Epstein powerfully argues that the total benefits of fossil fuels are enormous. Most people in our society need to hear this. But this doesn't imply that the marginal benefits of fossil fuels are enormous, or even positive. This is textbook environmental economics: Most human beings blithely pollute even when the personal benefit of extra pollution is small and the cost to strangers of extra pollution is high. The textbook solution, of course, is to raise the price of pollution. In the long-run, this spurs industry to search for cleaner technologies. In the short-run, though, it deliberately does something rhetorically uncomfortable for Epstein: discourage energy consumption.
