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Common Sense Tells Us That There Is No Viable Alternative to Fossil Fuels

By Dr. Rich Swier

The greatest myth ever told. But who is right?


Mankind is faced with the most important question in history: To use fossil fuels or not to use fossil fuels?

Environmentalists want to totally eliminate all petroleum based fuels in order to save the planet from climate change. The question is: At what cost?

Conservationists want to use all types of petroleum based fuels, including nuclear and hydroelectric power, but use them wisely to provide for human flourishing. The question is: At what cost?

History tells us that when nations use their natural resources, including petroleum based fossil fuels, wisely they flourish. History also tells us that when nations are energy poor or energy dependent they become weak and poorer and their people suffer.

Since 2010, more than a billion people have gained access to electricity. As a result, 90 percent of the planet’s population was connected in 2019. Yet 759 million people still live without electricity, with about half of them living in fragile and conflict-affected settings.

Due to Hurricane Ian we went without electricity for five days and it was hell on earth.

A New Age Was Born—The Modern Petroleum Industry

The first oil was discovered by the Chinese in 600 B.C. and transported in pipelines made from bamboo.

But it was Colonel Edwin Drake’s heralded discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in 1859 and his establishing the first oil well in August 27, 1859 that changed U.S. history.

But is wasn’t until the Spindletop discovery in Texas in 1901 which set the stage for the new U.S. petroleum industry. According to Lamar University,

The Spindletop oilfield, discovered on a salt dome formation south of Beaumont in eastern Jefferson County on January 10, 1901, marked the birth of the modern petroleum industry. The Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company, formed in August 1892 by George W. O’BrienGeorge W. CarrollPattillo Higgins, Emma E. John, and J. F. Lanier, was the first company to drill on Spindletop Hill. Three shallow attempts, beginning in 1893 and using cable-tool drilling equipment were unsuccessful; Lanier and Higgins had left the company by 1895.

[ … ]

A new age was born. The world had never seen such a gusher before. By September 1901, there were at least six successful wells on Gladys City Company lands. Wild speculation drove land prices around Spindletop to incredible heights. One man who had been trying to sell his tract there for $150 for three years sold his land for $20,000; the buyer promptly sold to another investor within fifteen minutes for $50,000. One well, representing an initial investment of under $10,000, was sold for $1,250,000.

Cheap and Reliable Power Is The Life Blood of Modern Man

For the first time in American history we have one political party and its global allies who want to end the use of all petroleum products. But at what cost to the common citizen?

Efforts to stop all petroleum use is being mandated by agencies of the federal government using, among other regulations, corporate ESG Scores.

ESG Scores measure every company’s exposure to long-term environmental, social and governance risks.

A key component of that war against the common man is to eliminate capitalism and replace it with a new “stakeholder” doctrine for businesses globally and in the U.S. This model is based upon the need to attain environmental, social and governance scores that fully supplant capitalism and replace it with a one world governance based on big government, i.e. Socialist, Communist, ideals.

ESG scoring’s goal is to fundamentally transform the role of every company from a shareholder focus (capitalism) to a single stakeholder decree (the government).

According to the Heartland Institute,

Klaus Schwab and a growing list of powerful global economic and political elites, including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and President Joe Biden, have recently committed to a global “reset” of the prevailing school of economic thought. They seek to supplant the entrenched “shareholder doctrine” of capitalism, which—as Milton Friedman famously espoused over 50 years ago—holds that the only purpose of a corporate executive is to maximize profits on behalf of company shareholders.

This effort to fundamentally transform global economics via the cooperation of major corporations and state legislatures is an existential threat to every American’s Constitutional rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

The ESG Score is designed to:

  1. Force companies to “go green” by decreasing their use of petroleum products.
  2. Force companies to hire employees based upon their merit but rather on the color of their skin or sexual identities.
  3. And force companies to comply with government mandates, like Covid lockdowns and mandated vaccinations.

ESG Scores are designed to control businesses small to large to comply or else!

The Bottom Line—Make America Energy Independent, Again!

Countries that are energy independent flourish, those who aren’t suffer. For example, clean and fresh water is a basic need of all societies, to have clean and fresh potable water a country must have the infrastructure to process the water in water purification plants and then provide it to its citizens via a water lines driven by pumps powered predominantly by petroleum products.

Fresh, fluorinated water is not possible without cheap and reliable power.

According to an EIA analysis:

The Virgin Islands use [the] largest amounts of imported petroleum to power the desalination plants that supply their drinking water; many small, simple-cycle generators are used to provide electricity; and there are “operational constraints and power losses on the islands’ isolated electric grids.”

Petroleum driven power is essential for human flourishing and freedom.

On December 28th, 2016 American author, energy theorist, industrial policy pundit and founder and President of the Center for Industrial Progress Alex Epstein shared how to make a transformative contribution to human flourishing and how to create value in the world in his presentation titled “The ‘F’ word“:

Fast forward to October 27, 2022 and watch this discussion by energy philosopher Alex Epstein on how Biden’s  green policies have created an energy crisis in America:

In 2020, U.S. energy intensity reached a low of 5.05 thousand British thermal units (Btu) per chained 2012 dollar, down 4% from the previous year and less than half as energy intensive as the United States was in 1983. This number will go up because of Biden and his green energy policies. Kill the use of petroleum products and you kill the American working class.

Americans can only flourish if they have massive amounts of petroleum products.

Bring energy production back to America.

— Sen. Marsha Blackburn (@MarshaBlackburn) October 28, 2022

It’s the freedom to have access to cheap and reliable power, which drives our economy, stupid!

©Dr. Rich Swier. All rights reserved.

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