Ubiquitously and Totally Wrong

I finally got around to reading In The Dark. It was terrible. I was going to rate it one star until I realized that I control the rating system around here and thus can give it a zero.

Gitt consistently and willfully abuses statistics. Take this blatant and infuriating statement:

The biggest reductions in CO2 emissions during the past 15 years—over 60%—have come from switching from coal to natural gas (pg 17).

This is deceptive. It’s also stupid. It is equivalent to saying that the biggest reductions he’s made in weight gain over the last 15 years came from eating only 15 doughnuts a day instead of 25. You should probably just stop eating the doughnuts altogether Brian.

We can actually do the math here. According to the very source Gitt sites for the irresponsible claim above, generating energy via natural gas as opposed to coal reduces emissions by some 44% per megawatt hour. Generating energy via renewables, of course, reduces emissions by 100% per megawatt hour. Overall emissions from energy generation in the US fell by 820 million metric tons (MMmt) between 2005 and 2019. Therefore, one can easily determine that if America had avoided natural gas altogether and instead transitioned directly from coal to renewables, the nation would have reduced overall emissions by a sum total of 1207 MMmt over the same period.¹ That’s a 50% increase over the actual 820 MMmt, a shift which would have reduced American emissions in 2019 by a third in absolute terms.² These are meaningful numbers with real impacts. They lead to a correct conclusion: humanity should transition to renewables as rapidly as possible. The book’s stubborn misrepresentation of the facts would have you believe the opposite.

In The Dark engages in a similar sort of idiocy around what it introduces as “the Damage Assumption,” a premise which states:

The amount of energy people consume is directly proportional to the amount of environmental damage they cause.

Amazingly, Gitt correctly points out that this is false. Yay! The Damage Assumption is incorrect, and damaging to global development, as renewable energy at long last brings the goals of abundance and sustainability into harmonious union.

Of course, that’s not what Gitt says: he says the shit about natural gas being better than coal again. This time he adds commentary about rudimentary energy generation (i.e. via wood burning) in under-developed nations being “worse” than advanced fossil fuel plants in the developed world—something which, again, relies on cherry-picked proportional statistics rather than a clear, absolute view of the facts at scale.

At its most fundamental level, Gitt’s worldview relies on a profound perversion: he believes that pollution is a problem but refuses to eliminate it. If he didn’t believe pollution was a problem, that climate change is not a big deal, he wouldn’t portray emissions reductions as a positive—which he routinely does when describing the benefits of nuclear power and (as discussed) natural gas. Yet, he advocates against renewable energy sources such as solar and wind, seeking to downplay their green credentials and make their situational weaknesses seem intractable.

I believe that this comes from an inability to see the future as malleable. It is a fact that renewable energy is not perfect: Gitt correctly points out that much of the renewable supply chain is controlled by China, that certain materials necessary for wind and solar are costly to harvest and difficult to recycle, that—indeed—they generate power only when the wind blows and the sun shines. But these are problems that can be solved. Manufacturing can be onshored.³ Advancements in materials science can be made. And grid-scale storage can be built out in a quick and cost-effective manner.⁴

The future is bright, energy-rich, and devoid of fossil fuels.