According to many of my friends, the cover should have pictured a polar bear stranded on a tiny, shrinking iceberg. True, climate change will harm polar bears, and perhaps they will survive global warming only in zoos. But this book focuses on the power of the polar bear.

Ironically, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) understands this power better than many environmentalists do. In fact, OPEC is fighting the bear—currently represented rather poorly by the Kyoto Protocol—tooth and nail. I am not talking about OPEC’s high prices, which actually help the bear, but rather their opposition to carbon taxes.

For over three decades, concerns about energy security have failed to stimulate the global cooperation required to defeat OPEC. But concerns about climate are having a greater impact. If environmentalists and proponents of energy security realize that the polar bear is their one best hope, they can save the climate, defeat OPEC, and save consumers hundreds of billions of dollars a year in payments to OPEC and Big Oil. This book explains how.

Below the bear, a few OPEC ministers pose for a photo during the 146th OPEC conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on December 5, 2007. The New York Times reported that "Saudi Arabia had initially said the group might consider increasing output by 500,000 barrels a day, but backed down amid the opposition of other OPEC members." Apparently OPEC was satisfied with the price at that time—$88 a barrel. No doubt, they were delighted when the price passed $100 a barrel a short time later.

OPEC photo by Kamran Jebreili/AP. The polar bear photo is owned by the Aflo Company, which provides no information about the bear, although it is almost certainly in a zoo.