culture and also leveled criticisms against Martin Luther King Jr., both of which Joselow has portrayed as racist. King was of course right when he characterized racism as judging people by the color of their skin instead of the content of their character. Epstein’s arguments in both cases are about the character of those in question—the quality of their ideas and actions.

Epstein argued that Western culture is superior because it enshrines reason and freedom—ideas upon which civilization depends—whereas much of the third world was (and remains) overrun by mysticism and authoritarianism.[TRUMP?QANON? PUTIN FAN?]  Culture is a product of ideas, not skin color. To imply, as Joselow does, that culture and ideas are determined by skin color is an instance of racism.

Regarding King, Epstein argued that Duke’s policy of celebrating his birthday but not those of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Christopher Columbus was unjust. “My basic argument was that if you matched King’s strengths and weaknesses against those others, he does not deserve a holiday above all of them.” The problem is, Epstein says, that although we justly criticize the failings of the others, many are silent on King’s, in large part because of the racist policy of refraining from judging the ideas and actions of black icons because they’re black. Epstein criticized King’s:

  1. Affiliation with the global Communist movement;
  2. Support for racial preference policies that proved to be destructive;
  3. Support for wealth redistribution programs that proved to be destructive;
  4. Plagiarism in his college dissertation, and;
  5. Infidelity in his personal life.

One might reasonably object to Epstein’s arguments, as some of his fellow Duke students did, but none of them attacked Epstein as racist—because there was no evidence of racism. And, at this point, given all of Epstein’s subsequent writing (including his positive statements about King in Fossil Future, which Joselow apparently did not even take the time to read), there is a mountain of evidence to the contrary. In fact, as a teenager, Epstein was first inspired to take up the pen by the writings of such staunchly pro-individualist thinkers asThomas Sowell and Ayn Rand, and he has consistently upheld the principle that the only things we can properly judge people upon are their ideas and actions—their character, not superficial traits such as skin color.

As revealed in Epstein’s video, Joselow’s attempted sucker punch [SHE SENT PREVIEW?!] is a desperate effort to debilitate an opponent. The article was slated for release this morning but, perhaps because of Epstein’s cogent response, has yet to be published. But as Epstein, himselfa former editor, aptly points out, the Washington Post morally must do more. It must fire Joselow for her journalistic malpractice and publicly commit to honest journalism, free of such intentional injustice.

To help Epstein fight back, consider resharing his tweets, writing to the Washington Post, and tweeting @washingtonpost and @maxinejoselow, calling for them to dump the piece and issue an apology. You can also support Epstein’s fight for human progress and flourishing by ordering a copy of *Fossil Future*.

Instead of engaging with @AlexEpstein’s energy arguments, @maxinejoselow is trying to torch his career by smearing him as a racist. @washingtonpost should:

[1. Fire Joselow for malpractice 2. Apologize to Epstein

  1. Pledge to root out smearing](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=Instead+of+engaging+with+%40AlexEpstein%E2%80%99s+energy+arguments%2C+%40maxinejoselow+is+trying+to+torch+his+career+by+smearing+him+as+a+racist.+%40washingtonpost+should%3A%0D%0A%0D%0A1.+Fire+Joselow+for+malpractice%0D%0A2.+Apologize+to+Epstein%0D%0A3.+Pledge+to+root+out+smearing&url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheobjectivestandard.com%2F2022%2F03%2Fwashington-post-journalist-tries-to-smear-alex-epstein%2F&via=TheObjStd)

CLICK TO TWEET:{:(style="box-sizing:border-box;display:inline-block;font-variant-numeric:normal;font-variant-east-asian:normal;font-weight:normal;font-stretch:normal;text-rendering:auto;-webkit-font-smoothing:antialiased;margin-left:12px;margin-bottom:10px;transform:translatey(-4px);transition:all 0.3s ease 0s"):}:

Maxine Joselow's letter to Alex Epstein's publicist

Epstein's reponse to Joselow

Editor's note: The original posting of this article incorrectly stated that Epstein's publicist had received a prepublication version of the article. The message received is now included above.

===

wapo no lnx

Advocate promotes fossil fuels for poor nations he once disparaged

Alex Epstein, author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” while at Duke University wrote pieces for a conservative paper that criticized non-Western cultures

By Maxine Joselow

April 6, 2022

[Alex Epstein at the People’s Climate March in New York City in 2014. (Kert Davies)

As countries around the world grapple with how to curb their reliance on fossil fuels to fight climate change, conservatives are increasingly making the argument that the poorest nations should pursue the opposite course.

One of the most prominent proponents of this strategy, Alex Epstein, has testified before Congress and delivered public lectures arguing that the shift to clean energy is “immoral” because it denies developing countries the cheap electricity needed to lift people out of poverty. His new book, “Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas — Not Less,” will come out May 24.

“Those of us who benefit from [fossil fuels] in the U.S. should really have sympathy for those in Puerto Rico — let alone the rest of the world that is really, really poor — and we should be doing nothing to impede them from using the most cost-effective energy they can,”Epstein told the House Natural Resources Committee last year. At a debate last month with a prominent climate scientist, he argued that “this modern green movement, I think, is fundamentally immoral and in practice is harming the poorest people in the world.”

The question of how much fossil fuels developing nations can use has emerged as a flash point in global climate negotiations, as countries push to cut greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible. Scientists warn that at the current rate, the world will have to stop burning fossil fuels by 2030 if it wants to limit the Earth from warming more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) compared with preindustrial levels. But the question remains whether developing countries, from India to Barbados, should keep extracting the same fossil fuels that fueled industrialization in wealthy nations.

The world is running out of options to hit climate goals, U.N. report shows

:{

}:

The defense of fossil fuels Epstein has helped inject into this debate has previously been dismissed by critics as ethnocentric and paternalistic. Now they are pointing to newly resurfaced articles he wrote in 1999 while in college that dismissed non-Western cultures as inferior, saying they raise further questions about whether his argument is rooted in a “moral” concern for developing nations or is a cynical attempt to promote the use of oil, coal and natural gas.

Epstein served as editor and publisher of the Duke Review, a conservative student newspaper, from 1999 to 2001. In a March 1999 piece, Epstein wrote that students should be required to take courses on Western civilization, according to a copy of the article provided to The Washington Post by Documented, an investigative group that argues the “urgent dangers of climate change are being downplayed or ignored.”

Without mentioning race or ethnicity, he claimed that Western culture’s achievements far surpass those of other cultures.

“Just compare New York to Chad,” he wrote. “No benefit can be gained by focusing an education on anti-reason cultures, their only academic merit lies in contrasting them to Western civilization as models of inferiority.”

Epstein’s critics said his college writings undermine his argument for fossil fuels.

Epstein and other advocates are “suddenly concerned about poverty in Africa when it has to do with the policy they want to favor,” said Robert Brulle,a visiting professor at Brown University who studies climate disinformation. “Epstein is latching onto that argument to try to make a moral case for fossil fuels, when there’s many alternatives to get those people out of poverty. … For me, this is also a colonialist attitude.”

Epstein defended his college writings after being contacted by The Post last week. He took to Twitter to criticize the newspaper and a reporter by name and asserted The Post was engaging in a “smear campaign” to discredit his work and called for the journalist to be fired.

In an email, Epstein said a story focusing on his college writings is “so beyond the pale in terms of false content, terrible methodology, and bad motives.” When asked to specify which parts of the information provided he believed were false, he declined to comment further.

In his Twitter thread last week, Epstein said his criticism of non-Western cultures was unrelated to race or ethnicity. “I made clear that I believe that culture, which is fundamentally *ideas*, is totally different from skin color!” he wrote.

He stood by the argument he made in college.

“I do think Western culture is overall superior and certainly in terms of government historically, because it’s really the birth of modern freedom,” he added in a YouTube video criticizing The Post for inquiring about his articles.

A self-styled philosopher and energy theorist, Epstein occupies several perches that have put him in position to influence the national debate over climate and energy policy. GOP lawmakers have invited Epstein to testify before Congress three times,while other Republicans have cited his work in public policy debates. He is slated to speak at a conference in June sponsored by the oil giant Chevron, and serves as a member of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, a powerful body that advocates for the “responsible development” of oil and gas resources in 38 states.

Wayne Christian, a Republican member of the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, praised Epstein and his ideas.

Epstein “is one of the most articulate voices fighting for cheap, plentiful, and reliable energy,” Christian said in an email. “At a time when government, education, and financial institutions are attacking fossil fuels, Alex provides the ammunition to fight the myths and presents common-sense solutions that ensure human flourishing is prioritized in our energy policy.”

Epstein runs the Center for Industrial Progress, which he describes as a “for-profit think tank.” While he does not disclose its funding sources, he has acknowledged that fossil fuel firms have paid him for consulting services, saying, “If there’s an oil company who wants to fight for their freedom, then they might come to us.”

Epstein’s argument that burning fossil fuels will not cause serious harm — he said last month that “there are huge positives” to rising temperatures — runs counter to conclusions of leading scientists, who say the world must rapidly phase out fossil fuels and slash greenhouse gas emissions to stave off worsening floods, heat waves and other climate disasters.

Over the past decade, Epstein has offered prominent climate scientists and journalists large fees to publicly debate him, according to people who have been asked. Andrew Dessler, a professor of atmospheric sciences at Texas A&M University, squared off with Epstein last month at the Steamboat Institute, a conservative nonprofit in Steamboat Springs, Colo.

In comments to a member of the Steamboat Institute after the debate, Epstein said that “with [carbon dioxide] you get that, yeah, it has a warming impact. But even some of that is good, and there’s nothing resembling a catastrophe.”

The moral case espoused by Epstein is one that has been embraced by several conservative policymakers.

“Look those people in the eyes that are starving and tell them, ‘You can’t have electricity because as a society we decided fossil fuels were bad,’” Rick Perry said at a major energy conference, CERAWeek, in Houston in March 2018, when he was U.S. energy secretary. “I think that is immoral.”

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Epstein took credit for inspiring Perry in a subsequent speech to the Ayn Rand Institute, a nonprofit think tank that promotes the libertarian writer’s philosophy.

“We were meeting that morning and [Perry] said, ‘Hey, did you hear my speech? I was basically — I was giving your ideas,’” Epstein said.

Sen. John Barrasso (Wyo.), the top Republican on the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, has also cited Epstein’s views. “He states that you cannot be a humanitarian and condemn the energy humanity needs,” Barrasso said at a 2017 hearing.

Epstein has also sought to influence state lawmakers. As millions of Texans went without power during a winter storm in February 2021, Epstein emailed the chief of staff of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R): “The root cause of the TX blackouts is a national and state policy that has prioritized the adoption of unreliable wind/solar energy over reliable energy.”

Abbott, along with other conservatives, faulted renewable energy for the grid’s failures. The governor said on Fox News on Feb. 16, 2021 that “our wind and our solar got shut down” during the storm. Independent experts have debunked that claim, finding that the blackouts were largely caused by freezing natural gas pipelines. Abbott’s office did not respond to a request for comment on whether the governor was influenced by Epstein’s email.

While developing nations do need greater access to affordable energy, they should not look to fossil fuels, said Jacqui Patterson, founder and executive director of the Chisholm Legacy Project. The group — named for Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress — seeks to help Black communities tackle climate change.

“I share a commitment to addressing energy poverty, and I share the level of urgency around doing so,” said Patterson, who previously ran the NAACP’s Environmental and Climate Justice Program. “But we don’t want to do it in a way that further harms nations in the Global South — not only with the climate impacts of fossil fuel burning, but also the environmental health impacts.”

[More on climate change

Understanding our climate: Global warming is a real phenomenon, and weather disasters are undeniably linked to it. As temperatures rise, heat waves are more often sweeping the globe — and parts of the world are becoming too hot to survive.

What can be done? The Post is tracking a variety of climate solutions, as well as the Biden administration’s actions on environmental issues. It can feel overwhelming facing the impacts of climate change, but there are ways to cope with climate anxiety.

Inventive solutions: Some people have built off-the-grid homes from trash to stand up to a changing climate. As seas rise, others are exploring how to harness marine energy.

Have a question about climate change or climate solutions? Share it with us. You can also sign up for our newsletter on climate change, energy and environment.

===

kos

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/2022/4/1/2089449/-Oil-Lover-Alex-Epstein-Isn-t-Racist-Just-Because-He-Attacked-MLK-And-Called-A-Black-Journalist-Vile

alex Epstein’s racist writings in college don’t mean he’s racist, his career serving _{a racist industry}_ doesn’t mean he's racist, and _{calling a Black journalist “vile”}_ is definitely not racist. (At least not today. The other 364 days of the year are a different story.)

If you don’t already recognize the name, Alex Epstien is someone who _{since 2014 we have}_ made fun of _{dozens}_ of times, like when he thought _{a guy who literally hates kids}_ was his next new pro-humanist “climate thinker.” Or, in 2019, when he went to a convention thrown by a conservative youth group known for wearing diapers and hiring racists, and _{even the Kool Konservative Kids there weren’t buying his schtick}_.

all pales in comparison to Epstein’s epic week though, as he _{launched an online crusade}_ to get the Washington Post’s Maxine Joselow fired for doing her job, including, among her other generally excellent work, daring to report on content Alex worked on while editing a college paper at Duke. Apparently fearing he would be canceled (and sensing an opportunity to sell his upcoming book) he _{rallied the alt-right troops}_ to bombard Joselow with hate mail, and flood the Post’s editor in chief with demands Joselow be fired. Just because _{online abuse against female journalists}_ is a thing _{alt-right trolls have done}_ for years doesn’t mean Epstein’s one of them.

According to the questions Joselow provided to give him an opportunity to respond for her story, as is good journalistic practice, Epstein was critical of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Duke student paper he edited. He felt MLK was unworthy of Duke students getting the day off for his holiday, and argued a trio of white men were more deserving of Duke to cancel classes: Christopher Columbus (_{brutal and evil even by his own time’s standards}_), Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson (being so un-racist, Epstein was easily able to overlook Jefferson’s ownership of slaves).

Epstein also wrote about “Western civilization” in a way that just so happens to track with _{the racist}_ and _{alt-right}_, in its denigration of other cultures only worthy of study,Alex wrote, as “models of inferiority” and “anti-reason cultures.” Though he didn’t say “Black people” explicitly, he did write “just compare New York to Chad.” Definitely not in a racist way or anything! Just, y’know, _{a (false) narrative}_ that racists also happen to endorse. It’s not like he called it a “shithole” or anything, so definitely doesn’t count as doing a racism!

In a creative, if desperate, pre-sponse to the story that seems to have at least delayed it, as of Friday morning, Epstein went on an epic and }_{entirely un-sweaty and totally normal hour-long rant on YouTube}_, with a _{Substack post}_ and _{accompanying Twitter threads}_. The totally normal multi-day Twitter tirade definitely proved the things he wrote at 18 and 19 definitely aren’t actually that bad anyway and his ideology of individualism is totally not racist at all, despite basically being standard issue :{_{Great Replacement Theory rhetoric}_:{, used }:_{by racists}_:{.}:

Just because Alex criticized MLK for “affiliating with Communism” _{and}_ “supporting policies that [Epstein claims] proved destructive” doesn’t mean he was attacking MLK! Quoting what he wrote and having professors of African American history and chair at an MLK Jr. center analyze it, then share with him ahead of time to confirm or correct any errors, like Joselow did, is solid and ethical reporting. That’s why Alex was probably right when he _{said on Wednesday}_ after assuming he’d gotten the story squashed, that it “could, had [he] not preempted it, have destroyed [his] professional life and significantly harmed [his] family.”

Because there is truly no worse fate in the world than to be an innocent and noble white man labeled as racist!

That’s why Epstein was totally in the right to whip up a bunch of rightwing hate to try and get Maxine Joselow fired, because as everyone knows, once you _{have a Black friend}_ write a letter to the Post’s Editor-in-chief, you can’t be racist! (And that friend is definitely real, but just _{coincidentally}_ isn’t _{one}_ of the _{many}_ _{white}_ _{bitcoin}_ _{obsessed}_ _{guys}_ who _{publicly}_ voice _{support}_ for you, _{like TX GOP Rep.}_ Chip Roy who’s _{proudly-pro-lynching}_, or the _{guy who attacks}_ the “woke religion” supposedly ...https://twitter.com/AlexEpstein/status/1509244807016763395" clearing you of racism on the podcast hosted by < good for Alex - smacking back at ....Alex Epstein

@AlexEpstein

·

Mar 30

"They're going after a friend of mine, Alex Epstein...running a hit piece against him for something he said when he was 18....I know he's not a racist. This is ridiculous....They're trying to delegitimize somebody because he defends fossil fuels."--@ShellenbergerMD on @joerogan twitter.com/AlexEpstein/st…

Alex should also keep reminding people that this was 20 years ago and he was only a kid then, because it definitely doesn’t imply that the writings were something he wouldn’t say today, and everyone gets a free pass to do a little light racism at age 18, right? Who knew racism was bad all the way back in the year 2000?! Certainly not innocent lil’ Alex!

He should also _{keep going on outlets like **BlazeTV**}_ like he did last night to defend himself from accusations of racism, because that’s an outlet familiar with the subject, given that Blaze Media had to sever _{its relationship with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes}_ in 2018, 2 years before the group would be _{involved in the Jan 6. violence}_. A look through _{Media Matters’ coverage }_of the video content hub features recent hits like _{Steven Crowder saying “slavery was never racially-motivated”}_, and “_{Tucker Carlson praises Glenn Beck for calling Barack Obama a ‘racist’}_”.

If anyone knows racism, it’s BlazeTV! Great choice! 

And Epstein was totally very smart to respond to Joselow’s managing editor Krissah Thompson’s expression of the newsroom’s support for Maxine _{by calling Thompson}_ “vile,”  because insulting a Black woman is a surefire way to prove you’re not racist.

Great job, Alex! You definitely didn’t turn this from a newsletter blurb into a highly-anticipated story or anything!

---

11/12/21

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/11/12/2063888/-With-COP-Closing-Deniers-Beclown-Themselves-Then-Cry-I-ve-Been-Cancelled-When-People-Laugh

the disinformation around this year’s climate negotiations got off to a _{stupid start}_, got_{ slightly funny and gross there for a minute}_, and then just gross as a _{TERF called climate reporters biased}_. But not to worry, it’s still getting stupider, and more offensive!

On the stupid front, a member of the new _{denial PR pop-up CAR26}_ that _{we warned about}_ last week _{tweeted}_ on Monday that she was “chased” out of COP26, and had to do an interview while “hiding in the disabled loos.” _{But it turns out no one chased her out of COP26}_, she was just asked to leave a private meeting room at a side event, presumably because it was about to be used for, you know, a meeting.

[pix]

"Anti-climate actors rely on a reactionary dynamic with ‘mainstream’ institutions, media, or experts,” Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) disinformation expert _{Jennie King told DeSmog}_, “and cultivate their brand, especially on social media, around being ‘cancelled’ or outcast by perceived elites.”

This dynamic is absolutely unmistakable across the deniersphere, to the extent that it even entices people who try to distance themselves from it, like “_{honest broker}_” author _{Roger Pielke Jr.}_ While he’s long attempted to portray himself as sitting squarely within the consensus, and expresses support for a carbon tax, he’s also _{done plenty of work}_ that’s _{immediately used}_ by the _{sorts of people}_ who cry persecution when they lock themselves in a bathroom, like alleging that _{Democrats have corrupted climate science}_.

And deniers return the favor by supporting him, _{for example with a new 20-page report published by GWPF detailing}_ how, due to persecution, _{his university office is tiny}_ and filled with boxes from his shuttered projects. Based on an interview with Donna LaFramboise, who’s past works have _{centered on smearing the IPCC}_, it’s built on the idea that the tenured professor who once complained about being silenced_{ in the Wall Street Journal}_ has been, as King described of the bathroom-dweller, “‘cancelled’ or outcast by perceived elites.”

vid]

:{(On Tuesday, }_{a COP26 event}_:{ honored the lives of the 1,000+ }:_{environmental activists murdered}_:{ since the }:_{Paris Agreement in 2015}_:{, a third of whom were from indigenous communities. But everyone should really feel very sorry for Pielke, because his office is very small and doesn’t even have any windows!)}:

While most may not be moved by such a harrowing tale of being told you’re wrong, refusing to admit it, and facing _{consequences for your toxic actions}_, one person who did praise Pielke yesterday _{was **Michael Shellenberger**}_. Also on the anti-elitist kick, Shellenberger tweeted a link to his new substack post a couple dozen times as well, so we took the bait and gave “_{Why Wokeism Is A Religion}_” a read. And surprisingly, we were glad we did!

Because for years now, Shellenberger has slowly been evolving beyond his brand as the liberal presenting hard truths in the name of a stronger and more successful progressive movement, and despite naming his post-_{Breakthrough}_ spin-off “_{Environmental Progress}_,” he is moving fully into the reactionary, alt-right space. This undoubtedly confirms it.

Shellenberger’s new “taxonomy” of the “woke religion” is a project with fellow anti-woke-ist Peter Boghossian, who recently quit Portland State University _{after getting blowback for writing fake academic papers}_ and in an apparent preemptive self-cancellation, as _{announced}_ on the substack of fellow _{preemptive self-canceller}_ _{Bari Weiss}_.

Similar to the _{TERFs and trans disinfo}_ we talked about last Thursday, _{this “woke religion taxonomy”}_ links racism, climate change, trans people, crime, mental illness, and drug and homelessness issues by suggesting each has an “original sin” (history) committed by “guilty devils,” (white capitalists, mostly) perpetuated by “myths” (sociology) and impacting “sacred victims” (actual victims of racism)  who “the elect” _{(((}_elite_{)))}_ protect with “supernatural beliefs” (facts) and by outlawing “taboo facts” (alternative facts) and “taboo speech” (hate speech), and can only be improved through “purifying rituals” (reducing emissions, being respectful of people's identities by using their pronouns) and by embracing “purifying speech” of words and phrases as outlandish as “Black,” “Renewables,” and “Trans women are women.”

Seriously, those are the actual examples!  

Somehow, though, that’s not even the most disgusting content coming from a supposed ally of climate action yesterday. While the Republican plan to export natural gas as a climate cure _{would lead to a catastrophic 3.1°C of warming}_, apparently even that is too much climate action for so-called skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg. 

In _{this week's Wall Street Journal column, Lomborg argues}_ that a "reasonable alternative" to the COP26 talks is to allow for 3.5°C (6.3°F) of warming. But just the difference_{ between 1.5°C and 2·°C of warming is significant}_, with:{ }:_{upward of 1 billion additional people who would be at risk of dying from extreme heat if they spend a summer day outside}_ at 2°C (and half the world population is at risk at 4°C). Allowing fossil fuels to pollute us to_{ to 3.5°C would put at }__{least}__{ 275 million people’s homes under water}_, including:{ }:_{entire island nations}_ (and _{Louisiana}_ communities) that will be submerged by:{ }:_{sea level rise after just 2°C of warming}_, literally _{committing cultural genocide}_.

Experts were quick to debunk Lomborg's claims, _{for example pointing out}_ that if you look at the updated version of the study he cites to justify that genocide, it now matches the Paris goals.

While the antics of obvious anti-climate activists hiding in bathrooms may be an entertaining distraction, it seems these days the real danger is coming from those “honest brokers” pretending to offer “reasonable” advice.

:{

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nat rev  THE FED

no lnx

The Washington Post’s Pathetic Hit Piece

By DAVID HARSANYI

April 8, 2022 

Maxine Joselow at the Washington Post has written one of silliest hit pieces I’ve read in a long time. “Advocate promotes fossil fuels for poor nations he once disparaged” targets Alex Epstein, a pundit who makes the moral and practical case for fossil fuels.

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The piece is pathetic on two counts:

First: Joselow digs into Epstein’s college writings at Duke and finds that he — and maybe you should be sitting down for this one — argued in March 1999 that students should be required to take courses on Western civilization. “Without mentioning race or ethnicity, he claimed that Western culture’s achievements far surpass those of other cultures,” notes Joselow. So you’re telling me that a man named Epstein, attending a university founded by Methodists and Quakers, in a one-time colony founded by Sir Walter Raleigh, in a nation founded in the ideals of the Enlightenment and structures of the Classical World, believes that Western civilization is superior to other cultures? Chilling stuff.

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Farewell to the godfather of the city I love.

Second: The piece doesn’t even make sense on its own terms. Joselow writes that Epstein’s dismissals of non-Western cultures “raise further questions” about whether his argument “is rooted in a ‘moral’ concern for developing nations or is a cynical attempt to promote the use of oil, coal and natural gas.” Now, it might be the case that progressive journalists don’t change their positions after college, but most intellectually self-aware adults refine, rethink, and augment their beliefs as they mature. Even if Epstein has not, though, it is in no way contradictory to contend that Western society is, in general, more advanced and moral, and also others would be better off adopting its ideas. In fact, it makes all the sense in the world.

:{

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More on

JOURNALISM

Chris Wallace’s New Show Tanks as CNN Continues Reshuffle

Dan Rather, Fake Newsman

Of course, even if Epstein is being cynical, his positions — with which, broadly speaking, I agree — are bolstered with arguments and data. Rather than debunking them, the Post tries to discredit Epstein by accusing him of harboring the wrong kinds of feelings.

alex epstein washington post - Proof Buzzme

https://proofbuzzme.blogspot.com › ... › washington

Rebel News interviews Alex Epstein the author of the new book on energy Fossil ... a March 1999 piece Epstein wrote in The Duke Review Epstein commented Im ...

Oil Lover Alex Epstein Isn't Racist, Just Because He Attacked ...

https://m.dailykos.com › stories ›

Apr 1, 2022 — All pales in comparison to Epstein's epic week though, as he launched an online crusade to get the Washington Post's Maxine Joselow fired for ...

Missing: review ‎| Must include: review

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Alex Epstein promotes fossil fuels for poor nations he once ...

https://www.washingtonpost.com › 2022/04/06 › alex-e...

Apr 6, 2022 — Epstein served as editor and publisher of the Duke Review, a conservative student newspaper, from 1999 to 2001. In a March 1999 piece, Epstein ...

The Washington Post's Pathetic Hit Piece - National Review

https://www.nationalreview.com › corner › the-washing...

Apr 8, 2022 — The piece is pathetic on two counts: First: Joselow digs into Epstein's college writings at Duke and finds that he — and maybe you should be ...

Fossil Fuel 'Philosopher' Wrote About 'Superiority' of Western ...

https://www.desmog.com › 2022/04/07 › alex-epstein-f...

Apr 7, 2022 — Alex Epstein, a self-styled “philosopher” and director of the for-profit Center for Industrial Progress, has long championed the use of fossil ...

The Washington Post's plan to “cancel” Fossil Future—and me

https://alexepstein.substack.com › the-washington-posts-pl...

Mar 29, 2022 — I just learned of Post climate journalist Maxine Joselow's despicable plan to try to “cancel” Alex Epstein and his book Fossil Future by ...

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https://www.amazon.com/Fossil-Future-Flourishing-Requires-Gas-Not-ebook/dp/B098M3Y7VC

the New York Times bestselling author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels draws on the latest data and new insights to challenge everything you thought you knew about the future of energy

:{

For over a decade, philosopher and energy expert Alex Epstein has predicted that any negative impacts of fossil fuel use on our climate will be outweighed by the unique benefits of fossil fuels to human flourishing--including their unrivaled ability to provide low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people around the world, especially the world’s poorest people.

And contrary to what we hear from media “experts” about today’s “renewable revolution” and “climate emergency,” reality has proven Epstein right:

}:

:{ 

What does the future hold? In }:Fossil Future:{, Epstein, applying his distinctive “human flourishing framework” to the latest evidence, comes to the shocking conclusion that the benefits of fossil fuels will continue to far outweigh their side effects—including climate impacts—for generations to come. The path to global human flourishing, Epstein argues, is a combination of using more fossil fuels, getting better at “climate mastery,” and establishing “energy freedom” policies that allow nuclear and other truly promising alternatives to reach their full long-term potential.

Today’s pervasive claims of imminent climate catastrophe and imminent renewable energy dominance, Epstein shows, are based on what he calls the “anti-impact framework”—a set of faulty methods, false assumptions, and anti-human values that have caused the media’s designated experts to make wildly wrong predictions about fossil fuels, climate, and renewables for the last fifty years. Deeply researched and wide-ranging, this book will cause you to rethink everything you thought you knew about the future of our energy use, our environment, and our climate.}:

no cover blurbs?!

Paul Dirac

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, robust pro human narative

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 29, 2022

:{Verified Purchase:(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-weight:700 !important"):}:

:{An importantn contribution to the climate change debate.

Comprehensive, includes a scientific and moral rebuttal of all the green fanatics basic anti-human rhetoric.

I was especially pleased to read his exposure of the fraudulent central pillar of the green cult’s “computer climate modelling” argument.

As someone who worked in computer training simulators for many years , I absolutely KNOW that this is a wide open area of abuse of the facts, replacing them with pure fantasy.

Well done Alex.}:

:{

21 people found this helpful

}:

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http://www.forbes.com › sites › alexepstein › 2015 › 01 › 06 › 97-of-climate-scientists-agree-is-100-wrong

'97% Of Climate Scientists Agree' Is 100% Wrong - Forbes

Jan 6, 2015If you look at the literature, the specific meaning of the 97% claim is: 97 percent of climate scientists agree that there is a global warming trend and that human beings are the main cause--that...

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https://documented.net/investigations/alex-epstein-fossil-future

Alex Epstein is a self-styled “philosopher and energy expert” closely affiliated with the fossil fuel industry. The author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” and the upcoming “Fossil Future” (to be released May 24th), Epstein uses his platform to attack climate science and those concerned with impacts of climate change. He advocates using “energy poverty” as a talking point in favor of fossil fuels, and accuses environmentalists of racism. Coal and oil corporations have increasingly taken up Epstein's messaging in recent years.

However, a series of articles Epstein authored in college as publisher of the Duke Review reveal that Epstein considered non-Western cultures, specifically African cultures, “inferior,” and homeless people "worse than useless." Epstein also wrote multiple articles advocating for the cancellation of Martin Luther King Jr holiday. Last week, after being asked for comment on his writings by the Washington Post, Epstein defended his past work, saying "I do think western culture is overall superior."

The writings, obtained by Documented and featured in a recent Washington Post article, raise new questions about the authenticity of Epstein's concern for “energy poverty,” which he often bolsters with references to African nations. These new revelations also raise questions about the degree to which Epstein's views on western culture's supremacy undergird the fossil fuel industry's instrumentalization of poverty as a talking point.

Locke, Aristotle, and Newton have had no equivalents in Africa or Asia, and the advancements in those areas have been almost exclusively due to Western influence. To see the results, just compare New York to Chad. No benefit can be gained by focusing an education on anti-reason cultures, their only academic merit lies in contrasting them to Western civilization as models of inferiority. Alex Epstein, "Curriculum 2000," Duke Review, March 1999

The African and African American studies department has 23 classes. In many of these classes, African culture is presented, not as inferior to Western culture, but on equal footing with it. The same is done with Latin American, Indian, and American Indian culture. Alex Epstein, "The Real Cause of Binge Drinking," Duke Review, April 2000

In another piece, Epstein said, "It is often said that America was 'built on the backs of slaves.' This is simply false."

While blacks in the pre-Civil War period were shackled by slavery, blacks today are not. Nor are they forcibly held back by legal segregation or Jim Crow laws. They are free to work hard, earn money, and succeed, as many do. Alex Epstein, "The Racism of Reparations," Duke Review, March 2001

During that same period, Epstein published a 2000 article titled, “Martin Luther King: Is he Worthy of a Day Off Over Jefferson, Columbus, and Lincoln?” where he stated:

Black crime has increased steadily since King's time, and seven out of ten black children born today have parents that are not married. Could it be that there is a reason behind all these problems, a reason having to do with ideas? Since a culture is just the dominant ideas accepted by a certain group of people, a culture yielding bad results is based on bad ideas. I submit that because of the bad ideas he promoted, Dr. King is responsible for a great part of the destruction that has occurred in America today, especially among black Americans, the group he supposedly saved.  Alex Epstein, "Martin Luther King: is he worthy of a day off over Jefferson, Columbus, and Lincoln?" Duke Review, February 2000

He also criticized the idea of corporations giving back to the community, writing that "the homeless, those on welfare, medicare recipients...are worse than useless to businesses."

Not all "others" benefit a business. Certain others - the homeless, those on welfare, Medicare recipients - are worse than useless to businesses. A business benefits only by dealing with an individual or company that creates value.  Alex Epstein, "Giving Back to the Community," Duke Review, November 2000

Documented is publishing a selection of articles authored by Alex Epstein in the Duke Review, which you can find below. The full collection of Duke Review issues from 1999-2001 are available upon request.

...[more docs eg]

spreading Pro Fossil Fuel Disinformation

Epstein, founder of the for-profit company Center for Industrial Progress, is an aggressive supporter of the fossil fuel industry. He sometimes sports an “I love fossil fuels” t-shirt, denies climate science, and attacks critics of the fossil fuel industry as racist. This has made him popular with Republican politicians, and he has appeared in three Congressional hearings as an expert witness. He also influences oil policy directly as a member of the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), a powerful quasi-regulatory body that lobbies for oil and gas interests.

Through his Energy Talking Points project, he provides message guidance to oil industry leaders and elected officials, often at high levels. Email correspondence obtained by Documented revealed that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office circulated talking points authored by Epstein during the deadly 2021 winter storm Uri. The messaging document sought to falsely lay the blame for the mass power outages on wind and solar energy projects. Similar messaging documents advocate blaming “energy poverty” on renewable energy use.

Funding

While Epstein’s for-profit hides its funding sources, he’s admitted receiving funding from coal companies and utilities like SoCalGas. The Prometheus Foundation (headed by for-profit school magnate Carl Barney) has also contributed.

A sizable portion of Epstein’s income seems to be derived from paid speeches to corporations, trade associations, and political groups. For instance, Epstein has been known to solicit large fees to debate prominent climate advocates, and he has used his past debates with Bill McKibben, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and others to attempt to reach other audiences. Epstein recently debated climate scientist Andrew Dessler at a March 11-12 event hosted by the Steamboat Institute and sponsored by Liberty Oilfield Services.

Many of his clients are the predictable oil corporations and oil lobbying groups, but he has also spoken at Google and the Harvard Business School.

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aha:  ideol entre/flak/think tankers on call 24/7 to mouth useful BS to admin and corps; they have to preserve rep b/c it's their revenue stream, so will attack critics:

420

https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/meet-the-expert-whose-scientific-study-informed-trumps-do-nothing-pandemic-response/

no lnx

Meet the ‘expert’ whose ‘scientific study’ informed Trump’s do-nothing pandemic response

Written by Daily Kos March 31, 2020

It seems like years, but it was only one week ago that Donald Trump, impatient at the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic was taking up so much of his precious time, declared he was considering steps to cut back on attempts to prevent the virus from spreading.

After viewing an uninformed rant on Fox News, and pounding out a hysterical Tweet, declaring that “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF,” Trump held a news conference in which he reiterated what was apparently passing for the “common wisdom” at the White House that morning. “America will again — and soon — be open for business,” he said. “Very soon, a lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. A lot sooner. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”

The very same day, the Washington Post also reported on a scientific article that was being circulated back and forth in emails between “numerous administration officials” at this time (no doubt with subject headings like: “Read this now!”):

Conservatives close to Trump and numerous administration officials have been circulating an article by Richard A. Epstein of the Hoover Institution, titled “Coronavirus Perspective,” that plays down the extent of the spread and the threat.

As any lawyer will tell you, it is not difficult to find an “expert” willing to spout out the most far-fetched “scientific-based” balderdash imaginable. It’s often simply a matter of cloaking that balderdash in calculated, impressive-sounding terminology, designed to hide the fact that it is written to achieve whatever desired result a particular client wants. As reported by Isaac Chotiner for the New Yorker, this particular article authored by Richard Epstein for the conservative Hoover Institution think-tank, fit the administration’s political needs to a tee.

Epstein, a professor at New York University School of Law, published the article on the Web site of the Hoover Institution, on March 16th. In it, he questioned the World Health Organization’s decision to declare the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic, said that “public officials have gone overboard,” and suggested that about five hundred people would die from COVID-19 in the U.S. Epstein later updated his estimate to five thousand, saying that the previous number had been an error.

(emphasis supplied)

When you have to “update” your conclusions to reflect an error you made by tenfold, that’s what we would call a “red flag” (the current death toll in the U.S. from COVID is already over 2000, with credible sources estimating we may be looking at 100-200,000 dead, or possibly many more). In fact, had Epstein stopped there he could have retreated into his think tank in relative obscurity, deleted the paper from the public memory and lived out a happy life as only a vaguely remembered fool with respect to the worst pandemic to strike the planet in over a century.

But like many people with oversized, prickly egos, unaccustomed to having their work revealed as faulty and error-filled, Epstein, who Chotiner describes as a “one of the most cited legal scholars in the country,” and notable for his “libertarian-minded reading of the Constitution,” just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He just had to set the record straight.

So he compounded his error by making an even more colossal blunder: he granted an interview to the New Yorker. What followed is one of the most devastating portrayals of a purveyor of “junk science” that can be imagined.

After apologizing for his “stupid” error in projecting the number of U.S. fatalities, which he characterizes as “the single worst public-relations gaffe I’ve made in my entire life,” Epstein then proceeds to mount an arrogant, pompous and error-filled defense of his methodology (“the question to ask, Isaac, is not whether I chose the right number but whether I had the right model.”)

After acknowledging the glaring, fundamental errors in his fatality estimates, Epstein revealed some of the glaring, fundamental errors underlying his assumptions. Helpfully, the New Yorker article adds brackets which identify Epstein’s errors, and provide correct information.

First, we realize that Epstein doesn’t even have a basic understanding of the nature of COVID-19:

[Epstein]: And so you take a population like in Kirkland, which is fragile and old, you get somebody in who has a strong version of the virus, and the thing will just absolutely rip through the population and kill everybody in it within a very short period of time. [Daniel Kuritzkes, the chief of the infectious-diseases division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, in Boston, said, after being read this passage, “There’s no evidence that there are strong and weak variations of the coronavirus circulating. There may be minor variations person to person or location to location in the actual genetic sequence, but there is no evidence that they have different virulence or that a less virulent version is overtaking a more virulent version.”]

Next, Epstein reveals he lacks a basic understanding of how the virus is transmitted. For example, he attributes the high death toll in Washington State to the fact that people in that state “probably” received “large doses” of the virus through “hugging and kissing” the residents of the Kirkland Life Care facility, where COVID-19 was first identified in that state:

[Epstein]: And Washington State had a very high peak early on. And, probably, most of the deaths that we have today, if you went through and chased them down, were either people who are in the facility or people who have family members who hugged and kissed people in the facility. So they got large doses of intense viruses. [Albert Ko, a professor of epidemiology and medicine and the department chair at the Yale School of Public Health, responded, “There is no evidence that you have a higher risk of dying from contact from someone in the facility than if you had contact from some other source.”]

(emphasis supplied)

Epstein, who is neither a virologist, an epidemiologist, nor a physician, then opines that a “change in genetic viral behavior” along with changes in human behavior would lead to an “adaptation,” altering the course of the virus.  In his view, the failure to consider such “adaptation” led to overreaction among state governors to the potential impact of the virus:

[Chotiner]:You wrote, “The adaptive responses should reduce the exposures in the high-risk groups, given the tendency for the coronavirus to weaken over time.” What tendency are you talking about, and how do we know it will weaken over time?

[Epstein]: Well, what happens is it’s an evolutionary tendency. [“There is absolutely no evidence for that,” Ko told me. According to Kuritzkes, “There is no proof that this is the case. To the extent we see that evolution taking place it is usually over a much vaster timescale.”]

He then repeats that he assumed the coronavirus would weaken over time:  “This tendency takes time. It could be a week. It could be a month. It could be longer. But, in the end, you should expect something of this particular sort to take place.”

In fact, Epstein says he knows of “no exception” to the rule that such viruses weaken over time. Unfortunately, he’s wrong here as well:

[Epstein]: Over time, yes. And is this a hundred-per-cent tendency? No. Is there any known exception to it? No. [“We did not see SARS or Ebola weaken over time,” Kuritzkes said. “It is only appropriate public-health measures or vaccines that have helped to control those epidemics.”]

So up to this point, we’ve determined that Epstein doesn’t understand the nature of the virus, doesn’t understand what happened in Washington State (which he relied on in his model of the virus’ transmission), and doesn’t understand that the virus will not necessarily “weaken over time.”  In short, his conclusions and the methodology underlying them are sheer garbage.

But it is the exchange at the end of the interview between Chotiner and Epstein that is the most revealing:

[Chotiner]: I know, but these are scientific issues here.

[Epstein]: You know nothing about the subject but are so confident that you’re going to say that I’m a crackpot.

No. Richard—

That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? That’s what you’re saying?

I’m not saying anything of the sort.

Admit to it. You’re saying I’m a crackpot.

I’m not saying anything of the—

Well, what am I then? I’m an amateur? You’re the great scholar on this?

No, no. I’m not a great scholar on this.

Tell me what you think about the quality of the work!

O.K. I’m going to tell you. I think the fact that I am not a great scholar on this and I’m able to find these flaws or these holes in what you wrote is a sign that maybe you should’ve thought harder before writing it.

What it shows is that you are a complete intellectual amateur. Period.

O.K. Can I ask you one more question?

You just don’t know anything about anything. You’re a journalist. Would you like to compare your résumé to mine?

No, actually, I would not.

Then good. Then maybe what you want to do is to say, “Gee, I’m not quite sure that this is right. I’m going to check with somebody else.” But, you want to come at me hard, I am going to come back harder at you. And then if I can’t jam my fingers down your throat, then I am not worth it. But you have basically gone over the line. If you want to ask questions, ask questions. I put forward a model. But a little bit of respect.

O.K. Let me ask you this question. All my questions are asked with respect.

That’s not the way I hear it.

At this point, Epstein finally gets something right:  this is the ranting of an egotistical crackpot who has been caught flat-footed and is attempting to defend his own incompetence, by attacking his interlocutor as “an intellectual amateur,” whose resume cannot possibly compete with his own.

This would be comical if lives weren’t at stake. But by relying on this incompetent charlatan to inform public policy (policy which has been followed by at least some Republican governors in creating their own state’s response to the pandemic), the Trump administration may have caused hundreds if not thousands of additional deaths.

===

The Wilks Brothers and PragerU

Dan and Farris Wilks are two of the largest funders of PragerU (AKA “Prager University”). Farris’ Thirteen Foundation gave $1 million to the foundation in 2015, while Wilks has given at least $120,000 through the Heavenly Fathers Foundation, according to publicly available 990 forms reviewed by DeSmog. [13]

PragerU, which is not an accredited academic institution, was created by conservative radio talk show host Dennis Prager who has “historically fought against what he describes as ‘liberal’ evils—marriage equality, feminism, and multiculturalism.” According to its 2014 annual report, PragerU was advancing with the specific goal of targeting middle school and high school children. [13]

The group’s “Environmental Science” course is dominated by climate change deniers such as Alex Epstein, Bjorn Lomborg, Patrick Moore, and Richard Lindzen. [14]

Dennis Prager has called campus rape a “gargantuan lie to get votes” and “nonsense” promoted by the “feminist left.” [15]

Stance on Climate Change

July 2013

“If [God] wants the polar caps to remain in place, then he will leave them there,” Wilks said, according to sermons reviewed by Reuters. [11]

===

June 5, 2013

The Statistical Assessment Service's Jon Entine (STATS Senior fellow and Executive Director of the Genetic Literacy Project) is a signatory to Center for Industrial Progress' letter titled, “Don’t Divest, Educate—An Open Letter to American Universities.” [22]

In the letter, Alex Epstein and several other notable climate change deniers, including Peter Ferrara, J. Scott Armstrong, Steve Goreham, S. Fred Singer, David Schnare, Richard Lindzen, and Matt Ridley, proclaim that they are “proud to stand in favor of fossil fuels.” [22]

The “undersigned scientists, philosophers, energy experts, and economists” of the letter ask for a “more rigorous education on energy and environmental issues,” and “are willing to debate anytime, anywhere to defend what [they] believe is right.” [22]

April, 2008

==

https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/right-wing-media-figures-are-making-unhinged-connections-between-coronavirus-and

Some of right-wing media’s most prolific climate deniers are using the disastrous effects of the coronavirus to promote their anti-climate agenda across multiple platforms.

These figures have reframed their usual climate attacks around the pandemic. Some have compared the (alleged) outcomes of the Green New Deal to the (real) impacts of the coronavirus, while others have claimed that both the coronavirus and climate change are being used by leftists to push a radical agenda.

Green New Deal

Perhaps the most shameful connection made between coronavirus and the Green New Deal came from Daniel Turner, a fossil fuel industry shill whose recent career has been bankrolled by Koch Industries. Making his debut in The Federalist on March 13, with an article titled “How The Wuhan Virus Is Accomplishing The Green New Deal’s Goals,” Turner concluded that “coronavirus is a glimpse of the long-term pain a Green New Deal and environmental radicalism would inflict on America.”

Turner attempted to support this conclusion with false claims about the Green New Deal, claiming that, like the coronavirus, it would crush capitalism, put the “oil and gas industry into panic,” end travel, and control the population.

To add insult to blatant misinformation, he also stated that supporters of the Green New Deal should be “pleased” at what the coronavirus is accomplishing because “green activists don’t fret these casualties” and that “greens will rejoice” over the coronavirus’s disastrous effects.

Turner had previously pushed this narrative on March 11, again connecting the coronavirus and the Green New Deal to “more government control.”

Over the past year, Turner has made a habit of appearing in right-wing outlets to lie and fearmonger about the Green New Deal, and to promote climate denial in general. This is also not the first time he’s claimed that the Green New Deal is just a front for socialism. Since January 2019, he’s appeared on Fox News at least 12 times and on Fox Business at least 21 times, and written at least 40 op-eds for Fox News’ website.

The same day that Turner published his abhorrent piece in The Federalist, well-known climate denier Rush Limbaugh made a similar connection between the climate resolution and coronavirus on his radio show, stating that “If you want to know what the Green New Deal would look like, you're starting to see it”:

[vid? aud?]

rush is no stranger to lying about the Green New Deal; in August, he said that “the premise behind it is bogus,” and also said that “there is no man-made climate change.” He’s been echoing the same sort of misinformation during the coronavirus outbreak, even claiming that it’s been “exaggerated and ... lied about.”

Alex Epstein, author of the book The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, which argues that the “overall impact of using fossil fuels is to make the world a far better place,” picked up on the egregious connection between the Green New Deal and coronavirus in a March 16 tweet. He told his followers:

Epstein has produced five videos featuring climate denial with Prager U -- a right-wing, propagandist online video resource -- including one in which he lies about the Green New Deal. Perhaps more dangerously, his controversial (and flat out wrong) ideas are being promoted by Chevron to push back on climate activism against the oil industry. In the past, he’s appeared on Fox News, Fox Business, BlazeTV, and the Rubin Report.

These climate deniers love to fantasize about the supposed bad outcomes of the Green New Deal, despite the fact that it will have positive climate impacts -- it will help fight climate change and inequality, while reducing the reliance of harmful fossil fuels that are contributing to these very issues in the U.S.

Leftist policies and government control

Claims that climate action, especially as embodied by the Green New Deal, is just a front for more government control over our lives are popular among right-wing media figures, and they’ve also been invoked when talking about the coronavirus.

On March 16, The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles did just this, calling the responses to both climate change and coronavirus a “panic” and arguing that these issues are “simply being used to push through all the leftist policies that the left really, really wants.” He specifically referred to efforts “to pump up the Wuhan virus panic,” and he misrepresented climate science multiple times.

[vid]

Knowles is perhaps best known for being too unhinged even for Fox News; after he shamefully called Greta Thunberg a “mentally ill” child on a September appearance on The Story with Martha MacCallum, the network apologized for his “disgraceful” comment and stated that it had no further plans to book him. But he apparently still fits in perfectly at the cesspool of hatred and bigotry that is The Daily Wire.

Not to be outdone by Knowles, National Review’s Kevin Williamson invoked fascism when discussing climate change. Although he didn’t claim that the coronavirus is a false crisis, like some of his other right-wing colleagues, Williamson insinuated that both the left and the right are using the pandemic to push their respective “agendas.”

The great American longing for a generation-defining crisis — Pearl Harbor envy — is strange and enduring, and it shapes thinking on both sides of the great sociopolitical divide: On the left, global warming is the Third Reich, the so-called Green New Deal is the moonshot, and whatever unnecessary immiseration and chaos is unleashed by the fantasies of progressives are only sadly inevitable casualties on the beaches of this new Normandy. On the right, it’s an Islamic caliphate, the coming civil war (there’s always one), the nation’s being overrun by hordes of Spanish-speaking people, or — it is almost a relief to consider it — Armageddon itself. With everything from right-wing survivalist novels to ironic hipster zombie shows, we have been preparing ourselves, in our low-impact way, for just such an eventuality.

And in the plague, we see whatever we want to see: the need for a universal health-care system and paid leave, the need for a wall and for severing our relations with the Chinese.

An op-ed in RT (the state-run outlet formerly known as Russia Today) also made the government control point -- and also included a reprehensible attack on children concerned about climate change. Titled “What do the coronavirus & Greta Thunberg have in common? They’re both great for the planet,” the author writes:

Airplanes are grounded. Roads, deserted. The skies are clear and fish swim once again in Venice’s canals. Covid-19 has achieved in three short months what Greta Thunberg and her ilk could only dream of.

…

But climate hysteria has been relegated to the back pages by coverage of Covid-19. Thunberg and her devotees can find some silver linings though: not only does she not have to return to school (nice timing, G), but the virus has helped Mother Earth recover in ways that screaming, crying, and gluing themselves to trains never could.

…

But once things are back to normal, the environmental debate will likely start anew. This time, the Greta Thunbergs of the world can point to the current, virus-induced environmental uptick as proof that we can – when push comes to shove – give up our carbon addiction. However, remember that if your leaders are serious about meeting the climate goals they promise to, the lifestyle changes they ask of you will need to be enforced with the machinery of the state.

The author insinuates that “extreme measures” being taken to stop the spread of coronavirus are what “environmental crusaders” really want in pursuing their climate change goals.

The Russian government-backed RT has posted misleading climate videos on YouTube and has generally sown misinformation through its platform.

The government control idea has also been espoused by fringe, far-right YouTubers. One YouTuber, who has over 360,000 subscribers, produced a nearly 18-minute video saying that coronavirus and climate change are both propaganda and that both of these “scaremonger” stories are being pushed by “globalist-backed” agendas that allow “governments to crack down on the public in various ways.” YouTube, which has a huge problem with climate change misinformation on its platform, has not tagged the video as pushing a climate falsehood.

Right wing-outlets, especially Fox News, have used a lot of misinformation when talking about the coronavirus. It’s no surprise that they’re also using favorite climate denier arguments within the discussions.

==

===

https://www.alternet.org/2019/11/conservative-evangelical-becomes-aoc-loving-vegan-after-flabbergasting-encounter-with-turning-point-usa/

anecdote but

no lnx

reed / Raw Story November 6, 2019

A young Michigan native recently transformed from a right-wing evangelical Christian into a vegan fan of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) after he had a jarring encounter with Turning Point USA, the Trump-loving organization for young conservatives.

The Boston Globe reports that 21-year-old Giani DiTrapani had a shocking experience recently when he attending a Turning Point event that was held at Michigan State University.

Although DiTrapani had for years been a conservative Trump supporter, he nonetheless believed that man-made climate change was a major problem that needed to be addressed. Because of this, reports the Globe, he found himself “flabbergasted” when a speaker at the Turning Point event extolled the virtues of pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

As speaker Alex Epstein said that increased CO2 emissions were a positive sign of economic development and passed out pins that said, “I Love Fossil Fuels,” DiTrapani found himself disturbed that so many of his fellow conservatives were cheering on rhetoric that was completely contradicted by basic science.

“Is this what conservatives really think?” he tells the Globe that he recalls asking himself. “The climate really changed my mind.”

===

desmog update 9 22

...“In praising this piece I must disclose, proudly, that the author is one of my clients. As is the allied website, ‘The Coal Truth,’ that has a more in-depth expose of “100% renewable,” Epstein wrote.

According to WHOIS records, thecoaltruth.com was registered by Aaron Bond,12 who appears to work for Alliance Coal,13 and the administrator is listed as Health Lovell.  Lovell is Vice President for Public Affairs at Alliance Coal, and also spoke at the Heartland Institute‘s America First Energy Conference in 2017.14 Lovell has praised the pro-coal stance of the Trump Administration.15

Stance on Climate Change

November 2021

The following is from an interview with GB News, which Epstein posted on Facebook, he argued “why COP 26 is not a progressive scientific conference but an anti-human, primitive-religious attempt to commit mass genocide,” according to his video description.16

“If you don’t admit that today’s world is amazing because of fossil fuels, you are totally unqualified to make any predictions about the future because either you are anti-human or ignorant.”

Epstein added:

“The fact that we have an impact doesn’t even mean that it’s net negative. I think the jury is out because there’s a lot of beneficial warming and then greening is good.”

May 22, 2019

An article published by The Oregonian notes that “Epstein’s views put him in the position of denying scientific findings about the forces reshaping a planet now regularly experiencing its warmest years on record.”17

Taking offense to this statement, Alex Epstein made the following response in the Center for Industrial Progress newsletter:18

“I am actually an outspoken global warming affirmer. The real point of contention is not whether there is some global warming and whether human beings have some climate impact, but a) whether warming is a problem and b) whether fossil fuel energy should be restricted.

“When catastrophists label me and others ‘climate deniers,’ they aren’t trying to accurately characterize our views–they’re trying eliminate opposition to their political policies.”

April 2016

“If we look at what has been scientifically demonstrated vs. what has been speculated, the climate impact of CO2 is real — but mild and manageable.”

[…] while fossil-fuel use has only a mild warming impact, it has an enormous protecting impact. Nature doesn’t give us a stable, safe climate that we make dangerous. It gives us an ever-changing, dangerous climate that we need to make safe. And the driver behind sturdy buildings, affordable heating and air-conditioning, drought relief and everything else that keeps us safe from climate is cheap, plentiful, reliable energy, overwhelmingly from fossil fuels.”19

March 2016

In an interview on The Aaron Harbor show during IHS CERA Week, Epstein responded to a number of questions on his views about climate change.29

[vid]

aaron Harber:  “Do you agree with the vast majority of climate scientists that climate change is happening?” [1:11]

Alex Epstein: “Loaded question. I agree that mild climate change, but not catastrophic climate change, is happening.”

Harber: “All right. What are the implications of climate change, in your opinion?” [1:22]

Epstein: “The main implication is we have to protect ourselves from the inherently dangerous and volatile climate using lots of energy and lots of industry.”

Harber: “Can mankind affect climate change, do you think? What kind of impact…” [1:32]

Epstein: “Theoretically, yes. In practice, very mildly.”

Harber: “So you don’t think that a significant portion of climate change that’s occurring is due to mankind, is anthropogenic?”  [1:39]

Epstein: “Well, the overall is not that much. So you could have a significant portion of not very much, and it wouldn’t be that much.”

Harber: “So, when you say ‘not very much’, give me a sense of what, what you mean.” [1:51]

Epstein: “Well, you have one, you know one-point four degrees in 150 years, and a little over half of that is since major CO2 emissions began. So you have a small amount of natural warming and a slightly less small amount of possibly man-made influenced warming.”

Harber: “All right. Som the goal to prevent us from warming two more degrees, do you think  that that’s an easy goal to reach? Or is that goal, does that goal even make sense?” [2:07]

Epstein: “The whole premise is based on climate-related, climate predication models that can’t predict climate. So I reject that as a goal. … so in two degrees is probably better off anyway. But there’s no evidence that we’re getting there.”

Harber: “So two degrees would be a good thing?” [2:29]

Epstein: “I don’t think, technologically, we know how to get there if we wanted to. Two degrees celsius.”

Harber: “In terms of prevention?” [2:34]

Epstein: “No. We couldn’t warm the Earth that much.”

Harber: “So you don’t think we’re headed to two degrees on our current path?” [2:39]

Epstein: “No. It’s all climate prediction models that can’t predict climate. Anyone can make stuff up. Most predictions are wrong, including these have been wrong for 35 years. There’s nor Eason to assume there’s anything different.”

2016

“[B]urning fossil fuels has improved the lives of millions in the developed world by helping solve their biggest environmental challenges, purified their water and air, made their cities and homes more sanitary and kept them safe from potential catastrophic climate change.”21

2013

Writing at Forbes, Epstein compared mainstream climate change science to Scientology:22

“[T]oday’s vaunted “climate science consensus”—that it’s been scientifically proven that we need to dismantle the fossil fuel industry, the economic engine of the world—is more Scientology than science,” he wrote.

2011

“In my opinion, the time for debate is certainly not over because the vast majority of us don’t even know what the debate is about — let alone what has been proven and what hasn’t, let alone what action implications all of this has.”23

Key Quotes

September 16, 2020

“You know, one thing I’ve been saying lately is I think it’s just really important that people associate the California blackouts with green energy and the California wildfires with green forestry,” Epstein said in an interview with Patrick Moore on Power Hour.24

July 22, 2020

The following quotes are from an episode of Power Hour where Malcolm Roberts interviewed Epstein:25

Alex Epstein: [00:37:10] We’re all taught that climate is bad and getting worse. And yet climate from a human perspective is safer than ever by far. So anyone I have a line that I like to use, which is I don’t trust anyone to predict the future, who can’t predict the present. So if somebody says climate is going to be a disaster in the future and they think climate is a disaster today, they are ignorant or worse. And I think they are worse. [00:37:35]

[00:37:48] Because if you have a human perspective on climate livability, you have to admit it’s gotten much better. But if you think that it’s wrong for human beings to have any impact on the climate. And if we have any impact, that means it’s a bad climate, then you think the climate is worse. And that’s the only explanation of climate that the climate catastrophe movement thinking today’s climate is bad because they think it’s bad because they think we’ve changed it some. And so it’s really a religion. It’s really a religion that says that to be good is to not change nature.  [00:38:18]

[00:38:19] That’s their standard. That’s their goal is unchanged nature. And my goal is human flourishing. I want humans to live to their highest potential. So if we make the Earth amazing with machine power and it leads to a little warming, which, by the way, is generally desirable for people, and by the way, it also leads to greening of plants.  [00:38:35]

[00:38:36] If we change the Earth in that way, along with all the positive ways that our machines change the Earth using fossil fuels, I think that’s a better earth because I care about humans. But if you think it’s bad for human beings to change anything, you’re gonna think it’s what we’ve done is bad. Even though a billion people can live better lives than ever, that’s the only explanation of our whole establishment. Acting like climate is bad and the world is bad is they are antihuman.  [00:39:02]

[00:39:19] But once you know the facts about the world, you have to know that there’s something antihuman about the people who are telling you that it’s bad and getting worse. [00:39:27]

[00:50:07]  If you recognize there is no optimal state of the planet, the planet is naturally dynamic. It’s naturally dangerous. It’s naturally deficient. It’s a very imperfect planet. It’s got a lot of potential. But that potential needs to be actualized.  [00:50:21]

[00:53:46] Property rights are just so unappreciated in terms of how they enable individuals to coexist in harmony with one another and to have a proper pro human relationship to nature.  [00:53:58]

[00:54:13] But we unfortunately have almost and I mean this technically like a fascist system when it comes to the relationship to nature, where basically a government like the EPA or some other entity can just say, you know what, the muskrat on your property. We think that’s important. So you’ve got to leave or you can’t do what you want. And and there’s this real tyranny that happens. I think it’s an anti human view. I think if you care about the muskrat, you go be productive and figure out a way to predict that muskrat yourself, because otherwise people don’t care about the muskrat.  [00:54:46]

[00:55:05] And if you just talk to business people in the U.S. about how they say the Endangered Species Act persecutes them, it is unbelievable. Or we had this, um, it was like some waters act in the US that the president, Donald Trump, did a good job of repealing or delimiting. And it was just like if you had a puddle on your property, basically some eco fascist could say, yeah, you know what? That’s a really important puddle. I guess you can’t use it. And that’s that’s not how America became a beautiful place. You know, it became a beautiful place, I think, where there’s more property rights.  [00:55:38]

[00:55:46] I think that if we had property rights, we could have a true enjoyment of nature that was actually pro human.  [00:55:53]

[00:59:52] I think what’s going on in terms of the climate catastrophism, I don’t think it’s actually really a disagreement about science or certainly any fact.  I think it’s a very deep antihuman orientation.  [01:00:05]

[01:00:05] And it’s this idea I keep coming back to the view that changing nature is bad or human impact is is bad. Because if you look at the situation and you think about let’s say you learn two facts about CO2 that at least in that. So it’s a it’s a plant growing gas and it’s a fertilizing gas. You know that. And let’s say in isolation at least it’s a warming gas, at least I. I certainly believe that. So it’s a warming gass. So it has those two attributes. So you might think, let’s say fossil fuels, instead of adding CO2 to the atmosphere, they subtracted CO2 from the atmosphere. So if you just knew, OK, it’s a fertilizing gas and a warming gas and you heard fossil fuels as a side effect or a byproduct, they’re sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere.  [01:00:49]

[01:00:50] What would be your reaction? I think you’d be pretty afraid.  [01:00:54]

[01:02:18] Leaving aside anything you knew about the details of climate science, if it was taking CO2 out of the atmosphere, you would be worried.

[01:02:25] But then if you’re oh, it’s just from these basic facts, it’s adding CO2 to the atmosphere. You’d think, oh, well, that’s probably gonna be pretty good for the plants. And we use a lot of plants because we either eat them directly or the animals we eat eat plants. So that’s going to increase our agricultural productivity. And it’s also going to just increase the amount of biomass around the world which is going to mean that all species have more stuff to feed on.  [01:02:46]

[01:03:00] So what’s really interesting is that people, before they even hear about the different views on climate science, their expectation is that the world is going to get worse if we add CO2. Why is that? It’s not because of the nature of CO2. It’s because of the religious dogma that impacting nature is bad. It’s impacting nature is viewed as immoral. It’s just wrong for us to impact things and it’s viewed as inevitably self-destructive. [01:03:26]

[01:03:59] So it warms place in the coldest places in the world that we want to be more warm. And it warms more at night when we want it to be more warm and it warms more in the winter. So if you learn that the world is becoming a more tropical place, you would think that’s a desirable thing. Most people will like that. The only thing you could possibly be concerned about is is there some way that the warmth is so much or that there’s some trajectory of CO2 that so much that it’s just going to become way warmer than our tropical ancestors had? But then if you look at the nature of it, the effect I mean, if you just look at the history of the planet, CO2 levels used to be fifteen times higher than they are today in Fahrenheit, which I use.

Temperatures twenty five degrees warmer. And life was incredibly productive at those times, the planet didn’t burn up. So if you know that we have no way, even if we wanted to. Of even getting one third of the way to what CO2 levels used to. Like we have no way of doing that. And then you think so? How could it be that they CO2 could warm things that much? And then you look at how CO2 works in isolation.

You see, it’s what’s called a logarithmic has a logarithmic effect, which is you can think of it as a decelerating effect, which basically means each new molecule of CO2 adds less warmth than the last one. So you keep adding. So somebody uses the analogy of like, you know, you paint a barn and you’re painting it red. And like the first coat of paint is like, you know, you make it. It’s like a little red and then you can make it redder. But after a while, it stops.

It doesn’t become much redder because it’s already pretty red. And that’s basically how CO2 works. It’s like every new coat of it or every new amount of it. It warms some, but it warms less than the last. How could a decel… a warming gas with a decelerating affect that has been 15 times higher in the future and life has thrived at twenty five degrees warmer temperature? How could that possibly be a catastrophe for a species that is by far the most adaptable in history?

Because billions of people have machine power that they can thrive in any climate. How could that possibly be a catastrophe? The only way you can think that is if you do not recognize how good human beings make the planet. The planet is naturally dynamic, deficient, dangerous and deficient, and that human productivity using machine power makes it it better. You can only believe this if you have this dogma that the planet is perfect, that any change to it is immoral and disastrous. But that’s a religion that is not science at all. And it is the most irrational, I’m not… any religion…But that is the most irrational religion I have ever heard of. [01:06:43]

[01:10:05] Yes. So I just want to sort of situate my own position here. So, I mean, my my main position is that the climate catastrophe movement is a religious and unscientific movement. But what I just want to emphasize that the morality of using fossil fuels, of using more and more fossil fuels going forward, does not depend on them having zero impact on climate. I think it’s very hard to know, certainly if you’re a layman, what’s going on. Because there’s so much distortion and there’s so much of an assumption that, of course, CO2 must have a big impact. After all, it’s on we’re putting an unnatural amount. But even if we are causing significant warming, particularly because, you know, it’s a decelerating function, that is no reason at all to stop using fossil fuels and empowering human rights. So I just want to. Sometimes people get into the climate issue and they act like the case for fossil fuels depends on zero or little impact of fossil fuels on climate.  [01:11:00]

[01:11:01] And it it does not because we can use the fossil fuels to make any climate safer as long as we we’re free to use fossil fuels and get machine power. And if we’re not free, then any climate, including the supposedly perfect natural climate, is dangerous and unlivable. [01:11:17]

[01:14:43] my view is certainly that the utility of knowing that CO2 levels used to be a lot higher. It has a lot of utility because it it would be different if we had never we were at a threshold of CO2 that had never been exceeded, versus if you know. Oh, it’s been 15 times higher than it was today. And there are other variables that are different. But clearly, it is not something where the planet burns up. The oceans. Nothing like nothing like that happens in general. Life flourishes. The only thing. So the only thing I think you could be legitimately concerned about, but it has to be a pretty small concern in the scheme of things is will warming cause sea level rise that will be inconveniently fast? And I don’t think there’s evidence that it is at all. But you could at least hypothetically be concerned about that with warming. [01:15:31]

[01:17:42] If they actually cared about protecting people from floods, they would be all for using more fossil fuels so that you could actually produce flood protection like levees and dams.  [01:17:51]

[01:27:11] Michael Shellenberger, one of my favorite energy commentators, the author of the new book Apocalypse Never, which is a very valuable book, like he has a good article, says, If solar and wind are so cheap, basically, why is electricity so expensive? [01:27:23]

[01:28:30] The idea when people talk about a hundred percent renewable, mostly solar and wind, even for electricity, and they talk about it for all energy, that is a policy that is equal parts ignorant and genocidal. And so that means you, Joe Biden, like you talking about that is like you are basically saying, I want to kill a whole bunch of Americans. [01:28:51]

[01:31:40] So we if we want to live, we want billions of people to live and to be empowered with machine power. Then we need more fossil fuels, not less. That’s the moral case for fossil fuels. And fortunately, I’m not. Fortunately, the CO2 is probably a net benefit, but it’s certainly nothing resembling a catastrophe. So that’s that’s even better. [01:32:02]

[01:57:21] There’s this idea that if calling the green movement the watermelon movement because it’s green on the outside and red on the inside, red as in communistic. And there’s a lot of truth to that. But if you think about it, the whole idea that we’re destroying the planet is the ultimate pretext for restricting freedom because it basically says anything we do productively is bad.  [01:57:43]

[01:57:44] And so the government gets to control us. And to the people who hate achievement or productivity, that checks a box for them because it it it says it’s basically anti-doing anything. And for the people who want control. Wow. What could be a greater thing to control than human impact and for that matter, what could be a greater thing to control than the byproduct of basically, every machine in the world, CO2. Like that is the ultimate control. So it’s it’s it’s very important.  [01:58:13]

[01:58:13] It’s an anti freedom movement. And when we say we’re pro fossil fuels, we’re we’re really pro is the freedom to use fossil fuels.  [01:58:21]

[01:58:58] So fundamentally, it’s about freedom. And fossil fuels are a product of freedom. And we only want to use them as long as they’re the best choice under freedom.  [01:59:06]

August 26, 2019

Upon learning of the death of David Koch, Epstein told the Wall Street Journal:26

“When we hear that David Koch was a profit-seeking oil refiner we should feel not contempt and blame but admiration and gratitude.”

April 3, 2019

On his Power Hour with Alex Epstein podcast, Epstein attacked Sen. Bernie Sanders for tweeting that he would ban fracking nationwide if elected president. Epstein said:27

“…These freeloaders like Bernie Sanders… There’s a chance that this guy is only alive, or he is alive I should say, because of fracking. That’s the kind of thing that has extended a lot of people’s lives.”

April 6, 2018

Alex Epstein praised Scott Pruit on Twitter, voicing support during a time that the EPA Administrator was facing a range of criticism and controversies:

...

===

2015

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/11/17/hls-debate-fossil-fuels/

harvard

Federalist Society Hosts Fossil Fuel Debate

By Hannah Natanson, Contributing Writer

November 17, 2015

Alex Epstein, president and founder of the for-profit think-tank Center for Industrial Progress and author of “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” argued for the use of fossil fuels on Monday in Harvard Law School’s Wasserstein Hall.

Aladdine Joroff, a clinical instructor and staff attorney in the Emmett Environmental Law and Policy Clinic at the Law School, spoke after Epstein and gave a rebuttal. The event was hosted by the Harvard Federalist Society, a student-run organization for conservatives, moderates, and libertarians.

During his speech, Epstein critiqued the “methodology” of the prevailing energy discussion.

According to Epstein, the fossil fuel debate today places too much trust in “experts.” In addition, Epstein said much of the debate focuses on fossil fuels’ negative effects on the environment, leaving out their positive effects on human beings.

“If we were not free to use fossil fuels...billions of people suffer and die unnecessarily,” Epstein said. “This really calls into question what is the methodology of the people who oppose [fossil fuels]. My contention is, whether implicitly or explicitly, their focus is not human life.”

Epstein also differentiated his arguments in favor of fossil fuels from mainstream political discourse.

“I want to distinguish myself both from the view that you hear from what we can call the left and the right,” he said. “So I don’t think fossil fuels are an unnecessary evil or a necessary evil, I think they are a superior good.”

In her rebuttal, Joroff asserted that opponents of fossil fuel usage want to transition to a cleaner energy supply, not remove the existing energy supply.

“From a moral perspective, I’d argue that we have an obligation to pursue feasible alternatives now,” she said.

Trenton Van Oss, vice president of speakers for the Federalist Society and one of the hosts of the event, said he was pleased with the proceedings.

“[T]hat’s part of our mission at the school, to provide students with points of view that they might not get in the classroom or at other events,” he said. “Alex did that, and Professor Joroff offered a great response.”

Aqil Sajjad, a graduate student in high energy theory physics, said that he thought Epstein was not “nuanced” enough and made strong assertions in a field that “can’t be totally precise.”

“I think that, in the climate debate, demanding precision is not how we should [proceed],” Sajjad said. “If you want precision you should go into physics or chemistry.”

==

==

http://www.alternet.org/environment/rex-tillerson-has-been-misleading-public-about-dangers-fracking-years

...

. It worked. With help from sympathetic (and largely conservative) media outlets and a barrage of propaganda from industry front groups like “Energy in Depth,” the industry was able to brand the victims as liars and charlatans. “Their water was always like that” became a meme—a “sciencey” explanation that let the industry off the hook and blamed the victims. Each new case got the same treatment, and with oil industry PR money behind it, much of the nation believed it.

Central to the oil industry’s branding of fracking as a clean source of energy is the claim that “there’s never been one case of water pollution from fracking.” Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exon (and now Secretary of State) looked straight into the camera and proclaimed in an interview with Charlie Rose in 2013 that after “a million data points,” there had “never been a verifiable case of fracking polluting drinking water.”  The claim was patently false. At that point we knew aquifers had been polluted in Dimock Pa, Pavilion Wyoming and Parker Country Texas.  Texas, Colorado, Wyoming resulting in dozens of water wells being polluted. Testing in all three cases pointed to gas extraction.

In fact, there are documented cases of fracking contaminating drinking water as early as the 1980s. An EPA report from 1987 showed that “fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr. James Parson’s property, fractures were created allowing migration of fracture fluid from the gas well to Mr. Parson’s water well.” Industry itself admitted that fracking polluted the well.  During the 1990s when modern fracking technologies were being pioneered in Texas, widespread instances of pollution were acknowledged by Texas regulators.

But with enough people in positions of power and influence repeating it, the claim that there had never been a single case of fracking polluting drinking water became a “fact.” Media figures, oil industry officials, politicians, state regulators and gas and oil PR teams repeated the same story line: Fracking has been around for seventy years and there’s never been one documented case of pollution.

There were numerous problems with this story. First, modern slick-water fracking combined with horizontal drilling is a relatively new technology.  Comparing the “stimulation” of old vertical wells to modern fracks with pressures up to 15,000 PSI and hundreds of chemicals is like comparing a 1960s rotary phone to today's iPhone.

Also left out of the not-one-case story is a clever sleight of hand with the definition of fracking. The oil industry defines “fracking” as only what happens in the horizontal section of pipe thousands of feet underground. According to this reasoning, the only way fracking can pollute drinking water is by migrating through thousands of feet of solid rock. Pollution from the vertical part of the well—where most leaks occur—or surface activity is not in this technical definition pollution from fracking.

Of course, most people understand fracking as the whole process of transporting equipment and chemicals to the site, drilling the well, extracting the gas and transporting it to market. Oil industry PR people are perfectly willing to use this confusion to their advantage. They can cite scientific papers claiming that “there has never been a case of fracking polluting drinking water,” and let the public believe they are referring to the common-sense definition of fracking as the entire industrial process.

Industry leaders like Tillerson know all this, of course. But they just keep repeating the same misleading claim. If enough “experts,” authority figures and media personalities keep repeating it, the big lie becomes a fact in people’s minds. And once it’s embedded, these everyone-knows-it facts are very difficult to dislodge.

An important part of the oil industry drive to control perceptions of fracking is demonizing its critics. Victims are portrayed as greedy fraudsters. Environmentalists are portrayed as hysterical, hypocritical busy bodies inventing scandals about a clean energy technology they should be celebrating. Filmmakers like Josh Fox, whose film “Gasland” shined a spotlight on cases of pollution associated with fracking, were subjected to withering character assassination campaigns.

The IPAA, the oldest petroleum industry association in the nation, funded a film a film to discredit “Gasland” called “Truthland.” It was a shiny spin piece that painted any case of water contamination as naturally occurring. The best known of these fracking-denial films is “FrackNation” by Phelim McAleer. McAleer has made a career out of making films depicting environments as hypocritical elitists and pollution victims as frauds and liars. A darling of conservative news outlets, McAleer has been one of the most effective proponents of fracking-has-never-contaminated-drinking-water meme. Other media figures like Alex Epstein and Ezra Levant have cashed in by writing Ann Coulter-style books popularizing oil industry talking points. Levant is famous in Canada for his shouting-head attacks on oil industry critics.

IPAA also fired up their own PR “news” outlet, Energy In Depth. In a memo announcing the new media group, IPAA stated the group’s goal; “EnergyInDepth.org: a state of the art online resource center to combat new environmental regulations,”. The venture was funded by major gas and oil interests including; BP, Anadarko, Marathon, EnCana, Chevron, Talisman, Shell, Halliburton and Schlumberger and Energy in Depth remains one of the main purveyors of the gas industry’s talking points regarding water, fracking and pollution.

When a reporter or member of the public asks if fracking pollutes drinking water, they’re likely asking if any part of the entire process contaminates drinking water. That’s logical since the entire process will be used as the nation moves forward with the planned fracked gas revolution. When the question is answered with a resounding, seemingly convincing ‘NO’, the reporter or citizen thinks no water has ever been contaminated by any part of the fracking process.

While industry has gotten away with this ruse for a decade, hundreds of cases of water contamination have become known. After a long fight, The Scranton Times got Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection to count the number of letters it sent to residents confirming incidence of water contamination during their fracked gas boom. That number was 243. The Associated Press found at least four states had recorded water contamination also. One troubling fact keeps us from knowing how many cases have actually occurred. When a homeowner settles their case with the operator, they are required to sign a silence agreement that disallows them from sharing any facts about their case. Not only do we know hundreds of cases of water contamination related to the fracking boom have occurred, as it is today, we can never know how many cases there really have been.

===

===

http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/15/global-warming-skeptic-responds-to-massachusetts-ags-subpoena-fk-off-fascist/

Epstein had a terse response to a subpoena sent by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey Wednesday.

Healey demanded the oil giant ExxonMobil hand over 40 years of documents, including information pertaining to the company’s dealings with about a dozen think tanks and trade associations, which have been targeted by environmental groups for opposing left-wing global warming policies.

Healey’s subpoena targeted the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), a for-profit think tank founded by Epstein. Epstein wasn’t exactly happy about being targeted for disagreeing with Healey on global warming, so he sent the AG’s office the following response:

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2016/06/15/global-warming-skeptic-responds-to-massachusetts-ags-subpoena-fk-off-fascist/#ixzz4Bs3xP7np

==

bs

Center for Industrial Progress (CIP) is a for-profit think-tank seeking to bring about a new industrial revolution. We believe that human beings have the untapped potential to radically improve our lives by using technology  [rowe bs] to improve the planet across a multitude of industries: mining, manufacturing, agriculture, chemistry, and energy. Every individual has the potential for a longer, happier, healthier, safer, more comfortable, more meaningful, more opportunity-filled life.

The keys to a new industrial revolution are a new industrial philosophy, a new industrial policy, and a new approach to communication.

Leadership

Alex Epstein, President and Founder

Alex Epstein

Alex Epstein is a philosopher who applies big-picture, humanistic thinking to industrial and environmental controversies. He founded Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), a for-profit think tank and communications consulting firm focused on energy and environmental issues, in 2011 to offer a positive, pro-human alternative to the Green movement.

Epstein is the author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels (Penguin, 2014), which has been widely praised as the most persuasive argument ever made for our use of coal, oil, and natural gas. Epstein has publicly debated leading environmentalist organizations such as 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club. Arguing that industry needs to become a confident champion for energy and freedom, Epstein helps companies use his moral arguments to neutralize attackers, turn non-supporters into supporters, and turn supporters into champions.

He was named “most original thinker of 2014” by The McLaughlin Group for his New York Times bestseller The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.[appears to be BS, no ref but to self; tho they had awards at year's end]

Epstein has guest-lectured at dozens of universities including Harvard,[fed soc] Yale, Stanford, and Duke–as well as dozens of Fortune 500 companies. He has publicly debated representatives from many of the world’s leading environmentalist groups, such as 350.org, Greenpeace, and the Sierra Club.

Steffen Henne, Head of Research

Steffen Henne is the head of research at the Center for Industrial Progress. An autodidact on a wide range of energy, industrial, and environmental issues, Henne is often “the man behind the scenes” of CIP’s published work. Alex Epstein wrote of Steffen in The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, “Steffen Henne, our lead researcher at the Center for Industrial Progress, helped me find the high-quality and wide-ranging data I was looking for. Steffen’s breadth of knowledge about practically every topic in this book is incredible, as is his ability to catch errors.”

He is a native of Germany, where he currently resides.

Eric Dennis, PhD, Senior Fellow

Eric Dennis, Ph.D., Physics, studied at Caltech, Princeton, and University of California Santa Barbara. His graduate work involved the theory of quantum computers and simulating quantum systems. Transitioning to quantitative finance, he has built derivatives models on trading desks at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Swiss Reinsurance, where he pioneered a unified, state-of-the-art modeling framework for portfolio credit derivatives. He currently works in asset management at a major insurance company. His experience in finance, complemented by independent study of monetary economics, provides a unique combination of hands-on knowledge and theoretical insight to assess current macroeconomic issues. His interests include questions of central planning, free banking, the use and abuse of mathematical models, and the scientific fundamentals of energy.

Pierre Desrochers, PhD, Senior Fellow

Pierre Desrochers is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Industrial Progress and Associate Professor of geography at the University of Toronto. His main research interests are economic development, technical innovation, business-environment interactions, and energy policy and food polic...

==

st free press ass:

CLIMATE CHANGE

Professor debunks claim fossil fuels damage planet

AAYUSHI MADANI - UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN •MARCH 26, 2016

The truth about oil and coal ...

There’s more trees and animals on the planet today than ever before thanks to fossil fuels, a professor told a room full of University of Michigan students Wednesday.

Many assign blame for deforestation and animal extinction on fossil fuels, when in reality most of it occurred well before the widespread introduction of oil and coal use, said Dr. Pierre Desrochers, associate professor of geography at the University of Toronto and senior fellow at the Center for Industrial Progress.

The guest lecturer came as some students demand the public university divest from companies that profit from fossil fuels, calling such divestment a moral choice and way to fight climate change.

But Desrochers — invited to campus to argue the “Moral Case For Fossil Fuels” — said divestment would cause more problems and solve few, if any.

He told the 125 or so students in the audience that before the development of fossil fuel use, animals were slaughtered on a massive scale for food, clothing and many other uses, and forests were razed for wood. In fact, possibly as much as 90 percent of animal extinction and deforestation appeared before the introduction of fossil fuels, he said.

But the use of coal and oil reversed that trend, he added, noting coal helped replace firewood and charcoal in many instances. Moreover, tractors were invented, producing food faster and more efficiently. Forest cover, which had been decreasing until then to make way for farmland and for wood to supply fuel, started increasing from 12 percent to 24 percent, he said.

“We produced a lot more food on a lot less land after carbon fuels,” Desrochers said.

RELATED: Professor warns students: Planet on verge of global apocalypse due to human activity

The talk went largely without incident despite the fact that campus flyers touting the guest lecture were vandalized repeatedly leading up to the event.

But the only outburst during the talk came from a student who shouted out that Desrochers was attempting to commodify black lives. The comment was made as Desrochers discussed a problem in Africa in which its residents largely rely on a domestic food supply, leading to a chronic state of undernourishment and ultimately deaths in the poverty-stricken continent.

Ultimately, the expert said, fossil fuel divestment proponents are willing to sacrifice companies’ dividends that support their universities and the financial aid they supply to low-income students. Yet, he said, these same protesters are rarely willing to live the change they wish to see in the world.

It’s consumers who actually burn the most fuels. The process of extraction, processing and transportation represents only 20 to 30 percent percent of emissions, whereas consumers shoulder 70 to 80 percent of emissions, he said.

“We abolished slavery; apartheid was abolished,” he said. “So if fossil fuels are so bad, why don’t we boycott them? We realize that boycotting fossil fuels might involve some real sacrifices. Now I have not heard of any fossil fuel activist make any real sacrifices, so how can they tell us to?”

Yet the divestment movement has seen a success at several colleges, such as Georgetown, Stanford and University of Washington. To what end?

The divestment movement only targets publicly traded companies, which produce a tiny amount of carbon fuels. The larger global players are privately traded companies, and thus the divestment movement has no effect on these as they are not traded on the stock market, he said.

Fossil fuels aren’t the hideous monsters they are presented to be, he argued. In fact, the increasing use of fossil fuels since the 1850s is in tandem with an increase in life expectancy of people in both developed and developing nations, increasing from 28 years in 1820 to 71 years in 2000, on average. This is also paralleled with an increase in body size and standard of living over the years, he added.

Fossil fuels also help deliver foods faster and farther than ever before, fighting poverty and hunger and helping economies thrive, he said.

Carbon fuels led to railroads, which can carry enormous loads of food over long distances. Now each region, instead of trying to feed itself, specializes in creating what its best at, making food affordable and increasing prosperity and development, he said.

In the past, “backyard chickens were not a lifestyle statement; it was a necessity,” Desrochers said.

He also dismissed the notion that fossil fuels lead to global warming.

“Climate changes all the time,” he said.

Meanwhile, even University of Michigan President Mark Schlissel has dismissed students’ pleas to divest from fossil fuels, telling protesters in a statement that while he appreciates their “commitment and passion,” their request is not “linked to immoral and unethical actions and ideologies.”

“Fossil fuels enable us to operate the university, to conduct research and to provide patient care,” he said. “At this moment, there is no viable alternative to fossil fuels at the necessary scale. In addition, most of the same companies that extract or use fossil fuels are also investing heavily in a transition to natural gas or renewables, in response to market forces and regulatory activity.”

RELATED: More ‘cli-fi’ in the college classroom: Great (and not-so-great) climate doomsday stories

---

==

11/13

Craig Idso, the former president and current chairman of the board of the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change, and lead author of the reports of the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC) talked with Alex Epstein on his show, Power Hour.

Idso and Epstein discuss the benefits of CO2, something that Idso grew up studying, and still studies to this day. The issue of CO2 has been going on for decades, but society’s sentiments have changed. It used to be (back in the 1970’s) that excess CO2 was a good thing, but throughout the decades, it has come to be seen as a negative thing.

People now consider CO2 as a pollutant, in fact they call excess CO2 “carbon pollution”. But, Epstein and Idso are wondering why people believe this to be true. CO2 is considered the “elixir of life”, and throughout all of scientific history, excesses in CO2 has caused spurts of growth for the earth.

Idso battles the climate change alarmists, and seeks to present the world with scientific-based information about climate change.

Listen to the full interview in the player above.

===

http://www.desmogblog.com/alex-epstein

Credentials

B.A., Philosophy, Duke University (2002). [1], [2]

Background

Alex Epstein is the director of the Center for Industrial Progress, an organization he founded in 2011. Its mission is to "inspire Americans to embrace industrial progress as a cultural ideal." He is also a blogger at Master Resource, a "Free Market Energy Blog," and a past fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute, an organization that has received funding from the Koch Foundations including at least $50,000 between 2005 and 2010. [3]

"As the Founder and the Director of the Center for Industrial Progress, I make it my job to educate the public about the incredibly positive role energy and industry, particularly the oil industry, play in their lives," Epstein wrote. [4]

Epstein's focus is on energy and industrial policy, and he has written articles in this area in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, The Objective Standard and numerous other publications. Epstein hosts a monthly podcast titled "Power Hour" that features "leading energy thinkers" including climate change skeptics like Richard Lindzen.

He maintains a website, alexepstein.com, where he advertises his range of consulting services "from PR consulting to editorial consulting," in which he reframes the debate to fit the view that aggressive industrial progress will always better the environment.

According to his website, Alex Epstein has done corporate speaking and consulting for the oil, gas, and coal industries. [5]

Stance on Climate Change

"In my opinion, the time for debate is certainly not over because the vast majority of us don't even know what the debate is about — let alone what has been proven and what hasn't, let alone what action implications all of this has." [6]

Key Quotes

"...so much of what has gone right in American industrial history is that this country used to have a philosophy that embraced the transformation of nature through energy and industry—that is, embraced industrial progress. The more I read and talked to experts in the field, the more I saw an opportunity to use my knowledge of philosophy, and in particular Ayn Rand’s philosophy, to change the way people think about energy, industry, and environment." [7]

"The difference between a healthy environment and an unhealthy environment can be summed up in one word, and it's not 'CO2' or 'climate' or 'temperature.' It's 'development.' [...] Whether you're drinking clean drinking water, listening to a thunderstorm with pleasure instead of fear, or going to the Grand Canyon, you should be thanking Big Coal, Big Oil, and Big Gas." [8]

"One point I like to stress is that we should think of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, as clean energy." [9]

"The natural environment is not particularly hospitable to human life . . . the key to having a good environment is improving it through work. . . . Energy is fundamentally an environmental improver and if we classify it that way it makes sense out of a lot of these controversies. . . . It's our obligation and our right to make [our environment] as good for human beings as possible. With that view, it's very easy for people to understand precisely the reason it's good to alter it — because it doesn't naturally come the way we need it to be." [10]

"To attribute rights to animals is to ignore the purpose and justification of rights—to protect the interests of man." [11]

"...Americans are not 'addicted' to oil. 'Addiction' implies an intense desire for something harmful. But we do not desire oil irrationally; we consume it because it is a wonderful, life-sustaining product." [12]

"Our lives depend on recognizing that human cloning, like all forms of 'playing God,' is a moral, life-promoting endeavor." [13]

“The story of oil at its core is one of human aspirations, human challenges, and human triumphs. It’s a story of the aspiration to produce the best energy in the world—particularly the best portable energy to power the mobile machines that allow us to grow enough food to feed seven billion people, to whisk us away on amazing vacations, to have cars that allow us to work and play where we choose. Not to mention, the energy that improves our environment: by things like building water purification systems, sewer systems, and climate resistant buildings. Your story is a story of the challenge of figuring out how to produce this caliber of energy, which nature doesn’t automatically give us.” [25]

“The most important thing to having a healthy environment to live in is development. Which, ironically, is considered bad for the environment. This is exactly why undeveloped countries have the worst environments. It’s not some coincidence; it’s exactly because they are undeveloped. They breathe smoky air from wood fires because they lack centralized power plants—built by oil. They drink naturally contaminated water because they lack irrigation and water purification plants. They live with filth because they lack industrial scale sanitation. They are vulnerable to climate because they lack sturdy climate controlled homes. And they don’t get to enjoy nature very much for that matter, which is supposedly what you get when you take away industry because they lack modern transportation—no one’s going to the Grand Canyon with a five mile travel radius.” [25]

Key Deeds

Ongoing

Epstein regularly appears in conservative talk radio and television programs to promote the idea that industrial development is the best way to improve the environment.

He has made appearances on FOX, PJTV, and Thom Hartmann. He has also published his opinion in a wide variety of publications including The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, and Fox News.

According to his website, he also makes speaking rounds in colleges and communities including Stanford, Duke, Berkeley, Federalist Society, NAACP, and College Republicans.

Notably he has also provided corporate speaking and consulting services to the Oil, Gas, and Coal industries. [5]

April 12, 2013

Alex Epstein speaks to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) in an effort to help Canadian fossil fuel companies reframe climate-related communications tactics to the public. [25] Epstein, in his talk, repeats his stance that "fossil fuels improve the planet" and protect society at large from the climate. [8] [25]

Epstein encourages fossil fuel companies to switch the conversation (from the "environmentalists' argument")--and embrace their product as a communications tactic--as highlighted by the creation of his Facebook page entitled "I love Fossil Fuels."  [//api rowe] [25] Noticeably and intentionally throughout his discussion, Epstein speaks to the incredible environment we live in, which he believes possible only because of fossil fuels. He then motivates CAPP communications audience members to spread this type of dialogue throughout the public sphere. [25]

November 5, 2012

Alex Epstein debates leading environmentalist Bill McKibben on the issue of global warming. Epstein argues that "fossil fuels improve the planet" while McKibben presents the majority scientific view that the continued burning of fossil fuels will have a strongly negative impact on the environment. [8]

The debate was urged on by MasterResource's Robert Bradley who showed Epstein an article published by McKibben titled "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math" which Epstein now claims received "not nearly enough criticism."

Epstein has launched a website, fossilfueldebate.com where he presents his case on the issue — that "McKibben is dead wrong about fossil fuels and our environment." Epstein purports to take an "objective, scientific look" at why he believes fossil fuels have given us "the greatest environment in human history." [14]

May 21 - 23, 2012

Epstein's Center for Industrial Progress was listed as a co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute's Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). [15]

April 2 - 5, 2012

On April 2, 2012 Epstein spoke at the University of North Carolina. His speech was titled "The Green Blackout" and suggested that green energy policies are "harming both America's economy and environment." It was sponsored by The Carolina Review, a conservative student publication associated with CampusReform.org.

On April 3 he spoke at Furman University on "Why the Green Movement is Ruining America."

On April 5th he made a final speech at Pennsylvania State University titled "Fracking Amazing" which focused on the supposed benefits of hydraulic fracturing. According to Epstein, the media is "completely overblowing the risks of fracking... while completely undervaluing the benefits." [16]

June 12 - June 13, 2011

Attended an international conference titled "Big Footprint: Is Green the New Tyranny?" hosted by the American Freedom Alliance, a group that has been described by some sources as anti-climate science, anti-evolution and Islamo phobic in its outlook. [17]

Speakers included numerous conservative commentators and climate change skeptics such as Christopher Monckton, James Delingpole, Christopher Horner, Steve Milloy, Benny Peiser, and Brian Sussman. [18]

The American Freedom Alliance describes the event as "A Conference on Radical Environmentalism," and suggests that "the contemporary Green Movement, represented by a variety of national and international institutions, may have far exceeded its original mandate to protect the Earth." Topics debated included "The Assault on Human Exceptionalism"; "Agenda 21 and the UN Mandate for Social Revolution"; and "Transhumanism, Deep Ecology and Ecocide: How Are Shifting Social Attitudes Re-shaping Our Appreciation of Human Uniqueness?"

Affiliations

Center for Industrial Progress (CIP) — President, founder and director. [19]

MasterResource — "Principal." [20]

Ayn Rand Institute — Former Junior Fellow specializing in "business issues." [2], [21]

The Heartland Institute — Director of sponsor organization.

American Freedom Alliance — Speaker at American Freedom Alliance sponsored event.

The Duke Review — Past editor and publisher. [2]

Publications

Epstein has published articles in newspapers such as the San Francisco Chronicle, Philadelphia Inquirer, National Post, Washington Times, Detroit Free Press, Houston Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Arizona Republic, Indianapolis Star, Orange County Register, and Tampa Tribune. He has also written in quarterly journals (of "culture and politics") including The Objective Standard.

According to Google Scholar, Epstein has never published an article in a peer-reviewed journal on any subject.

Resources

"Alex Epstein," 'The Ayn rand Institute. Archived August 25, 2007.

"Speakers and Writers: Alex Epstein," Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. Accessed September 30, 2012.

"Koch Industries: Still Fuelling Climate Denial 2011 Update" (PDF), Greenpeace, April, 2011.

Alex Epstein. "Why We Should Love the Oil Companies (Straight talk from an industry outsider)," MasterResource, June 15, 2012.

"About," Alexepstein.com. Accessed September 30, 2012.

Alex Epstein. "Power Hour Episode 5: Climate Change with Richard Lindzen," Ayn Rand Center, June 1, 2011.

"Interview with Alex Epstein, Founder of Center for Industrial Progress," The Objective Standard, November 17, 2011.

Alex Epstein. "Challenging Bill McKibben and the Green Establishment: The Environmental Case for Fossil Fuels," MasterResource, September 28, 2012.

Alex Epstein. "COAL IS CLEAN," Center for Industrial Progress, March 12, 2012.

"Alex Epstein on How Coal and Oil Improve Our Lives," Philosophy In Action Talk Radio: Wednesday, September 12, 2012.

Alex Epstein and Yaron Brook. "The Evil of Animal 'Rights'," Tulsa World, May 19, 2001. Reproduced by the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

Alex Epstein. "Keep Our "Addiction" to Oil, End Our Allergy to Self-Assertion," The Record, NJ, July 10, 2006. Reproduced by the Ayn Rand Institute.

Alex Epstein. "The Virtue of 'Playing God'," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 18, 2002. Reproduced by the Ayn Rand Center.

"McKibben vs Epstein: the ultimate environmental debate," indiegogo (fundraising campaign). Accessed September 30, 2012.

"Cosponsors," 7th International Conference on Climate Change. Accessed May, 2012.

Michael Armstrong. "Alex Epstein Speaks at UNC, Furman and Penn State," Campus Reform.org, April 18, 2012.

Leo Hickman. "Climate sceptics flirt with intelligent design and Islamophobic group," The Guardian, June 10, 2011.

"Speakers," americanfreedomalliance.org. Accessed September 30, 2012.

"About," Center for Industrial Progress. Accessed September 30, 2012.

"About," MasterResource. Accessed September 30, 2012.

"Faculty," Objectivistconferences.com. Accessed September 30, 2012.

Alex Epstein. "A Victory for Big Tobacco--and the Rule of Law," The Courier-Journal, July 11, 2006. Reproduced by the Ayn Rand Institute.

"An Interview with Alex Epstein: Nuclear Power – How Safe is it and what have we learned from Japan?", Education News, August 7, 2011.

"POWER HOUR: THE DANGERS OF NOT FRACKING," Center For Industrial Progress, July 10, 2012.

Alex Epstein. "CAPP Speaker Series." April 12, 2013.

Tags:

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Masterresource

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rebut mckibben RS  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCK11ZssUI4 "deeply corrupt"

blog links to agenda 21

http://www.masterresource.org/category/green-energy-failures-2/

promotes BS studies on green economy and trashes wins:

===

bs;

Alex Epstein is the director of the Center for Industrial Progress, an organization he founded in 2011 to advocate the restoration of industrial progress as a cultural ideal. His personal area of specialization lies in the intersection of energy and industrial policy, with an emphasis on the underlying philosophical ideas that shape the economic debate. His writings on energy history and public policy have been published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, and dozens of other prominent publications.

Epstein’s monthly podcast, Power Hour, features discussions with leading energy thinkers, including author Robert Bryce (Power Hungry), climate scientist Dr. Richard Lindzen (MIT), and energy economist Michael Lynch (EnergySEER, New York Times). Epstein’s writings on philosophy, business, and energy have been featured in 10 books, including, most recently, Why Businessmen Need Philosophy.

Epstein is an alumnus of Duke University, where he studied philosophy and computer science. Prior to founding the Center for Industrial Progress, he was a Fellow at the Ayn Rand Institute specializing in energy issues.

Koch Industries Climate Denial Front Group

Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)

On this page

Read more about the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)

Find more recipients of Koch foundation money

$50,000 received from Koch foundations 2005-2010 [Total Koch foundation grants 1997-2010: $50,000]

Based in Irvine, California, the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) is dedicated to laissez faire capitalism and the pursuit of self-interest as developed by Russian-American author Ayn Rand. ARI’s writers have referred to a climate science report published by the National Academy of Science (NAS) as “a lie,” and have cited the notoriously fabricated “Oregon Petition.” The Oregon Petition was created by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine in cooperation with the George C. Marshall Institute, a notable recipient of Koch and Exxon money, to look like official NAS material. Some scientists signed the petition assuming it was indeed created by NAS, others signed with the backing of the oil industry, and some names were simply fictional characters lifted from the show M*A*S*H* and elsewhere.

ARI Senior Fellow Keith Lockitch, who spoke at the Heartland Institute’s 2009 International Conference on Climate Change, authored a paper denouncing the viability of clean energy and simultaneously denying the scientific consensus of climate change. Despite mischaracterizing the science, Lockitch argued that “development under capitalism has actually made us safer from climate-related risks than ever before in human history.”

Alex Epstein of ARI's Center for Individual Rights frequently publishes opinion pieces in outlets like Fox News, the American Thinker and the Daily Caller promoting fossil fuel use and attacking environmental safeguards. Such articles include:

"6 Questions for Environmentalists on Earth Day," Fox Forum, 4/22/2010

"The 6 Myths About Oil," Fox News opinion, 12/29/2010

"Greens vs. Energy," American Thinker, 4/22/2011

"Four Dirty Secrets about Clean Energy," Fox News opinion, 6/3/2011

"We're Running out of Freedom, Not Oil," Daily Caller, 8/10/2011

Epstein is a frequent collaborator with Collegians For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT Campus), a recipient of Koch funding and project of the Exxon-supported Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT).

Read more about the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI)

Ayn Rand Institute (ARI) on SourceWatch.org

Find more recipients of Koch foundation money

View "Koch's Web of Dirty Money and Influence"

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Alex Epstein

Credentials

B.A., Philosophy, Duke University (2002). [1], [2]

Background

Alex Epstein is the director of the Center for Industrial Progress, an organization he founded in 2011. Its mission is to "inspire Americans to embrace industrial progress as a cultural ideal." He is also a blogger at Master Resource, a "Free Market Energy Blog," and a past fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute, an organization that has received funding from the Koch Foundations including at least $50,000 between 2005 and 2010. [3]

"As the Founder and the Director of the Center for Industrial Progress, I make it my job to educate the public about the incredibly positive role energy and industry, particularly the oil industry, play in their lives," Epstein wrote. [4]

Epstein's focus is on energy and industrial policy, and he has written articles in this area in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Investor’s Business Daily, The Objective Standard and numerous other publications. Epstein hosts a monthly podcast titled "Power Hour" that features "leading energy thinkers" including climate change skeptics like Richard Lindzen.

He maintains a website, alexepstein.com, where he advertises his range of consulting services "from PR consulting to editorial consulting," in which he reframes the debate to fit the view that aggressive industrial progress will always better the environment.

According to his website, Alex Epstein has done corporate speaking and consulting for the oil, gas, and coal industries. [5]

Stance on Climate Change

"In my opinion, the time for debate is certainly not over because the vast majority of us don't even know what the debate is about — let alone what has been proven and what hasn't, let alone what action implications all of this has." [6]

Key Quotes

"...so much of what has gone right in American industrial history is that this country used to have a philosophy that embraced the transformation of nature through energy and industry—that is, embraced industrial progress. The more I read and talked to experts in the field, the more I saw an opportunity to use my knowledge of philosophy, and in particular Ayn Rand’s philosophy, to change the way people think about energy, industry, and environment." [7]

"The difference between a healthy environment and an unhealthy environment can be summed up in one word, and it's not 'CO2' or 'climate' or 'temperature.' It's 'development.' [...] Whether you're drinking clean drinking water, listening to a thunderstorm with pleasure instead of fear, or going to the Grand Canyon, you should be thanking Big Coal, Big Oil, and Big Gas." [8]

"One point I like to stress is that we should think of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, as clean energy." [9]

"The natural environment is not particularly hospitable to human life . . . the key to having a good environment is improving it through work. . . . Energy is fundamentally an environmental improver and if we classify it that way it makes sense out of a lot of these controversies. . . . It's our obligation and our right to make [our environment] as good for human beings as possible. With that view, it's very easy for people to understand precisely the reason it's good to alter it — because it doesn't naturally come the way we need it to be." [10]

Desmogblog (http://s.tt/1oL5l)

Center for Industrial Progress (CIP)

Background

The Central for Industrial Progress was founded by Alex Epstein, also a blogger at Master Resource the "Free Market Energy Blog," and a past fellow of the Ayn Rand Institute.

The CIP's mission is to "inspire Americans to embrace industrial progress as a cultural ideal." CIP summarizes their philosophy on their website: [1]

"At the Center for Industrial Progress (CIP), we celebrate man’s impact on nature, just as our ancestors celebrated Americans' ability to 'tame a continent.' We celebrate the never-ending project of the industrial revolution: to harness more and more energy to feed machines that do more and more work to make our lives better and better."

". . . As for pollution, so long as we embrace policies that protect property rights, including air and water rights, we protect industrial development and protect individuals from pollution. By contrast, 'green' policies do not improve the human environment, but sacrifice it to the non-human–just ask anyone trying to build an industrial project today."

The CIP regularly publishes articles "debunking" environmentalism, and promoting the oil and coal industries, as well as some of their common talking points. For example, Alex Epstein has said that "we should think of coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear, as clean energy." [2]

Stance on Climate Change

"The movement to convince the public of catastrophic global warming is fundamentally unscientific. Its leaders do not, as true scientists would, objectively study and relay the full evidence about what drives the climate, they fixate obsessively on CO2. They do not share how poorly understood climate drivers are; they act as if they can predict the climate with certainty. Through manipulation of government agencies, a credulous media, and many of their cloistered colleagues in academia, they have managed to take over much of the field of climatology and the vast majority of its public relations." [3]

Funding  [hence for-profit monker]

According to their webiste, the CIP is not a 501c-3 organization, because "with 501c-3 status comes an enormous amount of government invasiveness, including limitations on involvement in policy debates we want to participate in." (emphasis added)

CIP contends that "we and our supporters are best-served by a model in which we maintain the flexibility, agility, and lack of red tape to make maximum use of donors' gifts." [4]

[[According to an archived version of their website, the CIP is not a 501c-3 organization, because “with 501c-3 status comes an enormous amount of government invasiveness, including limitations on involvement in policy debates we want to participate in.”* (emphasis added). They no longer share this information on their donations page.

CIP also contendes that “we and our supporters are best-served by a model in which we maintain the flexibility, agility, and lack of red tape to make maximum use of donors’ gifts.”* [4]

*The Center for Industrial Progress has since removed their website from the Internet Archive.

Kentucky Coal Association & ‘The Coal Truth’

In a September 11, 2018 piece at the CIP website, Epstein disclosed “proudly” that one of his industry clients was Tyler White, president of the Kentucky Coal Association. [22]

“In praising this piece I must disclose, proudly, that the author is one of my clients. As is the allied website, ‘The Coal Truth,’ that has a more in-depth expose of “100% renewable,” Epstein wrote. [22]

According to WHOIS records, thecoaltruth.com was registered by Aaron Bond who appears to work for Alliance Coal, and the administrator is listed as Health Lovell.  Lovell is Vice President for Public Affairs at Alliance Coal, and also spoke at the Heartland Institute‘s America First Energy Conference in 2017. Lovell has praised the pro-coal stance of the Trump Administration. [23], [24], [25], [26]

Location

As of 2018, CIP listed the following mailing addres: [21]

Mailing Address for CIP and/or Alex Epstein

Center for Industrial Progress

302 Washington St.

#150-9385

San Diego, CA 92103

(Note: This address is for paper mail only – no packages.)

According to Google, the above address is listed for The UPS Store at this location.]]

Key People

Updated, as of August 2012: [7]

Alex Epstein — President and Founder.

Eric Dennis — Senior Fellow.

Derick Bellamy — Contributing Editor.

David Biederman — Researcher.

Amy Chou — Lead Designer.

Thomas Eiden — Researcher.

Steffen Henne — Researcher.

Alexander Hrin — Researcher.

Daniel Rathbone — Software Developer.

Michele Reilly — Development Specialist.

Brittney Rivera — Speaking Coordinator.

Deborah Sloan — Researcher.

Mary Anne Weninger — Executive Assistant.

As of May 2012: [5]

Alex Epstein — Founder and Director.

Eric Dennis — Senior Fellow.

Daniel Rathbone — Software Developer.

Actions

May 21 - 23, 2012

CIP is listed as a co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute's Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). [6]

Related Organizations

Industrial Progress Report (Blog)

[[June 2016

Alex Epstein’s Center for Industrial Progress was listed among organizations named in a Massachusetts subpoena looking for communications between ExxonMobil and organizations denying climate change, reports The Washington Times. [18]

Epstein’s response, writes The Washington Times, was “Buzz off, fascist. […] Only he didn’t say ‘buzz.’” Organizations named in the Massachusetts subpoena included the following: [18]

The Centre for Industrial Progress

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty

The American Enterprise Institute

Americans for Prosperity

The American Legislative Exchange Council

The American Petroleum Institute

The Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University

The George C. Marshall Institute

The Heartland Institute

Mercatus Center at George Mason University

This latest inquiry by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey is one in a series of investigations into what ExxonMobil knew about climate change and when, started by a coalition of attorneys general in the US. [19]

October 5, 2015

Alexander Epstein planned to release his “Energy Liberation Plan” for consideration by 2016 political candidates. According to an article by Epstein in Forbes, the Energy Liberation Plan seeks to combat “backwards energy and environmental policies that are anti-development, not anti-pollution.” He contends that we are “squandering the opportunity of a generation, through blind opposition to our three most potent sources of power: hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, and gas), nuclear energy, and hydroelectric energy.” [15]

Epstein concludes that “The Energy Liberation Plan is based on the timeless wisdom of our Founding Fathers, who believed that everyone has the right to produce and consume as they judge best so long as they do not violate the rights of others” (emphasis added).

Originally slated for release on October 5, 2015, the date was postponed and it is unclear when it will actually be released.

September 17, 2015

The Center for Industrial Progress’s Alex Epstein wrote an article in Forbes titled “Jerry Brownout,” where he criticizes California governor Jerry Brown for his opposition of fossil fuel use. According to Epstein, “it’s crucial to understand just how destructive his anti-oil agenda is.”

“Energy abundance is essential to climate livability—since the natural climate is inherently variable, volatile, and vicious. And oil and other fossil fuels do infinitely more to make it safer than make it more dangerous. This has been proven and documented—there has been a 98% decline in the rate of climate-related deaths since significant global CO2 emissions began. For 40 years doomsayers have hidden our ever-safer climate by conflating mild, manageable global warming, which is real, with catastrophic global warming, which is not,” Epstein writes. [17]

September 1, 2015

Alex Epstein hosted Steve Milloy, publisher of Junkscience.com, on the Center for Industrial Progress’s podcast titled “Power Hour” in an episode titled “Steve Milloy on the Science and Policy of Emissions.” [14]

Milloy says that “Virtually every environmental policy I’ve seen since the early 1990s has been basically politics and not science,” and discusses his believe that the EPA‘s attempts to clean the air are unnecessary, especially with regards to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) produced largely by automobiles and coal-fired power plants.

November 13, 2014

Alex Epstein released The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, published by Penguin Random House. Epstein asks if everything we know about fossil fuels could be wrong, and suggests readers should “look at the big picture of fossil fuels.” The CIP released the following promotional film, made by Simplifilm, as a book trailer: [20]

[vid]

Compared with the alternatives, the overall impact of using fossil fuels is to make the world a far better place. We are morally obligated to use more fossil fuels for the sake of our economy and our environment.” [9]

As of July, 2015, the Centre for Industrial Progress is promoting the book on the main page of their website. Epstein has also promoted the book on his facebook page, titled “I Love Fossil Fuels.”

June 5, 2013

Alex Epstein wrote a letter published on the Center for Industrial Progress’ website titled, “Don’t Divest, Educate—An Open Letter to American Universities.”

In the letter, Epstein and several other notable climate change deniers, including Peter Ferrara, J. Scott Armstrong, Steve Goreham, S. Fred Singer, David Schnare, Richard Lindzen, and Matt Ridley, proclaim that they are “proud to stand in favor of fossil fuels.” [8]

The “undersigned scientists, philosophers, energy experts, and economists” of the letter ask for a “more rigorous education on energy and environmental issues,” and “are willing to debate anytime, anywhere to defend what [they] believe is right.” [8]

May 21–23, 2012

CIP is listed as a co-sponsor of the Heartland Institute‘s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). [5]

November 5, 2012

Alex Epstein debated leading environmentalist Bill McKibben on the issue of global warming. Epstein argues that “fossil fuels improve the planet” while McKibben presents the majority scientific view that the continued burning of fossil fuels will have a strongly negative impact on the environment. [10]

The debate was urged on by MasterResource‘s Robert Bradley who showed Epstein an article published by McKibben titled “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” which Epstein now claims received “not nearly enough criticism.”

Epstein has launched a website, fossilfueldebate.com where he presents his case on the issue — that “McKibben is dead wrong about fossil fuels and our environment.” Epstein purports to take an “objective, scientific look” at why he believes fossil fuels have given us “the greatest environment in human history.” [11]]]

Resources

"Our Philosphy," Center for Industrial Progress. Accessed May, 2012.

Alex Epstein. "Coal is Clean," Center for Industrial Progress, March 12, 2012.

Eric Dennis. "The Global Warming Campaign Takes a Blow," Center for Industrial Progress, April 27, 2012.

"Donate" Center for Industrial Progress. Accessed May, 2012.

"About," Center for Industrial Progress. Accessed May 18, 2012.

"Cosponsors," 7th International Conference on Climate Change. Accessed May, 2012.

"About," Center for Industrial Progress. Accessed August 25, 2012.

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CO2 Restrictions Threaten Human Life

Washington, D.C., April 30, 2009--The Environmental Protection Agency’s “finding” that carbon dioxide emissions endanger “the health and welfare of current and future generations” is absurd, said Alex Epstein, analyst at the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. According to Mr. Epstein, the real danger to Americans’ “health and welfare” is policies designed to fight global warming by throttling energy sources that emit CO2.

“Carbon energy has been and remains vital to the industrial society that has doubled human life-expectancies, and, among a million other benefits, enables us to cope with all manner of changes in climate.

“Right now,” Mr. Epstein pointed out, “carbon-based sources of energy produce the most, cheapest energy, period—while sunshine and wind gusts, despite decades of subsidies and propaganda, produce an expensive 1 percent of our energy.

“If scientists and entrepreneurs can discover and implement superior sources that happen not to emit CO2, at better prices than today’s energy sources, great. But whether that happens or not, we need to recognize that our ‘health and welfare’ depend on free markets producing industrial-scale energy above all else—and that anyone who tries to shut down life-giving coal plants and oil rigs, in the name of avoiding bad weather, is an enemy of humanity.”

Alex Epstein was a writer and a fellow on staff at ARI between 2004 and 2011.

===

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