Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why The World Needs A Green Revolution - and How We Can Renew Our Global Future [Hardcover]

The basic argument of `Hot, Flat and Crowded' is that the world is facing a series of challenges. ('Flat' refers to the internet creating a more level playing field) "Global warming, the stunning rise of middle classes all over the world, and rapid population growth have converged in a way that could make our planet dangerously unstable." As a result, we face the threat of energy poverty, petro-dictators, a biodiversity crisis, and climate change.

In his analysis, Friedman is great, but his solutions are way off the mark. His main answer is that America must ride to the rescue. Forgetting that the US is most responsible for our current crisis and has shown less inclination to fix it than almost any other country, it must now become "a beacon of hope and the country that can always be counted on to lead the world in response to whatever is the most important issue of the day."

Okay then. The US will lead us all out of crisis by going green, and this it will do by creating a smart national grid and by creating the right conditions for investment in renewable energy. Personal action and lifestyle changes will not be required.

Friedman's linking of the green agenda and nationalism is rather squirm inducing, although no doubt great for getting conservatives on side. To a non-American, it sounds like jingoism.

As well as being about national power, going green is also about "making America richer". Friedman cannot conceive of a future without infinite growth, no matter how at odds that might be with a true environmental awareness. "I start from the bedrock principle that we as a global society need more and more growth" he writes. That 'bedrock principle' is a very bad foundation for a book about sustainability.

Having said all that, `Hot, Flat, and Crowded' is still a good book. There is some enlightening material on China and India. He deals with conservation and biodiversity loss, often forgotten in the climate change debate. The book is full of useful examples and on-the-ground perspectives. Friedman hasn't won the Pulitzer Prize three times for nothing. Wrong he may often be, but he is one of the most interesting and insightful wrong people writing today.

If you oppose conservation and clean energy, I wonder why you would. Typical concerns relate to when conservation and clean energy reduce economic growth or reduce profits for some special interest in the near term. Longer term, most people would agree that conservation and clean energy make sense.

Journalist and social activist Thomas L. Friedman could have written a much shorter book if he had simply started with the premise that it's a good idea to have conservation and clean energy. He spends most of the book providing arguments in favor of those approaches.

Those arguments are related to these propositions:

1. Rising carbon dioxide levels are either causing global warming and more violent weather . . . or will at some point fairly soon.
2. Rapid population growth and concentration into urban areas are making pollution a greater problem.
3. Fast economic growth in the developing world is accelerating pollution.
4. Natural environments are disappearing at a rapid rate, taking with them weather-dampening resources and species which might have value that we don't yet appreciate.
5. Free markets encourage polluting rather than nonpolluting solutions.
6. Extractive energy sources encourage dictatorships, terrorism, and harm to women.

Most of these points are exemplified by an anecdote from when Mr. Friedman talked to someone while on a speaking tour, was traveling from country to country, or was helicoptering around to see some sight that interested him. Much of this book has a travelogue aspect, even though it is a book about social change.

When Mr. Friedman gets into his arguments in favor of laws, regulations, and tax incentives, his thesis is sometimes contradictory. He argues that it is more profitable to use conservation and clean energy, yet cites lots of business leaders who seem to say that they won't employ those methods unless forced to by laws, regulations, and tax incentives. That argument didn't make sense to me. It also seems like many countries are already using laws, regulations, and tax incentives to encourage conservation and clean energy use. If those approaches are a good idea, there should be all kinds of incentives to change.

The crux of Mr. Friedman's argument in favor of these governmental changes is that it is critical that the United States do more in these areas than anyone else for the following reasons:

1. It will be a competitive disadvantage to lag in these areas.
2. Economic growth in the United States depends on creating a large clean energy and conservation industry.
3. Safety from the Muslim world depends on these activities, as well.
4. Other countries will do more in these areas if the U.S. goes first.
5. People in other countries will support more change if U.S. consumers are making these changes.

The major flaw in this thesis is that the United States government can make such a large change and sustain it for several decades. Since the 1960s, there has been little consensus in the United States on any changes other than ones that favor growth of individual incomes and wealth in the short term.

The current economic crisis will put a heavy burden on economic growth for many years to come. The pending retirement of the baby boom generation will be an even heavier weight to carry.

I suspect that there will be little appetite for government to lead such changes.

Ultimately, I suspect that a more likely path to success in making these changes would be for state, city, and county governments to boycott suppliers who don't use clean energy and employ good conservation practices. Action at those levels of government often works, doesn't take a long time, and is already being successful in areas like California.

I praise Mr. Friedman for wanting to encourage conservation and use of clean energy, but I fear that he needs to spend more time thinking about how to do that . . . and less time on arguing for national changes in U.S. laws, regulations, and tax incentives. With our political system, I think he is whistling in the dark.

What do you think?

On the whole, this book resembles a televangelist's Sunday morning sermon. It is full of passion, action and emotion. The "preacher," The New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, exhorts a congregation of true believers with a rousing endorsement of their shared faith, hitting all the familiar themes, stories and touchstones, plus a heartfelt environmental alert. Even for nonbelievers, the spectacle is impressive. Friedman is a skilled coiner of phrases and he sure can work a crowd. To judge by the many interviews and conversations referenced in this book, he has gone to great effort to assemble a corpus of evidence in support of his argument. Baldly put, his message is that conventional wisdom about global warming is true: Because of irresponsible consumption, the world faces an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented magnitude. He explains that George W. Bush's administration was unconscionably negligent in this crisis, that most honest scientists agree something must be done, and that climate change deniers are mostly hirelings in the service of the oil industry or ideological conservatives unwilling to face facts. For any reader reasonably acquainted with the news media, much of what Friedman says, though urgent, will be somewhat familiar. However, getAbstract notes, he always has a strikingly entertaining and persuasive way of saying it.