Fossil fuel benefits exceed any downside
ON the political left, it’s become fashionable to blame oil and gas companies for alleged manmade global warming. Those critics overlook the many benefits fossil fuels have provided. Any proper accounting must look at both sides of the ledger.
This is made clear in a policy brief from The Heartland Institute titled, “The Social Benefits of Fossil Fuels.” The first benefit listed is also one of the most consequential: “Fossil fuels have lifted billions of people out of poverty, reducing all the negative effects of poverty on human health.”
That’s no small accomplishment.
The brief notes that before fossil fuels, “humans expended nearly as much energy (calories) producing food and finding fuel (primarily wood and dung) to warm their dwellings as their primitive technologies were able to produce. Back-breaking work to provide bare necessities was required from sun-up to sun-down …”
It’s estimated that, prior to 1820, progress — “whether measured by lifespan, population, or per-capita income — was almost nonexistent.”
The discovery and cheap supply of fossil fuel energy, including coal, oil and gas, led to the industrial revolution and subsequent technological advances.
And the fastest way to impede economic growth and associated prosperity is still to increase energy costs. Energy economist Roger Bezdek estimates a 10 percent increase in the price of electricity in the U.S. causes the loss of 1.3 percent of GDP, about $233 billion in 2015 dollars.
Along those same lines, the brief notes fossil fuels have “vastly improved human well-being and safety by powering labor-saving and life-protecting technologies, such as air conditioning, modern medicine, and cars and trucks.”
If one maps out carbon dioxide emissions, world population, per capita GDP and life expectancy, the Heartland Institute notes there is a “close correlation” in the growth of carbon dioxide emissions (associated with fossil fuel use) and growth in the other three measures.
“Without cheap and reliable fossil fuels, there would be less food, no indoor plumbing, no air conditioning, no labor-saving home appliances such as washing machines, few hospitals, and no ambulances to take us to a hospital when we need urgent medical care,” the brief points out.
Such improvements owe much to electricity generated by coal-fired or gas-fired power plants, which remain far less expensive and more reliable than alternatives such as windmills and solar panels.
“The high cost and limited supply of alternatives to fossil fuels means a forced transition from affordable fossil fuels to alternative energies would be costly, measured as hundreds of billions of dollars of GDP and hundreds of thousands of jobs annually,” the brief states. “Fossil fuels deliver economic benefits to residents of the United States amounting to $1.275 trillion to $1.76 trillion per year in added GDP and 6.8 million jobs.”
Fossil fuels have also allowed “the world’s farmers to increase their production of food at a faster rate than population growth, resulting in less hunger and starvation world-wide.”
These conclusions are not in dispute, but are often overlooked. Whatever detriments may be traced to fossil fuel use, the reality is the benefits remain far greater.