steam engineWhich of these statements makes sense to you:

A. “Never before have the rulers of a society intentionally driven it backwards to scarcer, more expensive, and less efficient energy.”

B. “Communism is the optimal system for avoiding dangerous global warming”.

C. “This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”

D. “Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”

E .“Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules.”

What the quiz says about you

B, C and D? Comrade, you took a wrong turn at “fueling” and failed to yield to “freedom”.

A and E? Then you should read Fueling Freedom: Exposing the Mad War on Energy by Kathleen Hartnett White and Stephen Moore.

If you want a real book review, go to the National Review. This post is more of a polemic, a defense of an honorable industry that is vital to the security and prosperity of the world (excluding Venezuela, of course).

Ms. White, Distinguished Fellow-in-Residence at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, spoke last week at TIPRO’s summer conference. See this PowerPoint for the high points of her presentation. It’s no substitute for the presentation itself, but if you want to know more you should read the book.

Facts that will impress your friends 

Here are compelling facts from the book that reveal the importance of fossil fuels to our modern way of life:

  • Human misery remained at about the same level for 100,000 years until the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800’s. Since then, misery has declined and millions have been lifted out of poverty and into the middle class. This progress is a result of human ingenuity and fossil fuels.
  • America produced three times as much food as it did a century ago, with one-third fewer man-hours, on one third fewer acres, and on and at one-third the cost. (Think, natural-gas based fertilizers, tractors, and other fruits of petroleum.)
  • In 1875 the average American family spent 74% of its income on food, clothing and shelter. In 1995 the same family spent 13% of its income on these fundamental necessities.
  • In cost per megawatt hour, oil and natural gas receive 64 cents, wind $56.29 and solar $775.64 in federal subsidies.

Some points might be overstated:

  • Haynesville and non-core Bakken operators might not agree that, “In many places fracking is profitable at $40 per barrel and in most places it is profitable at $50 per barrel.”

Now, for our musical interlude.

Sources for the quiz

A. Fueling Freedom, p. xv (no link, you gotta read the book).

B. IPCC chief Christina Figueres, Daily Caller, January 15, 2014.

C. Figueres, U N Regional Information Centre for Western Europe, February 3, 2015.

D. Paul Ehrlich.

E. Paul Johnson, The Nonsense of Global Warming, Forbes, September 8, 2008.