Fuel Prices Are Rising, But Fossil Fuels Are The Best Friend Of Mankind

The Houses of Parliament in the United Kingdom stand on a land which was once a vast malaria swamp. This is true of the government buildings built during George Washington's leadership. Why bring this up? Even in the most prosperous countries across the world, the environment was unsafe till very recently. The environment was so unsafe that about a billion people have died so far because of bubonic plague, malaria and smallpox throughout the world. We should keep this figure in our mind when we hear that vehicles should be taken off Delhi's roads to make the environment clean.

This argument takes various forms. It is said that developed countries are burning more and more fossil fuels, making the world unlivable for people in developing countries.

Fuel prices have now reached a six-month high. On May 16, petrol and diesel prices were raised marginally. Now, it is argued that oil prices are one a rise because people in developing countries demand for more while oil-producing countries are cutting the supply of oil.

Fuel prices rise when political instability is high, and when free trade is undermined. Also, prices rise when demand exceeds the fuel traded in the market. When prices rise, it is a signal that petrol and diesel are scarce and that we should use them more carefully. But, there is no inherent shortage of fuel because the core of the earth is full of resources. The real challenge is to create resources out of raw material. What we lack is the manpower and the time to do this.

It is undeniable that fossil fuels are unpopular. Otherwise, such arguments would never have gained currency. But without fossil fuels, we would not have been able to clean up the environment, produce food for everybody, and make housing more affordable than at any point in history. As Alex Epstein points out in The Moral Case For Fossil Fuels, many of us would not even have been alive without fossil fuels. We would not have been able to keep away mosquitoes that spread malaria without sewage treatment technology based on fossil fuels.

Even though Delhi was the most polluted city in the world until May 2016, a man who was born 200 years ago will be shocked to see how pure the air is today. People used to breathe the air from burning firewood day in and day out. They still do, in many parts of the country. It is fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas that allowed us to cook without polluting the air inside our homes.

As Epstein argues, there was no waste-disposal technology that runs on fossil fuels either. People starved because there were no fertilizers based on fossil fuels either. Even crops carried diseases.

Droughts were the single biggest cause of death for much of human history because it was impossible to carry food over long distances. Even when modern transportation emerged, transportation was so expensive that the cost of transportation was higher than the price of the goods that were carried. But, modern transportation based on fossil fuels is much cheaper. This allowed people to unlock real estate that was worthless long ago. This allowed people to live in large, spacious houses in places where farms did not exist. Much of electricity production in the world is fossil fuel based too.

Many fear that when more people drive cars that run on fuel in India and China, cities like Delhi and Shanghai will become even more polluted. They fear that this may even lead to climate change. But, as Epstein points out, from 1970 to 2010, the carbon emissions from vehicles in the Unites States declined even though vehicles became more common. This is because modern vehicles pollute less. Even though vehicles pollute the atmosphere, antipollution technology more than balances the effect. It is true that if technology remains constant, the results will be catastrophic when car ownership rises in India. But, the assumption that technology will remain constant is unrealistic.

Climate dangers were common throughout history. Modern cooling technology, too, is based on fossil fuels. Without air conditioners and refrigerators, people would not have been able to live in cities where climate is not favourable. When transportation became popular, cheap and fast, people no longer needed to live near farms. With the press of a button, we can make our rooms cool or warm. This has made people more productive. Indian productivity is low even today, partly because air conditioning is not common. So, people tend to take long pauses between work because they are tired much of the time. This will change in the near future. Contrary to what people believe, fossil fuels are a solution to climate change, pollution, poverty and diseases. They are not the cause.