Fracking isn’t going away.

To put it another way, the technique of hydraulic fracturing, used to extract natural gas from once-impossible-to-get-at reservoirs like the Marcellus Shale that lies beneath New York and Pennsylvania, has more than proved its value. At this point, shale gas, as it’s called, makes up more than 30 percent of the country’s natural gas supply, up from 2 percent in 2001 — a figure that is sure to keep rising. Fracking’s enemies can stamp their feet all they want, but that gas is too important to leave it in the ground.

Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund, understands this as well as anyone. Last summer, he was a member of a small federal advisory panel that was charged by Steven Chu, the secretary of energy, with assessing the problems associated with fracking. The group came up with a long list of environmental issues. But it also concluded that “the U.S. shale gas resource has enormous potential to provide economic and environmental benefits for the country.”

One thing I’ve always liked about the Environmental Defense Fund is its hardheaded approach. Founded by scientists, it believes in data, not hysteria. It promotes market incentives to change behavior and isn’t afraid to work with industry. Utterly nonpartisan, it is oriented toward practical policy solutions.

And that has been its approach to fracking. When I spoke to him recently, Krupp didn’t back away from the idea that domestic natural gas could be the “bridge fuel” that helps bring us toward a renewable energy future. Unlike others in the environmental movement, he and his colleagues at the Environmental Defense Fund don’t want to shut down fracking; rather, their goal is to work with the states where most of the shale gas lies and help devise smart regulations that would make fracking environmentally safer.