EARTH — 1976 — Energy production has tripled in the last quarter century. Oil companies, still reeling from gas station lines, are pumping out crude. The US uses a third of all energy and nine times more gasoline per capita than the world average. But then. . .

A small man writes a small article in Foreign Affairs. “Energy Strategy: The Road Not Taken” suggests two roads ahead, the “hard path” and “the soft path.”