[harigov]

I don't think what the author mentioned and what you implied are one and the same. From author's perspective, when you look at the actual price of fuel including the carbon emissions that they are causing, which cause expenses in other ways like health/environment, clean energy technologies are actually getting cheaper than fossil fuel technologies.

[maxharris]

During the 20th century, deaths due to temperature extremes dropped by over 70% (mostly due to the advent of air-conditioning): http://www.econ.yale.edu/~js2755/Climate_Adaptation_BCDGS.pd...

I also found these statistics helpful: http://www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/data/

[sinxoveretothex]

I don't know why I couldn't reply to your comment 4 children down but oh well.

I don't understand how what you say is somehow a case for fossil fuel more so than a case for energy use. That is: why is the rise of a country's wealth metrics tied to fossil fuel? Wouldn't it be the same even if it were using say solar?

Also, I quickly browsed through your second link and I was very surprised about the figure 1.6 (which claims that there is less pollution as time goes by). I checked the source and although there isn't much context, it seems that what the EPA data is saying is that less pollutants are emitted year over year… that's a negative second order derivative of the amount of pollutant, not a negative first order derivative as the title seems to suggest (to me anyway).

It bothers me greatly that such a superficial analysis reveals bothersome details like this. I am inclined to believe that this source is not very good.

[trhway]

man, there is no argument about importance of industrial civilization and fossil fuels that brought us here. There is a reason why the term "weaning of fossil fuels" is used as the time of fossil fuels has passed, and now their usage only slows down the development of our civilization.

[simplexion]

I also found these statistics helpful: http://www.pd.infn.it/~dorigo/autism_organic_foods.jpg

[maxharris]

My argument is that fossil fuels and industrial civilization yields positive externalities, including longer lifespan and resilience against the impacts of a changing climate.

If you followed the link, you'd see that the raw data for many of the figures, including figure 1.9/5.1, comes from EM-DAT (http://www.emdat.be), as well as other sources including the World Bank's World Development Indicators (http://data.worldbank.org/indicator), and even Scripps! (http://scrippsco2.ucsd.edu/data/merged_ice_core/merged_ice_c...)

Your response to this is to make silly jokes. Nice.

[simplexion]

I agree. Fossil fuels have definitely had benefits in the past but now we have to ability to continue with those benefits, increase them and remove the negatives.

[maxharris]

By raising energy prices, which will soak the poor? Not everyone can afford to shop at Whole Foods, drive $100k electric cars, and live in LEED-certified houses (not cheap here in Seattle!)

[mercurial]

If society can afford to not include the huge negative externalities inflicted by fossil fuels in the bill, it gets to show that affordable green energy is largely a question of political will.