I'm late to the Thomas Friedman bandwagon, but it's never too late to save the planet. Actually, it might be. That's one of the most important messages of Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Friedman's environmental manifesto. The first half lays out the problem, and suffice it to say that we're in deep caca on every imaginable front. It's not just global warming--or "global weirding," as Friedman describes extreme climate change--it's diminishing biodiversity, swelling global populations, shrinking access to clean water, and a whole host of other nasty things. The sum total of all this is that the world is becoming hot (global warming), flat (with globalization and new technologies leveling the economic playing field), and crowded--our planet now supports about 6.5 billion people and that is expected to grow to 9.2 billion in 2050.
To prove all this, Friedman takes one of those enviable but surely exhausting journeys around the world, traveling to India, Indonesia, Iraq, Bahrain, China, Russia, and elsewhere. One of the most interesting portions of the book deals with "petropolitics," Friedman's term for the ways in which oil, power, freedom, and ecology interact. For example,he argues that predominately Muslim nations are not at all the same in how they treat women, encourage or discourage democracy, or pursue scientific progress. The differences don't have to do with varying interpretations of shariah law so much as they reflect the presence or absence of oil: when oil is present and nations are rich, petrodespots take control and crush the opposition. And this isn't only true of Muslim nations; he also points to Russia and Venezuela as countries where there is a pattern of inverse relationships between oil and freedom. When oil was $20 a barrel, Russia was the most democratic it's ever been. Whenever it is oil-rich, the government behaves as though its people are an expendable commodity.
There are many environmental books that tell us how we peons, in our small way, can help save the planet by turning off lights, taking showers instead of baths, toting canvas bags, and driving Prii. This is not that book. In fact, Friedman rather snarkily mocks books with titles like 1001 Little Ways to Save Our Planet because he says that all of these mini-efforts, rather than adding up to equal a profound social change, simply cannot replace the leadership of good government. A grassroots approach is certainly green, but not green enough.
We have to innovate our way out of this problem, and this is where the book gets truly depressing. Friedman points out that America hasn't had any large-scale progress in new energy sources in about 50 years, and that our government's refusal to take the lead in ecological matters has not only endangered our planet (duh) but also our economy (admittedly less obvious). In a fascinating and ultimately persuasive argument, he looks to our government's refusal to cultivate other energy sources as a backhanded way of undermining our own efforts in this decade's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. By refusing to tax gasoline after 9/11, our government simultaneously undermined the development of green cars AND put billions of dollars in the hands of the same Saudi lords who sponsor Al-Qaeda. Oy vey.
I found the book to be compelling and generally well-executed, but incomplete. The second half, which argues that America will only regain its position as a world leader if we step up to out-green the rest of the world, is not as well developed as the first. So I felt great interest when I learned that Friedman is writing a new chapter to the book based on reader ideas--all to the end of encouraging environmental innovation and breakthrough developments that will drastically reduce America's dependence on foreign oil while also repairing the ecological balance we and other nations have so carelessly damaged.
This is not a perfect book,and it's clear that Friedman has an agenda. Written in the waning days of the Bush administration, it shows considerable disdain for our former president, so much so that I worry that the very people who ought to read the book will refuse to because of its obvious partisanship. It also has no endnotes, which is a problem for anyone who wants to learn more or follow up on some of Friedman's cited statistics. Still, it breaks new ground in its big-picture connections between politics, the environment, and technological innovation. Four stars.
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