Power Hour With Alex Epstein

This week’s Power Hour features the wide-ranging Q&A from a recent speech Alex Epstein gave at Lafayette College--a speech that was supposed to be a debate with Michael Mann. Some of the many topics covered include: - Does the moral case for fossil fuels uncritically assume that progress is good? - Do people really choose fossil fuel energy? - Can the dominance of fossil fuels be explained by a lack of research into other sources of energy production? - Climate-related damages beyond climate-related deaths. - Energy poverty in the US - The value of fossil fuel-based materials - The “abuse-use fallacy” - Why the anti-fossil fuel movement is anti-nuclear. - The “delicate nurturer” vs. “wild potential” view of Earth - What we can learn from hunter-gatherers - The psychological motivation for being anti-human - Electric cars - Does Alex have a favorite fossil fuel?

This week's Power Hour features a recent speech Alex Epstein gave at Lafayette College that was supposed to be a debate with Michael Mann. Learn why Mann pulled out of the debate and hear the latest version of the moral case for fossil fuels.

It’s common for us to hear that solar, wind are cheaper than coal or gas. Specifically we’ll hear that solar and wind are “bidding” at lower prices than goal or gas. All of this sounds very competitive, like they’re winning on the merits on a free market. And yet at the same time, something is clearly very wrong. Electricity costs tend to go up the more “cheaper” solar and wind you add. Intuitively we know that it’s wrong to not factor in reliability when you’re comparing prices. On this week’s Power Hour Alex Epstein interviews Tom Stacy, an electricity consultant who explains how electricity markets are “rigged against reliables”--and what we need to do to make them fair and beneficial.

A couple months ago, a young researcher named Emily Harari reached out to me about my views about the scientific consensus on climate change. She raised some interesting questions I hadn’t commented publicly on, so I agreed to do the interview if we could share it with my listeners. This week’s Power Hour features that interview. Some of the topics we cover are: - The legitimate and illegitimate view of consensus - How to learn the actual state of consensus - The National Climate Assessment - How consensus statements often misrepresent the state of consensus - The role of the media in distorting science - How transparent should consensus discussions be - The obligation of scientists to stand up to false consensus statements

On a special bonus episode of Power Hour Alex Epstein interviews Patrick Moore, ecologist and cofounder of Greenpeace, on the realm causes of California’s wildfire disaster. Moore pins the blame squarely on “green” forest mismanagement. Topics covered include: - What are the top policy changes necessary to prevent dangerous, out of control wildfires (not the same as fires)? - How does private vs. government ownership of land affect the likelihood of dangerous fires? - What are the major drivers of dangerous, out of control wildfires? - What places in the world have the best wildfire management? - How have government policies changed for the worse in the US? - How do you respond to claims that these fires are inevitable because of climate changes? - Dr. Moore’s forthcoming book on invisible catastrophes.

On this week’s Power Hour Alex Epstein interviews Chuck DeVore, a Vice President at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and former California state assemblyman on the California wildfires. DeVore has extensively studied the history of fires in California, and gives a fascinating historical perspective that points the right path forward. Questions covered include: - What is California’s climate like historically in terms of being prone to fire? - How were forests and fires dealt with by natives prior to the Gold Rush? - How were forests and fires dealt with subsequent to the Gold Rush? - What policies have been most responsible for making us Californians vulnerable to dangerous fires? - How have logging policies affected vulnerability to dangerous fires? - How have air quality policies affected vulnerability to dangerous fires? - What are the most important policies to fix the situation? - How can we as citizens get involved?

On this week’s Power Hour, Alex Epstein interviews David McIntosh, President of the Club for Growth, one of the world’s most influential free-market organizations. The Club for Growth recently shared Alex’s EnergyTalkingPoints.com website with its members and the candidates it works with. In the interview Alex asked McIntosh a wide range of questions relating to promoting freedom and energy in 2020, including: - What does the Club for Growth do? -  How does the Club for Growth select and help free-market candidates? - What are the most important issues at stake this election? - Why did the Club for Growth share Alex Epstein’s EnergyTalkingPoints.com? - What has McIntosh learned about effectiveness in Washington that supporters of energy freedom can utilize to become more effective?

On this week’s Power Hour, Alex Epstein brings on Congressman Chip Roy to discuss the 2020 energy debate and how pro-freedom candidates and citizens can be successful in it. Some topics they cover include: - Why energy policy has not been a big topic of discussion so far, particularly among Republicans. - Why we can expect energy policy, including climate policy, to be a big topic in the final two months of campaigning. - What Congressman Roy thinks of EnergyTalkingPoints.com. - The challenges candidates face in dealing with a wide variety of issues. - Some of the most common energy and climate questions candidates need help responding to. - How to promote EnergyTalkingPoints.com.

On this week’s Power Hour, Alex Epstein brings back Michael Shellenberger, our most popular guest of 2020, for an in-depth look at the California blackouts and the California wildfires.

On this week’s Power Hour Alex Epstein interviews economist Dr. Saifedean Ammous about economics and energy. Dr. Ammous, in part due to his influence by The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, is working on a new economics textbook that makes energy a central focus in analyzing the causes of prosperity. Dr. Ammous is best known for his popular book The Bitcoin Standard, a fascinating look at the economics of Bitcoin. Alex and Dr. Ammous discuss a wide range of topics, including: - How Ammous got interested in energy economics. - What Ammous learned studying the economics of biofuels. - Why it’s crucial to think of time as the most important resource. - How energy relates to time. - How economists tend to undervalue energy–and what Ammous is doing to address this. Additionally they discuss several foundational issues in economics, such as the nature of money, economic calculation, the nature of value, and opportunity cost. I hope you enjoy the wide-ranging discussion. As a bonus, on this episode Alex gives his fi

On this week’s episode of Power Hour, Alex Epstein shares EnergyTalkingPoints.com–a growing library of short, powerful, and carefully-referenced talking points that any pro-freedom candidate or citizen can use. He discusses the enthusiastic responses he’s gotten so far and asks listeners to spread the word by: - Sharing them with campaigns you’re connected to and encourage those campaigns to talk to me. - Sharing them on social media. - Sharing them with coworkers and employees. - Sharing them with programs you like and encourage the hosts to invite me on. We want more campaigns to get them and use them like the one who sent this message did: “[Y]our talking points are so thorough…We’re going to work these into our messaging on energy and the environment. Much appreciated!”

On this week’s Power Hour Alex Epstein interviews Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, on the future of energy in general and “renewable energy” in particular. In the last year and a half Mark has published two fascinating and widely circulated reports: “The ‘New Energy Economy’: An Exercise in Magical Thinking” and “Mines, Minerals, and ‘Green’ Energy: A Reality Check”. Mark brings a great perspective to energy issues because he a) has a strong physics background and b) he is deeply knowledgeable about how different industries, above all the digital technology industry, use energy. On the show Mark and Alex discuss: - The three ways to use unreliable “renewable” energy and why none them work well - The massive and rapidly increasing quantities of reliable electricity used by digital technology - Why every hour of video uses as much energy as driving 1 mile - How AI has a limitless need for energy - Tech companies’ contradiction of supporting unreliable energy and demanding ultra-reliable e

On this week’s Power Hour, Alex Epstein interviews Ron Stein, author of Energy Made Easy and Just Green Electricity, about the decline of California’s energy system. On the show they discuss: - How much oil California uses and where it comes from. - The decline of California energy production and the rise of imports from the Middle East. - Where California’s electricity comes from–hint: a lot of it isn’t from California. - How California is shutting down 4 reliable power plants with no replacements on the horizon. - How California’s regressive oil and electricity policies his poor and middle class Californians the hardest. - How California can change its energy future. On the podcast Alex also answers two listener questions: one about “energy privilege” and one about the role of reliable, low-cost energy in fighting oppression. At the end of the second question Alex discusses how modern, high-powered communication systems are valuable for fighting many kinds of oppression, but how the current social media

From Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels Last Thursday I was interviewed by former Australian Senator Malcolm Roberts as part of a project by him to educate Australian politicians and members of the general public on energy and climate. We ended up going 2 hours and 15 minutes. I think it’s my best and most comprehensive interview to date. Here’s the very long list of topics we covered. - Should Senator Roberts be proud to be a human being, and be proud to have worked in the coal industry? - The vast improvement in human life and the role of fossil fuel “machine food” in that improvement - How much the human environment has improved in the last 200 years - How fossil fuels make it much easier to preserve the most desirable parts of nature - How fossil fuels helped end slavery and servitude - The three ways in which fossil fuels are crucial to medical science - How fossil fuels make possible today’s amazing division of labor - What going back to nature would be like in a world of 8 billi

From Alex Epstein, host of Power Hour On this week’s Power Hour I interview Dr. Bjorn Lomborg, author of False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet. As I discussed in my review of the book several weeks ago, I think this is an extremely valuable book, on two counts above all. 1. It documents in case after case how the media and political leaders wildly distort the conclusions of mainstream climate research. 2. It documents in case after case how human adaptation can neutralize climate danger. The book was recently attacked in a New York Times “review” by the famous near-socialist economist Joseph Stiglitz. Bjorn systematically refuted the pseudo-review on this impressive LinkedIn article. On the show we discuss: - How trusted media sources manipulated a climate research paper to predict 187 million climate refugees when the number was actually around 300,000 (half the number of people who move out of California every year) * Why we always need to

On this week’s Power Hour Alex Epstein interviews Dr. Patrick Moore, ecologist and co-founder of Greenpeace, about climate catastrophism. Moore eviscerates climate catastrophism by looking at rising CO2 levels from a scientific and pro-human perspective–not the pseudoscientific and anti-human perspective that dominates today. Topics include: - Why Moore left Greenpeace. - The beginnings of the climate catastrophe movement. - Why Moore believes human beings would not only survive but survive better at far higher average temperatures (which would be concentrated toward the poles). - Why Moore believes that contrary to being in a Sixth Extinction, we are actually at an unprecedented time of biodiversity with no end in sight. - Why Moore believes “ocean acidification” claims are totally meritless. - The commonality among opposition to plastics, GMOs, nuclear energy, and fossil fuels. - Moore’s unrefuted theory that human beings actually saved life on Earth from terminal decline in CO2 levels.

Alex Epstein interviews Caleb Rossiter , Chairman of the CO2 Coalition. There is an active campaign, led by billionaire anti-fossil-fuel activist Tom Steyer, to convince Facebook to remove the CO2 Coalition from its platform. Some highlights include: - Rossiter’s decades-long work on African issues. - Why fossil fuels, especially coal, are crucial to African prosperity. - How Rossiter became suspicious of climate models. - CO2 as a warming gas *and* a plant fertilizing gas. - How challenging climate catastrophism hurt Rossiter’s career. - How the “paid off by the fossil fuel industry” narrative is laughable.

Alex Epstein interviews Michael Shellenberger, author of Apocalypse Never, which hit #5 on Amazon. His recent article, ‘On Behalf Of Environmentalists, I Apologize For The Climate Scare,’ has been widely shared. Some highlights: - How Shellenberger went from being a renewables activists to championing nuclear. - Why Shellenberger decided to stand up against climate catastrophism after years of silence. - How modern environmentalism is a religion. - The real motives of most of modern environmentalism. - How environmental journalists misrepresent environmental science.

Alex Epstein discusses two soon-to-be released books: Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger and False Alarm by Bjorn Lomborg. He explains why these are crucial books in the broader project of a pro-human environmental movement that rejects climate catastrophism.

On this episode of Power Hour Alex Epstein interviews Naomi Seibt, the 19-year-old German teenager who has been called “the anti-Greta” for her articulate and outspoken challenges to climate catastrophism. The focus of the discussion is the outrageous attempt of the German government to take down her videos challenging climate catastrophism and advocating what she calls “climate realism.” Instead of trying to resolve the issue quietly, Naomi says “I’m going to go big this time. And I’m going to involve the press. I’m going to make this very public….people will see what’s going on and how they try to silence us. And I think that will make them question the issue a lot more.”