The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 515
Alex thought it might, I would have said, "Imagine that if instead of using petroleum oil fuels that fill our skies with deadly pollutants, we used clean fuels that
can accomplish even better performance results with fewer wars, how much
better off we would be? Think of all the people who wouldn't have died or become disabled."
And then I would have added that neither a solar source of energy nor a wind
source of energy is unreliable and intermittent. Indeed, should the day(s) ever
come in which the darkness of night doesn't turn to a lightened day then our
entire existence on planet Earth would come to an end. And since wind currents
are a direct result of a revolving planet and the same solar source, wind is a
totally reliable source of energy. The only requirement is that the solar collectors
be sufficiently sensitive to cloud-covered days, and that the wind generators be
positioned in places where there is always wind. But these requirements are
virtually no different than the requirement for fossil fuel electric generating
plants to be located within proximity to users.
To the point that only fossil fuels can provide cheap and plentiful energy, I would
have reminded him (informed him) that ethanol could have, should have, and
would have been the fuel to provide cheap and plentiful energy had the oil industry not bought their way into the dominant position.
An interesting side note about Alex's use of this young woman to create a "straw
man argument" to demean her and her street-corner demonstration, is that Alex
often criticizes attacks against his position as just being a "straw man argument." He raises this flag as if a straw man argument was comparable to a "low
blow" in a boxing match. Instead of countering the criticism with a substantive
rebuttal, Alex uses the mere mention of the phrase to disqualify the criticism
from having any value. You'll find Alex doing this in some of the various videos
of him on the Internet. From an earlier rebuttal that I made about Alex's "fossil
fuel moral" position, I found myself accused by some Alex Epstein sycophants
(emphasis on sick-o) who have glommed onto this tactic and condemn my criticism of Alex's position as just presenting a straw man argument against him. I
had one person post online and ask me, "Who made you God?" I guess he felt
that only God was competent enough to challenge an Alex Epstein brain-fart of
an idea. It made me laugh because citing and criticizing actual specific statements made by a person is not what a straw man argument is all about; on the
contrary, arguing against actual specific statements is always fair game. The
good thing about Alex's book - and for that matter Kathleen White's book - is
that there is no shortage of actual specific (wrong) statements to challenge.
