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While we need the affordable, reliable energy that oil companies produce, we don’t need governments and companies to plead for a “social licence” from environmentalists and the “public” to allow companies to operate. Pursuing such a licence is futile, for two reasons: 1) the very concept of “social licence” is invalid, and even if it were valid, 2) the environmentalists would never grant it.

“Social licence” is an invalid concept, first, because “social” refers to society “as a whole” giving licence to business to operate. “Society as a whole” does not exist as an entity that thinks, acts or grants licences; there are only individuals who constitute a society by interacting with others according to certain rules, such as respect for individual rights. At most, “social licence” could be construed as the permission given by the majority of people to business to operate, but a majority rule can be very hazardous to human flourishing, as the majority can always vote to violate the rights of those in the minority.

“Social licence” is an invalid concept also because business does not require a licence to operate from society nor the government. It merely needs others wanting to trade with it and it must not violate others’ individual rights, which government must protect.

Even if “social licence” were a valid concept, the environmentalists would never grant it to business because their standard of value is not human flourishing or the human environment conducive to human flourishing. The environmentalists’ standard of value is pristine nature without any human footprint, and therefore no sacrifice of human well-being and prosperity is ever enough. The environmentalists want no fossil fuels, with all humans reduced to pre-fossil fuel poverty and misery.