The Biden administration’s climate policy has lost touch with reality. U.S. living standards and national security rely on the continuing, affordable flow of hydrocarbon energy sources—oil, gas, and coal. These energy sources lifted millions of people out of poverty and darkness. They remain indispensable to American life. In response to the Ukraine crisis and attendant upheavals in international oil and gas markets, Biden has introduced a series of half-measures to stave off critics. These measures remain utterly inadequate. We have an administration that is perversely hostile to the domestic production of oil and gas. The answer is not to split the difference between a sane climate policy and an insane one. Rather, the answer is for conservatives to offer a fundamental alternative that among other things unleashes the production of oil and gas in North America. This can be done in a way that is environmentally sound. Rather than fearing climate science, conservatives should embrace it. Its implications aren’t what you think.

Colin Dueck is a Professor in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University, and a senior non-resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Image: Reuters.