You argue that the Bush administration should impose a fixed price of $4-a-gallon gas to accelerate consumer trends toward hybrids. First of all, wouldn't that have disproportionate effects on low-income families with long commutes?

There are millions of ways to compensate for that with tax rebates. For people who earn a set amount of income and also those who are professionally dependent on low gas prices -- truckers, cab drivers, and so on -- you set up a rebate system that would basically refund part of the tax. At the end of the year, those who qualify would get money back.

Still, wouldn't a gas tax be political suicide? Given the outrage over rising gas prices, wouldn't people revolt?

I don't think there's actually that much outrage -- show me the outrage. This is about leadership. The hallmark of George Bush's presidency is that he's never asked Americans, let alone his own base, to do anything hard. And a president like that is going to leave nothing behind. He needs to say, "This is something that is going to drive our reform agenda, pay down our deficit, strengthen our international standing, leave a greener earth for your kids, and make us energy independent." He could bring the whole country around. As my friend Michael Mandelbaum says, this is not win-win, it's win-win-win-win-win. This would be the equivalent of Kennedy's moon shot for the Bush administration. They'd get every young kid in the country excited about going into science and engineering and making us energy independent. It would vastly improve our reputation in Europe.

Besides a gas tax, what other methods for reducing energy dependence would you propose?

I'd focus on two other things: I would begin building more nuclear power, and I'd have a carbon tax on coal and all high-emission energies that would raise their cost and make wind and solar much more cost-efficient.

What about regulatory initiatives like CAFE [corporate average fuel economy] standards?

That to me is captured by the [gas] tax because that makes hybrids a necessity and forces Detroit to convert large amounts of its fleet to hybrid technology -- you drive the CAFE issue using a different mechanism.

What about feebates -- the idea that people who buy fuel-inefficient cars pay a charge and people who buy energy-efficient cars get a rebate?

I love that idea. And while we're at it, I think it should be against the law to drive a Hummer. My mantra is very simple: If you want to drive a Hummer, go to Iraq.

You say we need to ramp up nuclear power, but how would you deal with the storage and security problems it poses?

We're going to have to bury it in a mountain in Nevada, and Nevada is going to have to suck it up. That's how I would deal with it. The risk of climate change by continuing to rely on hydrocarbons is so much greater than the risk of nuclear power.

What's the timeline on all of this? Realistically how quickly could we implement these proposals and see the rewards?

I think we could do it in the blink of an eye. If the president got behind this, imagine what leaps and bounds he could make. Imagine if George Bush did a Nixon-to-China and he brought the coalition together, bringing neocons and geo-greens together. It would be historic. He's got the Congress. He's got the White House. He has all the power necessary to do this.

But would he?

Well, probably not. But my point to him would be: What are you doing? What would your presidency be remembered for? The deficit? The tax giveaway? A failed attempt to privatize Social Security so we can have no stockbroker left behind? Geo-greenism is smart geopolitics, it's smart fiscal policy, it's smart climate policy. But most of all, it's smart politics! The Republican Party is much greener than George Bush or Dick Cheney. Even evangelicals are increasingly speaking out about the need for us to protect God's green Earth. If you're obsessed with the right to life, you have to be obsessed with sustaining the environment -- that is also God's creation. He didn't create human beings to live in parking lots.

I can see that members of the conservative elite are cottoning to this idea -- the Energy Future Coalition, for instance -- but what about industry leaders and the oil-industry execs who have so much pull in the White House? What do they think about your idea?

Most business leaders get it, but the oil-industry guys -- I don't talk to them.

It's hard to believe that this idea is sinking in among the powers that be of other major industries. Just last month we heard news that Detroit is now making SUV engines bigger and less efficient, so that a Grand Cherokee can go from 0 to 60 as fast as a Porsche.

It takes leadership, it takes the bully pulpit. It requires a new mind-set, and I think the American people and industries are there to be led.

It would also put us in a far better position to lead the rest of the world.

Exactly. As it is, we have no moral standing to lecture anybody today to conserve energy. There's immense diplomatic value in removing our dependence on Middle East oil for that reason: Our own energy policy has tied our hands. Our politicians can't push for democratic reform in that region because our economy hinges on the oil we're buying from them. A geo-green strategy would buy us political freedom. And imagine how we would embarrass and stimulate the Chinese: "Hey, we're doing this, you've got to do this now too." We're heading for a colossal global struggle with China over oil, and this would be a way to get the upper hand.

Your columns on geo-greenism generally describe the concept in terms of its foreign-policy advantages rather than its environmental advantages. Why?

I'm trying to bring in a whole new constituency. I'm not worried about the environmental community that's already concerned about climate change, as I am. I'm trying to educate a whole different part of the populace to get them to connect these dots.

Could you tell us about your personal connection to the environment? What kind of lifestyle decisions have you made to reduce your own oil consumption?

We live in a big house in Bethesda, [Md.,] but our home is heated and cooled by geothermal. We drilled some 30 wells in our backyard. We tried to do solar but couldn't get the capacity -- there wasn't enough sun to make it possible. We bought a Prius right after 9/11, and we just got a Honda Civic hybrid. I have one of the Lexus hybrids on order -- I'll be one of the first in the group to get those, probably within a month. Environmental awareness is very much a part of our household. My wife is on the board of Conservation International; it's the biggest check we write every year.

How do we best get the mainstream to move in this direction? Is the media doing enough to raise awareness?

We can write about it seven days a week, but if the bully pulpit isn't talking about it, it's very hard to get a national movement. Nobody has a bully pulpit more influential than the president. When he talks about Social Security, everyone in the country is talking about it. The New York Times and the Washington Post are not going to start a movement. Four dollar-a-gallon gas will. People would have no choice but to change their behavior. In reality, most people don't change when you tell them they should. They change when they tell themselves they must.

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