The Environmentalist Campaign Against Energy

On Earth Day I think it is a good time to mention a new article of mine—“Energy Privation: The Environmentalist Campaign Against Energy.” The article is my contribution to the new collection of essays called Why Businessmen Need Philosophy.

So why should businessmen care about Earth Day and the “green energy” movement? The answer is self-defense—intellectual self-defense against those who attack their activities and want to see businesses shackled with government controls and regulations. And one of the major threats that businessmen need to defend themselves against is the environmentalist movement.

Environmentalists claim that we need to change the way we use energy, and they make it seem as though they have a clear and practical plan for accomplishing this change. But what I argue in the article is that, in fact, environmentalist energy policy amounts to an all-out campaign against energy as such. It is “not a crusade to replace carbon-based fuels with something else, but a crusade to methodically eliminate any practical means of producing energy on an industrial scale.”

I discuss my view in more detail in the live Q&A session that took place this morning, which you can watch here, and in the article. See also these recent posts on VFR.

Read more at The Ayn Rand Center