麻豆区
Customer Review
- Reviewed in Canada on April 26, 2017It is rare to find anybody writing about ethics from a serious point of view these days, and rarer still to find book as clearly written and as positively persuasive as The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels.
This excellent book succeeds on every level by addressing a wide range of issues in a clear, factual, and reasoned manner. It should be required reading by anyone interested in the science and morality of using fossil fuels and alternative energy resources, whatever side of the issue you are on ideologically.
At the crux of Epstein鈥檚 argument is his observation that the natural environment is far from being conducive to human life; that humans don鈥檛 fare well in the natural environment. As a result, we spend an inordinate amount of time improving our environment by engineering protective solutions that enable us to be physically comfortable, protected, and safe.
Fossil fuels and their manufacturers should be applauded, says Epstein, because of the immense benefit they bring to improving our natural environment. Epstein shows that currently there aren鈥檛 any viable alternatives that are abundant, easily transportable, inexpensive, efficient, and be can be made readily available any time and any place. Because of this, to encourage political action to restrict or limit fossil fuels is to engage in behavior that is knowingly harmful and destructive to human life and productive human civilization. When human life is the basis for a proper moral standard, the past, present and future use of fossil fuels is rightfully seen as a moral imperative.
Epstein does such a good job presenting a factual moral case for the virtues of continued and expanded fossil use that it is likely to change any reader鈥檚 perspective on the matter and have them questioning many of their assumed presumptions about the issues of fossil fuels and alternative energy sources.
By the end of the book, Epstein has convincingly achieved what he set out to do: make the moral case for the virtue of fossil fuels and those who make them easily available. This establishes the basis for his the book鈥檚 overall conclusion: 鈥淢ankind鈥檚 use of fossil fuels is supremely virtuous 鈥 because human life is the standard of value, and because using fossil fuels transforms our environment to make it wonderful for human life.鈥
BarryLinetsky.com
