Written by Walter Hecht   

Mutual assured destruction or MAD was the cold war strategy of preventing nuclear war between the US and the USSR by each side threatening the other with total destruction if the other used nuclear weapons first in any conflict between the two. We have gradually moved away from MAD as both sides slowly reduce their respective nuclear arsenals. Today we face a different sort of mutual assured destruction, one using fossil fuels.

Some are advocating that we increase our exports of petroleum products and natural gas from fracking in an effort to wean our European friends and allies from a dependence on those fuels as supplied by Russia. Russia is using its status as a major energy supplier to influence the policies of its former clients and member states in Eastern Europe, particularly in the Baltic states and Ukraine. Some of our policy makers believe that we can influence Russia with sanctions and by undercutting some of its energy dominance. Perhaps we can, but it will be at great cost.

If we engage with Russia in an energy production race, it will be at the expense of both our environments, using land and water better spent on food production. What good will come from competing in and perhaps winning a fossil fuel production race if in the end we and perhaps Russia are left with devastated lands? That would truly be mutual assured destruction and it does not even begin to consider the additional environmental destruction caused by climate change and greater use of fossil fuels.

If our policy makers, supported by an informed electorate, decide that weaning Europe from Russian energy sources is a worthy cause, then we should help supply our friends and allies with additional green energy. Rather than invest in a fossil fuel competition with Russia, let us finance research and development of additional green energy, green energy that does not force us to live with a scarcity of clean water, adequate food supplies, and a degraded environment.