Energy politics vs. the Earth.

• Author: Broder, John M.

Michael Levi, The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 272 pp., $27.95.

Around the corner on K Street, one of the half dozen designer salad places in my part of downtown Washington recently closed after about a year in business. "Coming soon," the sign in the papered-over window reads, "Dunkin" Donuts." Hurried Washingtonians will soon be able to get their calorie fix for a tenth of the time and money spent. Maybe not so good for them in the long run, but John Maynard Keynes told us what happens in the long run.

This, in miniature, is the choice the United States faces on energy and climate change. Fossil fuels are convenient, cheap, plentiful and, in the long run, deadly. Renewable energy--from the sun and the soil, the wind and the waves--is comparatively expensive, hard to produce and healthy. Mankind has chosen the cheap and plentiful path for the past two hundred years, burning coal, oil and gas and spewing the trash into the atmosphere. In May, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed four hundred parts per million, the highest level in three million years. The planet "teeters on the cusp of calamity. Science says it's time to switch to salads.

Michael Levi, one of the nation's most prolific and quoted experts on energy and climate policy, argues in The Power Surge that despite the looming threat of climate change, a rapid and complete switch to renewable-energy sources is impossible in the current political and economic environment. He says the nation can--and must--exploit both fossil fuels and renewable-energy sources for the foreseeable future. The United States should aggressively pursue the parallel revolutions in oil and gas extraction and in clean-power production. Together, he says, they can assure a steady and secure flow of energy without grievous and permanent damage to the economy or the climate.

In a play on President Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy, which pairs expanded domestic oil and gas development with government support for clean energy, Levi dubs his approach "most of the above."

He frames the issue early in the book, saying that everything we knew about American energy is changing. Oil imports are falling for the first time in decades. Newly discovered reserves of natural gas have sent prices plummeting, with a host of sweeping effects, mostly good. Vehicle efficiency is rising rapidly, driving down oil consumption. Prices for wind, solar, geothermal and other alternative technologies are falling.

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These should be welcome developments, but in the polarized politics of America today they have spawned bitter battles and costly lobbying campaigns. Coal producers, utilities and coal-state lawmakers accuse the Obama administration of waging a "war on coal." Environmental groups attack oil and pipeline companies for poisoning the nation's air and waters. Republicans dismiss government clean-energy incentive programs as industrial favoritism and crony capitalism. Local citizens are taking on natural-gas drillers over air pollution, contamination of groundwater and intrusive truck traffic. Wealthy coastal dwellers band together to block offshore wind installations. Wildlife enthusiasts protest desert solar farms for threatening rare lizard species. On climate, one is either an "alarmist" or a "denialist."

"Across the nation," Levi writes, "people are picking sides."

This polarization on the linkages among energy, national security and the environment is hardly new. The battle lines were drawn in the early 1970s, with the advent of Earth Day, the...