The Fonda Syndrome

Conservatives sometimes accuse the opposition on energy issues of being afraid of the future, but things are more complicated than that. Socially and culturally, the average liberal may cherish an elite slice of the present, and fear the influx of pushy nouveaux which a burgeoning economy promises. At the same time, however (or is it therefore?) he loathes or underestimates the technologies which are known and pines for ones that are yet to be born. Nuclear power is a case in point. Seventeen years ago, the SDS called for it in the Port Huron statement. Seventeen years from now there will probably be sit-ins at windmills. This curious attitude is so pervasive it appears in books as diverse as the three reviewed here.

Energy Future is the work of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School; it carries plugs on its jacket from an energy bureaucrat, a liberal economist, two professional environmentalists, and two oil-company executives. Since these are, by and large, the same people who have designed our energy present, one expects the worst.

About the Author

Richard Brookhiser

Historian Richard Brookhiser is a senior editor of National Review and a senior fellow at the National Review Institute.

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Conservatives sometimes accuse the opposition on energy issues of being afraid of the future, but things are more complicated than that. Socially and culturally, the average liberal may cherish an elite slice of the present, and fear the influx of pushy nouveaux which a burgeoning economy promises. At the same time, however (or is it therefore?) he loathes or underestimates the technologies which are known and pines for ones that are yet to be born. Nuclear power is a case in point. Seventeen years ago, the SDS called for it in the Port Huron statement. Seventeen years from now there will probably be sit-ins at windmills. This curious attitude is so pervasive it appears in books as diverse as the three reviewed here.

Energy Future is the work of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School; it carries plugs on its jacket from an energy bureaucrat, a liberal economist, two professional environmentalists, and two oil-company executives. Since these are, by and large, the same people who have designed our energy present, one expects the worst.