Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
a mine than ever before.
10
But the participants in the project, such as Peabody Energy, have had to fight
daily for permission to empower billions of people. And in particular, they have to fight for permission to
export that coal in the Pacific Northwest.
11
At the start of 2013, there were six export project proposals in
the Pacific Northwest. By the end of the year, three of the six had been dropped due to fierce opposition
from environmentalist organizations.
The message of those organizations is summed up by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “They're coming to ship
their poison so they can poison the people in China. And that poison's going to come back here and poison
your salmon and your children, so don't let it happen.”
12
This “poison” is the basis of life-giving energy
technology that has given Chinese people years more of health.
In place after place, the energy of life is portrayed as deadly, its producers immoral. Why?
If you agree with me that using fossil fuels is a moral imperative, that more energy is more ability and
the only way 7 billion people are going to get it anytime soon is with more fossil fuels, then I hope you
want to fight for fossil fuel freedom around the world. But to do that, we need to understand why that
cause islosing, whyourculture asawhole believes, despite theevidence, that fossil fuels arenotahealthy,
moral choice but a dangerous, immoral addiction.
In one sense, the answer to “Why do we believe the wrong thing about fossil fuels?” is simple. Lack
of education. We haven't been taught all the right facts. We aren't taught in school how energy makes our
climate safer, only how CO
2
emissions supposedly make it more dangerous. We aren't taught in school
how energy makes our environment better, only ways (usually exaggerated) in which fossil fuels make it
dirtier. We aren't taught in school how the fossil fuel industry is a resource-creating industry; we are taught
that it is shamelessly exploiting dwindling natural resources. If only the truth were taught, the world would
be a different place, right?
In a sense, yes—but that raises a deeper question: Why are we as a culture so oblivious to the facts? In
particular, why are we so oblivious to
positive
facts about fossil fuels and so susceptible to negative
fab-
rications
about fossil fuels? We are surrounded by a better and safer world that runs on fossil fuel energy.
Why can't we see it?
Here's my answer: The reason we have come to oppose fossil fuels and not see their virtues is not
primarily because of a lack of factual knowledge, but because of the
presence of irrational moral preju-
dice
in our leaders and, to a degree, in our entire culture.
Anytime someone is oblivious to the positive and inclined toward the negative, he has a
prejudice.
Con-
sider racial prejudice. Someone with, say, a racial prejudice against blacks will tend to ignore the virtues
of a black individual he meets and exaggerate (or manufacture) vices.
There is clearly a prejudice in how our culture processes information about fossil fuels. Unless we un-
derstand and correct the source of that prejudice, factual education will be an uphill battle.
The prejudice, which is held consistently by our environmental thought leaders and inconsistently by
the culture at large is the idea that
nonimpact on nature is the standard of value.
It is better known by a
single color: Green.
UNDERSTANDING THE ANTI-FOSSIL FUEL MOVEMENT
