How I discovered Objectivism, and why

My curiosity in the field of energy turned out to have a much bigger influence than I ever expected.

A staunch supporter of new technology, I always trusted nuclear power as the most advanced way to produce energy.

Enter Alex Epstein and his book tour in 2014, and when I heard his pitch for “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels“ at CATO, I immediately understood that I knew little to nothing about coal, oil and natural gas, and their importance to modern society.

Listening to Alex’s past “Power Hour“ episodes, I heard him mention the ideas and writings of Ayn Rand, and especially “Atlas Shrugged“. With the power of the internet, a few good online searches, and plenty of great content available online, the jump to Yaron Brook and his show, the Ayn Rand Institute website and online Campus courses made me realize that I was missing a fundamental part of knowledge to complete my life: philosophy. And that philosophy, the “Philosophy for Living on Earth”, is Ayn Rand’s Objectivism.

It’s been five years now, and I am happy to have become a student of Objectivism, thanks to my interest in energy, my curiosity, and the guidance of a master of human flourishing, Alex Epstein.

This is why this book dedication, signed by Alex when I met him in person at OCON 2018, is so important for me. Thank you, Alex, you have changed my life in a way neither you nor I could imagine!

Alex Epstein’s book dedication signed on July 3rd 2018 at OCON in Laguna Beach, California.

Discussion on “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” Toastmasters speech

Thank you for taking the time to visit this blog post about the presentation on “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” that I delivered at the EPFL-Unil Toastmasters Club on August 29th 2017.

I would also like to thank Alex Epstein for the new information he has working on for the past 10 years, information that inspired me and allowed me to broaden my views.

This is the link to video on YouTube, with the slides embedded in the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOdWTRMCWI8

Here are some useful resources in order to grow your knowledge in the way Alex Epstein and I think about the importance of energy and human flourishing.

The blog post with the introduction to my speech:
http://lucaberta.com/mcff-intro

My speech on January 5th 2016 on the amazing decline in climate-related deaths from 1900 to 2010:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b25j5O2C99o

Alex Epstein guest of the Glenn Beck Show, a very good interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqHB0X_r_Kw

Alex Epstein speech at Google, a fundamental inspiration and source of content for my speech:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6b7K1hjZk4

Alex Epstein guest of The Rubin Report on the Climate Change Debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJmL9hRrpIQ

Alex Epstein’s book on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Case-Fossil-Fuels-ebook/dp/B00INIQVJA/

The website of the book, where you can also download for free the first chapter:
http://www.moralcaseforfossilfuels.com/

Any feedback on my presentation, my ideas, and the reference model created by Alex Epstein which I also endorsed in my presentation is more than welcome. Please feel free to discuss it in the comments below or on Facebook.

Introduction to “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” Toastmasters speech

Many of you know that I am a passionate Toastmaster, and that I spend a fair amount of time in Toastmasters-related activities, including preparing and delivering speeches at different Clubs in the Area I manage, as Area J2 Director, in District 59.

I have been wanting to deliver the final project of the “Technical Presentations” Advanced Manual for a while, and finally the time to do it has come. I am very excited about the speech that I will deliver in my home Toastmasters Club, EPFL-Unil Toastmasters on Tuesday August 29th, with the meeting starting at 19:00.

The title of the project is “Enhancing a technical talk with the internet”, and this blog post also serves as an introduction to the speech I will deliver.

The speech title is “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels”, exactly like the title of the book written by Alex Epstein and published in 2014.

This book had a very strong impact in my personal development in the energy field, a field I knew something about, but not anywhere near the depth and perspective which Alex’s book allowed me to develop. It has truly been a life-changer for me, and I will highlight some of my experiences and considerations during the speech.

I am fully aware that for some people just the simple idea of having the words “moral” and “fossil fuels” in the same sentence makes up for a big cognitive dissonance, so my challenge will be to challenge your knowledge and biases, such that you will be better able to respect and maybe understand my point of view, which very much mirrors that of Alex Epstein, a person I consider a role model for me.

I will leave you with a teaser of what the book is about, to create even more expectation about the speech. Or to enrage you even more against fossil fuels. Or both. It doesn’t really matter.

The only thing that matters is to have your brain fully engaged, and to respect the views of people, especially when they are very different than yours.

After all, it’s far too simple to be in agreement with those who share your same ideas. It’s not even fun.

Carl Gustaf Lundin of @IUCN_Marine on nuclear ships and @PandorasPromise

Last week I had the pleasure of listening to a presentation by Carl Gustaf Lundin, Director of the Global Marine and Polar Programme at the IUCN, hosted by the Commune in the Rolle Castle.

I was particularly curious about the topic as the title of the presentation could have been quite controversial, especially on climate-related issues, the title being:

From plastic pollution to climate change: major threats to the oceans and how to fix them

What I found was a different kind of an environmentalist, someone who is deeply knowledgeable in his direct field, but also does not live in a vacuum and knows really well that the role played by fossil fuels and nuclear in our society is quite important, and must not be played down nor “forgotten” like many other pseudo-environmentalists do.

Also, the climate-related points he raised seemed to be quite subdued, as he definitely is not a catastrophist, and seem to take a very reasonable approach to “climate change” as opposed to what many other pseudo-environmentalists do.

Two points raised by Mr. Lundin in his presentation were especially relevant for me:

  1. he mentioned the oil&gas industry as a very minor source of pollution for the oceans and polar regions. The pollution generated is very small and very local, and can be dealt with fairly easily with the technology we have today. Even in the unfortunate cases of accidents like the major oil spill from the Deepwater Horizon accident,  a tragic event which costed the lives of 11 people and created major environmental damage, the effects were very local and will not last too long.
  2. commercial ships carry 95% of the goods worldwide, they truly are the workhorse of the commerce industry. Such ships are very pollutant, since they run on fuel oil for the most part, but it is inevitable and impossible for our society to prosper the way we are doing without them.

It was obvious to me that Mr. Lundin has both his feet firmly on the ground of coherence and realization that, while some damage to the environment can and does happen due to what men does on this planet, we have to recognize that we cannot do without such wonders like commerce and the cheap and reliable energy coming from burning fossil fuels.

His position triggered some interest in me, and during the question and answer after his speech, I took the microphone and asked his point of view on the possibility to use a much cleaner form of energy to propel ships across the globe, nuclear power, like the civilian Russian icebreakers are doing already.

Much to my surprise, Mr. Lundin answer in a very open and mildly pro-nuclear way, knowing full well both the benefits and limits and inherent issues that come with nuclear power. After all, he comes from Sweden, a country where 40% of the electricity is generated from nuclear power!

He also hinted to the future developments in nuclear technology, including thorium-based fuels, which he is very much in favour of given the better qualities of thorium in the nuclear non-proliferation field, as thorium would be very difficult to use to make nuclear weapons.

During lunch I had the pleasure to exchange a few words with Mr. Lundin, and found a very knowledgeable person in the field of energy, who knows very well the limits to the “green renewables” and is very aware than fossil fuels are here to stay, and while they do create some pollution, at this time they are something we simply cannot do away with.

He is also very positive on nuclear energy, and hopes to see more research and new technology come out in the future.

I told him about “Pandora’s Promise”, a movie which tells the story of different environmentalists who have changed their mind on nuclear, and he was not aware of this movie. He also said that within IUCN there are many who would not touch the nuclear topic at all, which is what I am always afraid of.

This is the kind of environmentalist the world needs! Someone who is able to understand why and how a society thrives, and that policies which will damage people in the name of the environment are doomed to fail.

Donald Trump “America First” energy plan speech

Donald Trump, the presumptive nominee of the Republican party for the 2016 US Presidential elections, was recently in Bismarck, North Dakota.

He spoke at the Petroleum Conference there, and focused almost solely on his energy plan, which appears to be very much pro-energy, and more specifically pro-fossil fuels, without forgetting also nuclear and renewables, which still play an important role.

While this article on Breibart reports the key points raised by Trump in his energy speech, I have been listening to the whole 42 minutes long video you can find below, and started to form a clearer idea on who Donald Trump really is.

There are a lot of things Trump says I disagree with, but overall the speech is quite interesting as his actions if elected President would be heavily dependent on fossil fuels and very much against the “climate change” measures which have been hurting already many economies and many citizens, especially the poorer ones.

One has to wonder whether Alex Epstein has been involved in the preparation of this plan; a lot of the things Epstein wrote in this oped on Forbes seem to have been taken onboard in the preparation of Trump’s speech in Bismarck, ND.

If Trump would win the 2016 US Presidential elections, energy could play a very different role in the future of the United States of America.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq7FuNnCrUQ

A tweet from Rod Adams

I became deeply interested in energy in 2011, a few weeks after a powerful earthquake and tsunami swept the eastern shores of Japan, killing many thousands of people and badly disabling infrastructure needed to safely operate the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, which later suffered major breakdown due to hydrogen explosions caused by fuel meltdown.

Luckily no one was hurt at the accident site due to the radiation release, and neither any citizen has ever received any meaningful amount of radiation, thought there is a lot of media misinformation and hysteria still going on after almost 5 years since the accident happen.

But inquiring minds want to know. And that is when my trip thru nuclear knowledge began.

I was always fascinated by technology, and generation of power is something I knew little about, except for visiting an hydroelectric plant on the Adda river south of Bergamo, Italy, during school.

So I had to study, and my research for trusted sources of information quickly pointed me to Rod Adams and his “Atomic Insights” website and blog active since 1995, a must-read for nuclear and energy aficionados.

Not only Rod has a great website, but he also been running a podcast, “The Atomic Show” (iTunes link here) since March 2006, and I became so passionate about the topic and the critical thinking and knowledge exposed by Rod and his guests that I went back to the very first episode of the show, and listened to each and every one of them, including the early ones in which he had a great co-host, Shane Brown, even more technical than Rod.

Last year, when I discovered Alex Epstein and his book “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” thru this event at The Cato Institute, it dawned on me that the dry technical matters behind nuclear could very well benefit from the deeper philosophical thoughts that Alex Epstein has always highlighted in his work.

I then emailed Rod about Alex Epstein and his work, and he told me that he had already been in touch with Alex and an episode of “The Atomic Show” with Alex as guest would be upcoming. Episode 230 was released on December 12th 2014 and I have added some comments on the relevant blog post. A must listen in my view.

Why am I talking about a tweet, then?

Because as recently as last Friday December 18th 2015 Rod Adams posted this update via Twitter, something which I liked very much, as it shows a deeper understanding on the whole energy discussion, broadening his view from the purely nuclear space.

Rod_Adams___Atomicrod____Twitter

It’s nice for me to see how two of my main influencers in the energy space are coming full circle back to the most important aspect of energy: every bit of energy counts, nuclear needs fossil fuels and fossil fuels needs nuclear moving forward.

We have to defend our right to energy access and deflect the attacks from those who would like to limit our access to energy. They are the really dangerous people to be on the look for.

Alex Epstein talks about his book

I consider Alex Epstein as a great influencer, at least he is for me, but I am quite sure that many more think the same way, and in fact I am meeting more and more people who share the same positive and constructive point of view held by Epstein.

As you might know, Alex Epstein is the author of the book “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels” which was released in November 2014. This book is a must read in my opinion, as it will change your views on fossil fuels, if you are one willing to listen to a voice very different than what the vast majority people is saying.

Hey, I’ve been there with nuclear already, so I very much know what it means being right, yet being a small minority!

This presentation is about 40 minutes long, and it includes some 15 minutes of Q&A. It begins with the great book video trailer, a small gem. This is all very much worth watching.