Author: Alex Epstein

Fossil Future argues that fossil fuels have raised human flourishing enormously, that expanding them is the humane choice, and that the standard climate framing understates how much people can adapt. Epstein trained in philosophy rather than in any science, runs a consultancy advising energy companies, and has been paid by fossil fuel interests, which he states openly rather than concealing. Climate scientists reject his handling of the projections and his treatment of climate risk as a manageable engineering problem. He testifies to American legislatures and the writing is the front of that work. The case is internally coherent and the premises are where the real disagreement sits.