When was the last time you gave a gas pump a high five?
Yeah, that’s what I thought. Me neither.
Right now, everybody is completely losing their cool at the pump. Gas prices are up, inflation is the main course at every single job site lunch break, and everyone is shouting about what energy costs. Yet, almost nobody stops to talk about what energy actually does for our daily lives.
That is precisely why I pulled Fossil Future by Alex Epstein off my shelf again. I read it a while back, thought it was solid, and let it gather a bit of dust. But watching everyone freak out over fuel prices made me realize it was time for round two.
When you’re the guy paying for the fuel to keep a whole fleet of Window Ninjas vans rolling, a book about global energy stops being abstract policy fluff real fast. My goal here isn’t to tell you to run out and trash the planet. My goal, and Alex Epstein’s goal, is to encourage you to keep an open mind and look at the whole picture before jumping to conclusions.
The Dirty Window Problem
Epstein’s main point is that most of us never actually see raw energy or climate data. We get it secondhand through a thick stack of filters: researchers study it, institutions summarize it, media outlets wrap it in drama, and algorithms feed it to us with a panicky headline.
Look, I clean glass for a living. I know a thing or two about seeing through smudges. A dirty window doesn’t show you a fake world; it shows you the real world with fingerprints all over it. The trouble is, you can’t tell which smudges got there by accident and which ones were wiped on purpose.
If you only ever make decisions based on somebody else’s smudges, you’re not seeing reality. You have to clean your own glass.
The Big Picture: Solar Cycles, History, and Natural Change
To clean the glass on climate and energy, you have to step back further than whatever popped up on your phone five minutes ago.
Take history, for instance. The ancient Egyptians measured the Nile River using stone Nilometers. Why? Because they knew the river flooded on its own, and tracking those changes was the difference between eating and starving. Natural shifts in the environment have always been part of Earth’s big show.
Zoom out even further to deep space scale. The Earth wobbles, and its orbit shifts closer to and further from the Sun across tens of thousands of years. The planet warms, cools, and changes regardless of human input.
Pointing out that Earth has massive natural cycles isn’t a hall pass to ignore our footprint. It is simply respecting the sheer size of the machine we live on.
The Electric Vehicle Reality Check: Are We Saving the World or Just Pretending?
I am all about convenience. If I could swap all our work trucks to electric vehicles, bypass the gas station entirely, and never look at a fuel pump again, sign me up!
But let’s be real for a second. When you plug in an EV, you don’t see a gas pump, but you also don’t see the coal or natural gas power plant generating that electricity. You don’t see the diesel mining rigs digging up lithium and cobalt for the battery, or the petroleum used to mold the tires.
When we act like plugging in is completely clean, are we actually saving the planet, or are we just sweeping the engine under the rug?
It takes heavy equipment, raw materials, and fuel to keep modern civilization moving. Slapping a “100% Green” sticker on something without looking at its supply chain is just window dressing. Real stewardship takes honesty, not just exporting the dirty work to someone else’s neighborhood.
Everything in My Truck Is a Fossil Fuel
Walk out to one of our Window Ninjas trucks.
The truck runs on gas. The pressure washers run on gas. The hoses, buckets, ladder boots, squeegee rubber, and even our synthetic Window Ninjas shirts come from oil. Without fossil fuels, I am not running a professional service company. I am just a guy carrying a bucket on a very long, very painful walk across town.
Fuel is one of our biggest line items. But when I pulled up our numbers from the last decade, our fuel costs have gone up about 3.9% a year on average.
To put that in plain English: if you made $100,000 a year and got a 3.9% raise, you’d be at $103,900. Nobody is throwing a fit over that; it basically matches general inflation. Sure, fuel prices sting, and we should keep innovating toward better tech. But fossil fuels aren’t ruining our businesses; they are keeping the lights on and the vans moving.
Imagine what window cleaning, groceries, or home repairs would cost if my guys had to pedal ladders across town on bicycles! Your bill wouldn’t tick up 3.9%; it would skyrocket 1,000%.
Who Needs This Book?
This isn’t about taking sides or picking fights. It is about human progress. We need reliable, affordable power to live healthy, safe, and comfortable lives, and we should take great care of our environment while we do it. Both things can be true at the same time.
- Business owners: You’ll get a clear look at the real supply chain powering your operation.
- Open-minded thinkers: Anyone done with sensational headlines who wants to look at the facts directly.
- Environmentalists: Especially if you want to understand the practical realities of modern human energy needs.
Fossil Future is a thick book, but it is worth every page. It challenges you to wipe off the smudges and inspect the data for yourself.
The Golden Squeegee Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Next time you pull up to the gas pump or plug in an electric car, take a second to ask yourself: What would my day actually look like without this energy network supporting me?
Then wipe down your windows. You’ll want a crystal-clear view of the answer.
Follow my journey at gabesalinas.com, subscribe on Substack, and connect with me on social media.
Keep Shining.
