Nobody is pretending fossil fuels are not producing value, if they did not nobody would bother using them in the first place. The argument is about the fact that they produce relatively short term value for the person using them, at the externalized expense of polluting the atmosphere and causing long-term environmental instability and destruction for every subsequent generation for the foreseeable future. Coastal regions (and whole islands like the Maldives) disapppearing under the ocean is immense and ongoing value loss for humanity. Ocean acidification destroying marine ecosystems is an immense and ongoing value loss for humanity. More frequent and more extreme hurricanes is an an immense and ongoing value loss for humanity. And on and on...

The fossil fuel industry is both the most subsidized industry worldwide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_subsidies) and the second most expensive source of energy (at least for electricity production). The only energy source that is more expensive is nuclear (!).

It is a tricky situation isn't it? We wouldn't have gotten where we are without fossil fuels, but now we realize they are not sustainable to be dependent on and we cannot continue this level of growth. I don't think it is actually possible using current means to power what we have come to know as a "first-world lifestyle" for the majority of the planet.

It’s more about trying to help the cleaner energy sources get off the ground, rather than a purely financial incentive.

If it's so valuable why don't you want to buy it from the Russians and the Gulf?

The slavery part doesn't seem like a rational decision to me.

Why are we pretending that slavery doesn't provide an immense amount of value for humanity, and that it's horrible to invest or support building out any slavery production whatsoever?

Lets not do produce it ourselves, lets just instead outsource it to Africa...

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Snide comparisons aside, I'd just say that we can accept that fossil fuels played a gigantic and important role in getting us to where we are, and also acknowledge that we'll continue to need fossil fuels in the near future, but that does *not* mean that we need to accept that investment in even more expansion of the fossil fuel industry is a good idea.