In Search of Good Energy Policy.

• Author: Schwartz, Peter

In Search of Good Energy Policy, edited by Marc Ozawa, Jonathan Chaplin, Michael Pollitt, David Reiner and Paul Warde (Cambridge University Press, 2019). 389 pages, ISBN: 9781108481168 (hardback), ISBN: 9781108455466 (paperback), ISBN: 9781108639439 (ebook).

The distinguishing aspect of this book, based on a program of the same name at Cambridge University, is a multidisciplinary evaluation of a wide array of energy topics and the corresponding "goodness" of associated policies. To launch the undertaking, the opening essay provides definitions of "good" from a variety of vantage points. While economists may endorse economic efficiency as their measure of good, religious scholars might prioritize all aspects of God's creation. Economists such as Michael Pollitt, a co-editor and a contributor to the book, focus on incentive-based policies, such as carbon taxes or cap-and-trade as the tools to mitigate climate change. Jonathan Chaplin, a religious scholar, examines Pope Francis' encyclical on climate change, where the call is to change our focus from materialism to living with less. Along the way, there are presentations from political scientists, anthropologists, legal scholars, and geographers, among others, each with a discipline-specific lens. As an economist, my starting point is from an economic perspective. Those from other disciplines might have a different take.

In order to accomplish a holistic perspective, the book contains an introductory chapter followed by three parts. The introductory chapter contains synopses of each of the essays to follow. Part I, Multidisciplinary Perspectives, presents eight essays on how a variety of disciplines examine energy. The respective disciple perspectives are Political Science, Economics, Philosophy, Theology, Anthropology, History, Management, and Law. Political Scientist David Reiner, for example, notes in Chapter 2 that unlike economics, political science does not have a distinct energy subfield, nor a relatively unified perspective. In political science, realists see inherent conflicts and focus on relative gains, liberalists see the goal as maximum gains, constructivists focus on identity and social power, and Marxists put the state's support for capitalist owners of production as their starting point. The political science literature discusses aspects of energy, such as energy independence, oil conflicts and nuclear energy, but rarely energy as a whole.

Part II, Cases and Multidisciplinary Responses, contains nine additional case studies relating to nuclear power, environmental Kuznets curves, 100 percent renewables systems, carbon capture and sequestration, scaling up clean energy for data centers, public participation in energy decision-making, biofuels and their potentially destructive effects on developing country ecosystems, and Pope Francis's encyclical on climate change. Each study is done from the perspective of the specific discipline included in Part I with a critical response from a scholar in a different discipline.

Part III is the culmination of the multidisciplinary effort. It distills some lessons from the previous parts that could best be characterized as single or bi-disciplinary and begins with an essay introducing a multidisciplinary approach with its challenges and advantages. One challenge is picking a topic worthy of study from multiple disciplines. An advantage is developing a common vocabulary and linking research results. The essay distinguishes between the...