In a political climate where the narrative is aggressively shifting toward deregulation, Dave Borlace delivers a scathing, data-driven rebuttal to the claim that fossil fuels are benign. While the current US administration moves to rescind energy transition incentives and declare greenhouse gases harmless, Borlace dismantles this premise not with ideology, but with a staggering accounting of the hidden costs—human, environmental, and economic—that the industry refuses to pay. This is not a standard climate lecture; it is a forensic audit of the fossil fuel supply chain that reveals a system built on unaccounted devastation.
The Illusion of Benign Energy
Borlace opens by addressing the political momentum behind the fossil fuel revival, noting that the new administration is "certainly making an impact" with policies designed to convince Americans that fossil fuels are "an entirely benign energy provider." He immediately challenges this framing by highlighting the EPA's recent declaration that greenhouse gases do not endanger human beings. This political maneuvering, he argues, ignores the reality that production and consumption are rising, not falling. "According to this recent article, the world is on track to produce 110% more oil, gas, and coal by 2030 than we can afford to burn if we want to stay below 2° C of warming," Borlace writes. The sheer scale of this overproduction creates a dangerous disconnect between policy and physical reality.
The author effectively counters the "primary energy fallacy"—the mistaken belief that renewables must replace fossil fuels on a one-to-one basis by volume. He points out that while two-thirds of fossil fuel energy is wasted in conversion, renewables are over 90% efficient. "We should take care here not to make the so-called primary energy fallacy mistake of assuming that renewables will need to replace all of that oil, gas, and coal on a like for like basis. It won't, but it will still be a herculean task," he notes. This distinction is crucial for busy readers trying to grasp the speed of the transition; the efficiency gap means the physical infrastructure needed is far smaller than the current fossil fuel footprint, yet the political will to build it is being actively dismantled.
Human civilization has never ever had to face anything like what we're up against in the next few decades. And certainly not while trying to feed 8 billion mouths and keep some semblance of geopolitical harmony in place.
The Hidden Cost of Extraction and Transport
Moving beyond carbon emissions, Borlace exposes the physical toll of the fossil fuel lifecycle, from extraction to transportation. He cites a 2020 study indicating that 6 million people live near oil fields, suffering from "liver damage, immuno deficiency, and neurological symptoms." The argument here is that the industry's "benign" label crumbles when one considers the immediate toxicity of "produced water," which contains dispersed crude oil and heavy metals. "Oil and gas extraction causes something that the industry euphemistically refers to as produced water," Borlace writes, stripping away the corporate language to reveal the hazardous reality.
The coverage of transport infrastructure is particularly damning. Borlace highlights that between 2019 and 2023, gas pipeline mishaps released nearly 10 billion cubic feet of gas, an amount equivalent to running four average-sized coal-fired power stations for a year. "Under federal rules, those emissions are not included in the official US greenhouse gas count," he observes, pointing out a regulatory blind spot that allows the industry to underreport its true impact. Critics might argue that pipeline safety has improved in recent years, but Borlace's data on the frequency of daily incidents and the sheer volume of spills from major lines like Keystone and Colonial suggests a systemic failure rather than isolated accidents.
The destruction of coal mining is described with equal gravity. Borlace details how mountaintop removal "obliterates ancient hardwood forests" and sends toxins into waterways, creating a permanent scar on the landscape. "The forests don't grow back and the damage to the mountain is permanent," he states, emphasizing that the environmental debt of coal is irreversible. This section effectively shifts the debate from abstract climate models to tangible, local destruction that affects drinking water and ecosystems directly.
The Trillion-Dollar Subsidy
Perhaps the most compelling part of Borlace's argument is the economic reckoning. He argues that the low price of fossil fuels is a fiction maintained by massive, unaccounted-for externalities. "All these things, all the associated damage and loss of property and infrastructure and loss of livelihoods and lives are all entirely unaccounted for in the price of a barrel of oil or unit of gas," he writes. By citing International Monetary Fund research, he reveals that if the industry paid for these damages, the cost would be roughly $6 trillion annually. When combined with explicit subsidies like tax breaks and grants, the total annual subsidy reaches $7 trillion.
This economic framing is powerful because it reframes fossil fuel use not as a market success, but as a massive transfer of wealth from the public to private corporations. Borlace notes that the US is now refusing to attend the upcoming COP climate conference in Brazil, a decision that stands in stark contrast to the global consensus. "The vast majority of nations on the planet understand the health hazards to their citizens and the GDP impacts to their economies," he writes, isolating the US position as an outlier driven by ideology rather than economic prudence. A counterargument worth considering is that rapid decarbonization could cause short-term economic disruption; however, Borlace's data suggests the long-term costs of inaction—measured in health crises and climate disasters—far outweigh any temporary market friction.
Fossil fuel companies don't pay those compensations and reparation costs, though, of course, and they probably never will. It's what economists call an implicit subsidy.
Bottom Line
Dave Borlace's most potent contribution is his synthesis of health data, environmental destruction, and economic accounting into a single, undeniable narrative: the fossil fuel industry's claim of benignity is a statistical impossibility. The argument's greatest strength is its refusal to rely on moralizing, instead letting the staggering figures of deaths, spills, and subsidies speak for themselves. The piece's vulnerability lies in its assumption that the current political leadership will be swayed by data, a premise that seems increasingly unlikely given the administration's active efforts to suppress such information. Readers should watch for how the US withdrawal from global climate cooperation impacts the speed of the energy transition in the coming years.