Hot, Flat, and Crowded

So as promised, here are some of my thoughts on Thomas Friedman's new book Hot, Flat, and Crowded which, contrary to what the title may insinuate, is not a biography on Paris Hilton. It is a detailed guide on why we need a green revolution in this country, how it can completely renew and revitalize us, and how it can once again restore our image to the rest of the world while simultaneously cementing us as an economic power throughout the next century.

Some of what is below I heard almost verbatim recited by one or both Presidential candidates on Tuesday night, and that makes me happy (if I make the colossal assumption that it was more than just lip service on their part). Most of what follows are paraphrasings of some of the main ideas in the book, with a few of my own musings thrown in. I put quotes where applicable, but for a lot of the rest I just didn't want to write "Friedman says" 100 times. Just wanted to make it clear that I'm not trying to plagiarize. In addition, I'd like to add that what I'm going to talk about is only a very, very small part of all that Friedman discusses. Some of it is controversial and some of it is just common sense; all of it is fascinating. As much as I enjoyed The World is Flat, this is better and it's not even particularly close.

Obviously, when one hears the words "green revolution" it instantly brings to mind the idea that, "oh, this is a book about global warming." Well, that's certainly a big part of it. Here Friedman presents in 27-pages probably the best synopsis on the science as far as what we know and don't know yet. He also puts forth this analogy about skeptics, which I got a big kick out of:

"Climate change deniers are like the person who goes to the doctor for a diagnosis, and when the doctor tells him 'If you don't stop smoking, there is a 90% chance you will die of lung cancer' the patient replies, 'Oh, doctor, you mean you are not 100% sure? Then I will keep smoking.'"

He also makes a very compelling case that climate change is not going to be as bad as some of the estimates out there. It's actually far more likely that it will be a lot worse.

But I don't want to harp on climate change (again) because for one my feelings on the subject have been well documented here and two that's actually not even the biggest reason Friedman convincingly gives for the US leading the charge in the green revolution.

Obviously if you are a staunch believer in man-made, carbon emmision-based climate change it's elementary to see why we would need to switch to renewables. But let's take climate change completely off the table. There's still overwhelming evidence that a switch to green technology is in our best interest. First, let's look at it from a national security standpoint. Right now we give a lot of money every day to oil barons and regimes operating in countries whose people don't like us very much. What's more, in a lot of cases the money received by these regimes is used to deny their citizens a lot of the freedoms of the Western world. If the motto of the Revolutionary War was "no taxation without representation" then the motto for a lot of these countries is "no taxation, so no representation either." Because these countries are so heavily dependent on oil revenue, they have very little motivation to invest in other industries. As a result, the people are often at the mercy of the government to support them and don't have the leverage to demand change. Taking these countries off of this type of "welfare" system would force them to change and attempt to build infrastructure and industry that competes as part of the global market. Then, and only then, will true democracy flourish in the Middle East. Some would say that the answer to that is drilling in the U.S. They are wrong. I'm not going to do the vast amounts of research to come up with completely hard numbers (because people would just argue with them anyway), but I went here for some rough estimates. Using the upper estimates of the potential oil, I come up with a grand total of 180 billion barrels of potential domestic oil (727 million barrels in the strategic reserve, 115.1 billion barrels in the OCS, 48.5 billion barrels onshore, and 16 billion in ANWR). Our consumption is over 20 million barrels per day. Some quick math reveals that even in the best case scenario we could be self sufficient for less than 2 and a half years using just our own oil. Even if our estimates are wildly off the mark and the real figure is 4 times that, we're still talking less than a decade. So, obviously if the goal is to be self-sufficient with our energy needs, renewables are a must. The stone age didn't end because we ran out of stones. It ended because we found a better way.

In addition, the energy needs of the world are escalating almost exponentially everyday thanks to the emerging markets (China and India are the headliners, but they are hardly the only ones). You also hear a lot (though probably still not enough) about the need to stifle the immense poverty in Africa but if you stop and think about what it would actually mean from an energy perspective to bring that entire continent up to first-world living standards the problem is truly daunting. So much so that a lot of people (including me for a time) have the attitude that "China and India are so big and growing so fast, it doesn't matter what efforts we undertake to curb our consumption and switch to renewables; all of our gains will easily be outweighed by their excess." I particularly like Friedman's response to this, which he gave in a speech to the Chinese at their "Green Car Congress" in 2007:

"Every year I come to China and young Chinese tell me, 'Mr. Friedman, you Americans got to grow dirty for 150 years - you got to have your Industrial Revolution based on coal and oil - now it is our turn.' Well, on behalf of all Americans, I am here today to tell you that you're right. It's your turn. Please, take your time, grow as dirty as you like for as long as you like. Take your time! Because I think my country needs only 5 years to invent all the clean power and energy efficiency tools that you, China, will need to avoid choking on pollution, and then we are going to come over and sell them all to you. We will get at least a five-year jump on you in the next great global industry: clean power and energy efficiency. We will totally dominate you in those industries. "

I realy like that because it turns everything around and turns a stick into a carrot. Instead of us acting like some world police force at a time when most of the rest of the world has had quite enough of us in that role, it transforms us yet again into a world leader on the cutting edge that challenges other countries by saying "This is the future, and we are moving towards it full speed ahead. If you want to join us now: great! We welcome the competition. But if you want to carry on like you have been and risk falling behind again right at the moment when you were just starting to catch up, that's fine with us too." The problem, of course, is that at the moment we are not going "full speed ahead."

In the early 1960s, President Kennedy made a bold declaration that we would put a man on the moon by the end of the decade. It was obvious that this was at least in part driven by the Cold War. Even though the moon clearly offered no strategic military position, the humbling and helpless feeling the American people felt by having to look up at the sky and see Sputnik circling the Earth was enough to spur us into collective action. It spurred us to invest heavily in science, technology, and education in an effort to win the space race. Succesfully landing on the moon may have been the public face of the success that type of investment bred, but it certainly wasn't limited to just that.

Similar to the space race, we now need a green race. We need leadership that sets a lofty goal that the U.S. can rally behind. Collectively, I believe that we are still the most industrious people on the planet when it comes to working towards, fighting for, and sacrificing in the name of a cause we believe in. I believe that this is that cause.

And there will be sacrifices that need to be made; at least at first. Change is never comfortable, and there will be at least as many bad ideas that get implemented as there will be good ones. Great novels and great programs don't get written in one draft. But by investing in the next great global industry, we will not only be putting ourselves in position to dominate the global economy for the 21st century, we have the opportunity to once again bring manufacturing jobs back home. Maybe GM and Ford will never again enjoy the market share they once did, but instead of cars their assembly line workers can certainly put together solar panels or parts for wind turbines. The idea of bringing outsourced industries back onshore is folly; building infrastructure towards the next industry is vision.

This is a pivotal point in the history of mankind, and I shudder to think of what will happen if we fail to take advantage of this opportunity. To that point, Friedman quotes Jeffrey Immelt (CEO of GE): "I have always believed that every generation looks back at the generation before it and has one big question about something they did or did not do. For our generation, the big question to the generation before us was 'How could good people be so prejudiced against blacks and women?' I am convinced that when our kids are fifty, and they look back at us, they are going to ask: 'What were you thinking?' You were the richest country in the world. You had the technology to really make a difference on things like global warming. Why were you so slow to do the right things?'"

So, is it already too late? I don't think so. I can't; because really at that point all there is to do is despair. I prefer to think along the lines of Amory Lovins (Chief Scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute):

"We have exactly enough time - starting now."