How Prosperity Can Save the Planet – and its people … using fossil fuels (Paul Driessen, CFACT)

How Prosperity Can Save the Planet – and its people … using fossil fuels Young Americans for Liberty Conference – Reston, VA – July 27, 2018 Paul Driessen

I know some of you have read my books and articles – and heard me talk about how ecoimperialists deny the world’s poorest people access to the modern energy, agriculture, disease control and other technologies that make our jobs, living standards, travel, entertainment, communication, health and life spans possible.

Most of the time, I spoon feed you a lot of information – and then you ask a few questions. Tonight, we’re going to try something different. A Socratic exercise, if you will.

I'm going guide you through some recent history, and let YOU explain what you’re at least aware of – but probably never really gave much thought to … maybe because it’s so much a part of your lives that you just, kind of, take it for granted – which you should never do.

Let’s go back in time. Ice ages and interglacial periods … Cro Magnon and Neanderthal people … Persian, Greek, Roman … Chinese, Aztec and Mayan empires … the Little Ice Age … all the way up to around two centuries ago.

For the most part, mankind endured tens, hundreds of thousands of years of life on the edge.

Hunter-gatherer societies … primitive agricultural civilizations … barely enough food to survive … with starvation just a drought, war or long winter away. Backbreaking human and animal labor … wood, charcoal, animal dung, and primitive wind and water systems for fuel … rampant disease … horrendously backward, often just superstitious medical practices.

They were eco-friendly. But those technologies and practices ensured that people had nasty, brutish, short lives … that averaged 30, 35, maybe 40 years.

Just think – until less than two centuries ago, even here in the United States, YOU young students, you Young Americans for Liberty, would now be at the halfway mark in your lives.

Even 120 years ago, in 1900, the average American life span was only 47 years.

And then, suddenly – a miracle! Health, prosperity and life expectancy began to climb … slowly but inexorably at first, then more and more rapidly and dramatically.

To tell that story, let me introduce Professor Hans Rosling. Until he died sadly in 2017, Dr. Rosling taught global health in Sweden. He was a physician, a statistician, an energized lecturer … and a sword swallower!

Let’s watch as he explains what happened to human life expectancy and societal wealth – by looking at 200 countries ... in 200 years ... via 120,000 data points … in a 4-minute presentation.

As you watch, you will hopefully notice something Professor Rosling says that you might properly be skeptical about. But focus on what happened the last 200 years. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbkSRLYSojo Wasn’t that an amazing tour de force? And even more amazing, wasn’t that an incredible transformation in the human condition … in just 200 years … after 200 thousand years and more, of living on the brink of famine, disease and disaster?

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Dr. Rosling’s analysis ended in 2009, nearly a decade ago. But things have only gotten better for more and more people since then – although sadly, many billions are still struggling to catch up with the rest of the world.

So … Besides marveling at the cool, dynamic charts – What were you thinking as you watched this? What jumped out at you? What’s your biggest question?

Precisely! How and why did this happen?

More specifically: After countless thousands of years of stagnation, wallowing near the abyss, living little better than domesticated animals … what brought about this incredible transformation?

Was it magic? Miracles? Pure random luck? Aliens visiting us from outer space?

Obviously not. But what did happen, beginning around two centuries ago, that was absent from human civilization before then?

We already had the basic scientific method (1250), the printing press (1450), the corporation (1600), early steam engines (1770), the metal plow and many other inventions.

So what inventions, technologies, discoveries and societal practices began around 1810 … and continued, grew and improved over the ensuing decades and centuries … to propel us to where we are today?

Let’s begin a list – one flip chart for inventions and technologies … a second one for scientific and medical discoveries and societal practices – listing the most significant contributions to this amazing progress.

Then, if we have time, we will discuss what Professor Rosling said that you might properly be skeptical about.

And finally, if we still have time, we will address another question: WHY do so many billions still barely survive, on the brink of disaster? Why – in so many countries – are average life spans still stuck at 35?

So – who wants to begin, by flaunting what you have learned – maybe miraculously from your progressive college professors and courses … but more likely from your outside readings and experiences – including your involvement in Young Americans for Liberty, Collegians For A Constructive Tomorrow, and similar organizations?

What follows are the lists we compiled: Inventions and technologies on the first page … scientific and medical discoveries and improved societal practices on the second.

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Inventions and technologies Energy – coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydroelectric – without abundant, reliable, affordable energy none of these great advances would have been possible Fossil fuels – still 80% of all the energy the USA and world use today (Col. Drake’s well in 1859 – coal to oil, kerosene, gasoline, propane, natural gas) Electricity – so important it’s separate – first hydro house in 1882 (only half of all US houses had electricity in 1925) Modern steam engines – 1770 and 1810 Internal combustion engines led to cars and trucks 1885 (Karl Benz), which rid our cities of horse urine, manure and carcasses – and let forage land be turned to cropland, habitats Internal combustion engines also led to bigger, better, safer mining and drilling technologies and practices for energy and raw materials that let us put countless other ideas into effect Infrastructure – modern buildings, transportation, communication, heat, AC Electric stove 1896 – steam refrigerator 1834 – electric refrigerator for home 1913 Scrubbers and other pollution controls on coal-fired power plants, factories – 1938 Indoor plumbing – running water, toilets, sewage treatment, landfills – 1860-90 Liquid and bar soap 1865 – washing hands began in 1850 – PalmOlive soap arrived in 1898 Window screens – 1887 – but still not found on most African hospitals Modern farming – seeds, cross-breeding, chemical fertilizer, tractors in 1892 – first common use of tractors, combines, etc was 1920s Ammonia-based fertilizers – 1910 – no longer have to rely on manure and compost – based on extracting nitrogen from the air Norman Borlaug’s Green Revolution – hybrid seeds – 1946-1965 Vaccines: smallpox in 1709 (Jenner) but not widely used until decades later – then polio vaccine in 1954 (I got polio in 1956) – and countless other vaccines antibiotics – penicillin – 1928 (Fleming) 1940+ put into widespread use (Waxman, etc) anesthesia – 1845 – to enable complex surgery and wound treatment pain control medicines – reduced deaths from shock; also enabled major surgery x-rays – 1920 for actual use by doctors + MRIs – to diagnose injuries and diseases pesticides – DDT – 1939: saved millions of lives from malaria, yellow fever and typhus during and after World War II when used on Allied troops, war refugees and concentration camp survivors (banned in USA in 1972, leading to millions of deaths from malaria) telegraph 1837 – telephone 1876 – radio 1895 – television 1927 – internet 1983/90 computer 1936 – personal computer 1984 – laptop 1988 -- to disseminate info cell phone 1973 – smart phone 1992 – computer and communication in your hand

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all these new communication technologies enabled ideas to have sex – and millions of offspring worldwide (Matt Ridley and Deidre McCloskey) – and today enable people worldwide to access the world’s libraries, even if they don’t have regular electricity

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Scientific and medical discoveries and societal practices ideas having sex – and sharing of ideas – brought more thinking and advances Germs – germ versus miasma theory – bacteria – 1860-70 – showed us why people died from wounds, how cholera and other diseases were spread Malaria, yellow fever linked to mosquitoes – William Gorgas – 1898 Discovery of parasites and bacteria in water – making them dangerous to drink or wade in (tapeworms, hookworms, river blindness, Led to water purification, sewers and sewage treatment, garbage collection and landfills, major vaccination programs, window screens – ideas first, then action Sterile hospitals and surgical centers – air handling systems – prevent disease Better care of new mothers, infants, diseases, wounds, accidents Improved personal habits – washing hands, cleaning out wounds, better diets Cancer causes, preventative measures, treatments and cures (despite bad side effects) Wearing shoes in wet, tropical areas – prevented hookworm, beginning in 1910 Accessible, affordable health insurance for the masses Free market Adam Smith capitalism 1776 – really took off in the early 1800s – free enterprise, entrepreneurship, new ideas and inventions, because there are rewards – government regulators need to enforce societal standards and control bad guys, but mostly should stay out of the way International banking / Rothschild family 1800s – competitive commercial banking 1860 – modern banking risk management, secondary loan markets in the 1960s See I, Pencil and I, Cell Phone – see videos – free enterprise innovation at work – millions of inventors and workers … millions of invisible hands … worked together across buildings, cities, countries and continents … without most of them ever even knowing the others existed … to create and mass produce countless technologies that improve, enhance and save lives What did Dr. Rosling get wrong?

His belief in renewable energy. We simply cannot maintain our living standards, wealth, health and longevity with wind, solar, battery and biofuel energy Impacts on millions of acres of croplands and wildlife habitats, biodiversity declines, raw material demands – and energy required to extract and process those materials … and turn them into wind, turbines and ethanol refineries … much less ship them all over the globe … much less power anything remotely akin to modern civilized societies – with renewable energy pixie dust What’s still holding so many billions of people back?

With such easy access to accumulated human knowledge – and such easy access to the energy and other technologies that generate wealth, improve living standards at reasonable prices … and enrich, safeguard and lengthen our lives – why doesn’t everyone on Earth enjoy the blessings, the health and prosperity and longevity that we do?

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WHY do a billion and a half people still not have electricity? Why do two billion still barely survive on two dollars a day? Why do a million still die every year from malaria and other insect-borne diseases? Millions more from lung, intestinal and other preventable diseases? And more millions from malnutrition and starvation?

It’s no longer the miracle of health and prosperity. Today it is the miracle of poverty – the perverse “miracle” that poverty is still with us, when the solutions for eliminating it are accessible to everyone. Here are the main causes: No private property rights – no collateral for loans No energy – especially no electricity No infrastructure: no decent roads, hospitals, schools – can’t have them without energy No clean water, plumbing, sanitation, medicines, vaccines – can’t have them without energy Corrupt, kleptocratic, totalitarian governments in their own countries And adding to all those problems: Callous, corrupt, powerful environmentalist groups and rich Western government agencies imposing eco-imperialism * carbon colonialism * environmental racism * by denying billions of people access to modern energy, agricultural and other technologies – justifying their actions with claims that those technologies are not sustainable, will cause “dangerous manmade climate change” or violate the phony Precautionary Principle How DARE anyone try to prevent the rest of the world from enjoying the incredible benefits we get daily from these technological, scientific and other advances? And yet that is exactly what hundreds of organizations are doing, bankrolled by billions of dollars from governments, taxpayers and leftist foundations.

Radical environmentalist groups like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, NRDC, EDF, Pesticide Action Network, Food & Water Watch, and many more and equally radical UN and other government groups, like the World Bank, Multilateral Development Banks, UN Food and Agricultural Organization, World Health Organization and even USAID – BILLIONS OF DOLLARS to agitate against modern technologies Your mission is to challenge these organizations and stop this homicidal, eco-imperialist, carbon colonialist, eco-racist insanity These callous elites think they can run the planet and our lives from The Capital a la the Hunger Games, against the rest of the world’s far less fortunate inhabitants out in The Provinces – and without any accountability for the horrendous, even lethal mistakes they make – or even the deliberate harm and deaths they inflict on the most politically powerless people on Earth.

Electrification rates – Africa versus the USA Sub-Saharan Africa has the lowest electrification rate in the world. Power consumption per capita in Africa is estimated at 613 kWh per annum, compared to 6,500 kWh in Europe and 13,000 kWh per year in the United States.

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In other words, the average American has 21 times more electricity than the average inhabitant of Sub-Saharan Africa Put in everyday terms, those numbers mean the electricity that makes modern lives, jobs, productivity, living standards, health, communication, computers, entertainment and life spans possible is available to Africans a paltry 5% per capita of the electricity Americans rely on.

Just imagine having electricity available only 1 hour a day … 8 hours a week … 411 hours per year – at totally unpredictable times, for a few minutes, hours or days at a stretch when you have power. And at three times what Americans pay.

Try running your life that way. How dare these eco-imperialist groups impose that on the world’s most impoverished, diseased, malnourished, politically powerless people?

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