Tuesday was Earth Day, and it reminded us howenvironmentalism has helped to preserve the natural habitat of theUnited States — reducing the manmade pollution of our soils, air andwater that is a byproduct of comfortable modern industrial life.

But now we are in a new phase of global environmental challenges, asbillions of people across an interconnected and resource-scarce worldseek an affluent lifestyle once confined to Europe and the UnitedStates.

No longer are the old environmental questions of pollution versusconservation so simply framed. Instead, the choices facing us, at leastfor the next few decades, are not between bad and good, but between badand far worse — and involve wider questions of global security,fairness and growing scarcity.

One example of where these diverse and often complex concerns meetis the debate over transportation. Until hydrogen fuel cells orelectric batteries can power cars economically and safely, we willcontinue relying on gasoline or similar combustible fuels. But none ofour current ways of addressing the problem of transportation fuel arewithout some sort of danger.

We can, for example, keep importing a growing share of our petroleumneeds. That will ensure the global oil supply remains tight andexpensive. Less-developed, authoritarian countries like Russia, Sudanand Venezuela will welcome the financial windfall, and keep pollutingtheir tundra, coasts, deserts and lakes to pump as much as they can.

Rising world oil prices ensure that Vladimir Putin, or hishandpicked successor, can continue to bully Europe; that Venezuela’sHugo Chavez can intimidate his neighbors; that Iran’s MahmoudAhmadinejad can promise Israel’s destruction; and that al Qaeda and itsaffiliates can be funded by sympathetic Middle East sheiks. Suchregional strongmen and terrorists cease being mere thugs and evolveinto strategic threats once they have billions of petrodollars.

The United States, in taking advantage of a cheap dollar, may setrecords in exporting American goods and services this year. But we willstill end up with massive trade deficits, given that we import everyday more than 12 million barrels of oil, now at a cost of over $100each on the world market. It takes a lot of American wheat, machineryand computer software to pay a nearly half-trillion-dollar annual tabfor imported oil.

An alternative is to concentrate more on biofuels. American farmersnow are planting the largest acreage of corn in more than 60 years. Butthe result is that fuel now competes with food production — and notjust here, as Europe and South America likewise turn to ethanols.

One result is higher corn prices, which means climbing food billsfor cattle, pigs and poultry, and thus skyrocketing meat, pork, chickenand turkey prices. Plus, with more acreage devoted to corn, there isless for other crops like cotton, wheat, rice and soy — and the pricesof those commodities are soaring as well.

Americans’ increasing use of homegrown ethanol seems to be raisingthe price of food for the world’s poor, just as our importation of oilenriches the world’s already wealthy and dangerous.

What, then, is the least pernicious alternative — and the most environmentally, financially and ethically sound?

Unfortunately, for a while longer it is not just to trust inpromising new technologies like wind and solar power. For decades tocome, these will only provide a fraction of our energy needs.

Instead, aside from greater conservation, we must develop moretraditional energy resources at home. That would mean building morenuclear power plants, intensifying efforts at mining and burning coalmore cleanly — and developing more domestic oil, while retooling ourvehicles to be even lighter and more fuel-efficient.

Nuclear power poses risks of proper di
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