But it should be equally obvious to anyone who has ever shivered through a Duluth, Minnesota, December that we have to be a bit brutal to the earth sometimes because “Sister Earth” will totally kill us with frostbite if we don’t rip coal out of her and set it on fire. Likewise, it may be unkind to pump Freon-induced chlorofluorocarbons into the atmosphere, but that’s the card we’re forced to play each time grumpy “Sister Earth” descends on Port Arthur, Texas, in August and tries to murder our grandmothers with heatstroke.

Nature is also fond of trying to kill us with various diseases, and consuming fossil fuels has been an essential part of stopping this. If you don’t routinely step in salmonella-infected piles of horse manure on your way down Fifth Avenue, you can thank Henry Ford for replacing the stink-and-disease-producing horse with the gas-guzzling automobile as America’s preferred method of transportation. If you’ve never contracted Hepatitis A because your neighbor accidentally dumped his chamber pot on your head while you were walking your schnauzer, you can thank fossil fuels for helping to build efficient sewage treatment plants that allowed humans to safely dispose of our disease-ridden waste.