A Final Question
At last we have a new president—and one who obviously "gets it" about the need for America to change over to a Clean Energy system and renew our national ideals and sense of purpose in the process. With that in mind, I am now going to begin to revise and update Hot, Flat, and Crowded for a new edition and to write the new chapter, Chapter 18. Thanks to all for your contributions; I’ll take up a number of them in the new chapter.
A final question: What is President Obama leaving out? What should he do on the clean energy front that he isn’t already doing?
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With the #1 bestseller The World Is Flat, he helped millions of readers see and understand globalization in a new way. Now Thomas L. Friedman explains how America can lead the green revolution in the 21st century.
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Thanks for sharing. i really appreciate it that you shared with us such a informative post.. Also a nice debate .
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I have an idea that might be a good bridge to the high tech super clean energy economy of the future. First of all I should say I believe the energy source of the future will use the internal combustion engine because it's so ubiquitous. Perhaps it will come from algae or some other microorganism but regardless I've had an idea for how we can plausibly use the hydrogen fuel cell.
Niger has a lot of problems, chief among them the growing Sahara desert, oodles of uranium within its borders and poor people who may eventually have to resort to selling that uranium to support themselves. I think what an international group of investors should do is invest in a massive multi-reactor nuclear power infrastructure in the deserts of Niger, using the uranium from within the country. This power could then be brought to the coast to split hydrogen atoms from water molecules, creating the fuel we all need to power the least environmentally damaging engine we've yet created that can actually work the way we want. Alternately you could have a pump system transporting sea water to the desert aquifers in Niger that are depleted, and use that. Either way, it would give an incentive to the people of Niger to keep their yellow cake and it would help the region economically. Most importantly, we'd need oil less.
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January 26th 2010, 9:21 pm
The biggest worry that the earth should concern itself is that of population growth. I watched a program just a couple of weeks ago by Sir David Attenborough. One only needs to look at the measures that China brought in to see what can be done. Obviously the vast majority of countries can't do this as they don't have power over their people like China does but for many African countries the expectation is that many will triple in population size within 50 years. Quite a scary thought!
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The need for establishing a better life is to pay attention to what we know, listening to scientists, and act on it in a sensible manner. Charles Darwin said, Quote” It is not those who not so much but rather those who know so little that so positively assert that this or that thing will not be solved by science.” Now with the internet, everyone is a rabble-rouser, inflicting senseless opinions based on nothing more than a single item of information set in their dense matter otherwise known as a brain, as fact. As I campaigned for Barrack Obama, and having never done anything like that before, I was shocked at how people are “one issue” voters. To make our country better, we need to establish a system, a new way of thinking. Not being so narrow minded.
We have been overcapitalizing for years and a church marquee I saw that said it all, “The root of all evils is our love for money.” As a country, we allowed many things to happen that have helped destroy the very fabric of our lives. Allowing the import of so many goods and the outsourcing of factories has globalized us to such an extent that we can no longer hold together the economy. We are all in it for a buck, the almighty dollar, and what we need now is a shift the other way.
Sustainability is the key; however, this has become a word used by companies, just as the word “green” is, used as a marketing tool. We cannot change without positive action; an absolute way of showing people that change is possible. I would like to see a model community developed, from scratch, utilizing not just sustainability form the standpoint of building, but rather a holistic approach. A community built around businesses and people that are willing to do whatever is necessary to set a guideline, a community set on principles that are set in law. The homes would produce the power for the community, not only solar or wind, but also by individual hydrogen units that would allow the community to be the power plant. Hydrogen used for heating, cooking, and cars, rather than nuclear plants that supply power to entire states. Recycling is something that is a staple too, but also that the community as a whole would be self sufficient, or at least as much as humanly possible. However, avoid having it grow too large, and having each modular community linked in commerce and art.
Rather that always thinking on such a grand scale, we need to think smaller. The Native Americans realized that communities could not keep growing exponentially, and after a point, the tribe would separate or break up into smaller tribes. Cities as we know it have to change, as we can no longer have such massive metropolises, linked by equally huge suburbs. We do not currently live with our environment, but rather dominate it. The whole world cannot have a western way of living, as it just does not have the resources, and it is up to us to show the world that we too do not have to live outside ours means. A five thousand square foot home, with two people living in it, is status, not sensible. A person living in a small flat in England, or a family living in an 800 square foot home in Japan, sees America as a country of greed and wealth. It is that greed and love for money that has set the world economy, not just ours, into the present state of being. Why ship a shirt from China, or Japan, when we can drive to a small factory within, our just outside our community.
Mr. Freidman, I saw you on Larry King, and thought you had the right ideas. I look forward to reading your books.
November 24th 2009, 4:18 am
I am in absolute agreement with the comments of Jeff Thompson and Marianne about the absence of discussion concerning human population growth and the current dialogue both environmental and economical. It was certainly absent from Al Gore's, "Inconvenient Truth."
I've been puzzled by this for years; it seems to be the most critical element and the fundamental basis for many, I would say, all, of our problems, yet we can not talk about controlling human population.
I am not so naive to not understand why, nor am I at all hopeful that such discussion will ever take place.
This debate can not be broached without massive out-cry from all sorts of religious sects and screams of imposing on civil liberties, etc, etc.
This discussion requires an evolution of a our species beyond religious, egocentric views.
I'm 46; don't see it happening in my lifetime.
Thank you.
Susan J.T.
November 22nd 2009, 3:36 pm
Mr. Friedman - I agree with the writer who wrote that your book does not emphasize the control of human population growth enough. Most of the environmental problems you cite in your book stem directly or indirectly from human population growth. The fastest and cheapest way of improving the environment would be to stem the exploding birthrate. Read Paul Ehrlich, he says it all and has been saying it for 30 years.
Nonetheless, your book is fantastic. I wish it could be required reading for every Anmerican.
Jeff Thompson
October 26th 2009, 10:36 am
Why can't clean water be supplied across the globe? If we can move oil through pipelines, why not water? Governments and businesses could take ocean water and pipe it where needed. At the endpoints, desalinization and purification plants could process the water for use. Accessible, clean water could change the world. In addition, ocean levels may be lowered in the process- preventing one of the dire consequences of global warming. Is this a pipedream? Except for cost (!!!!!) and desire, it seems reasonable.
Regards, form single Russian girl
September 22nd 2009, 5:44 am
Thomas -
I heard you speak this week at DeAnza College. Fantastic lecture -- thank you! I believe you are missing a potential, at least partial, cure to our climate and biodiversity problem: human population growth must be slowed. You cite population explosion as a reason we need a green revolution. True enough. But, I'm puzzled why you do not advocate dramatic slowing of population growth as one tactic. We wouldn't need to create as many power plants if there weren't such a growth in population. We wouldn't be crowding out as many natural habits and as many species if human population weren't sprawling all over the globe.
I'm sure you see the point, but am puzzled why you haven't flagged population control as one of the solutions we must pursue. Population control does not have be done through draconian means. We could use education and tax incentives, for example. What if we gave tax breaks to families without children, instead of the other way around? What if we had a UN committee on low global population growth?
Slowing population growth would seem like such an obvious course of action to pursue that I am puzzled by your not mentioning it. Is it because of the moral and ethical considerations we would have to grapple with? Is it because you think we are not up to the task? Is it because you do not trust humanity to pursue lowering population growth in a humane fashion?
I know you are insanely busy, but would love to have a dialogue with you on this one. I think it is an important topic that we cannot shy away from.
Marianne
September 13th 2009, 10:11 am
Could you include in your final chapter re-write a comment upon Robert Reich's supercapitalism and the need to move the debate to industry wide regulations to prevent the misdirection of public focus.
He argues forcefully that the spheres of business and politics must be kept distinct. He calls for an end to the legal fiction that corporations are citizens, as well as the illusion that corporations can be "socially responsible" until laws define social needs. Reich explains why we must stop treating companies as if they were people—and must therefore abolish the corporate income tax and levy it on shareholders instead, hold individuals rather than corporations guilty of criminal environmental conduct, and not expect companies to be "green." For, as Reich says, only people can be citizens, and only citizens should be allowed to participate in democratic decision making.
And to further his thought, if the sphere of US laws is the US, and the sphere of companies are global, how much longer until we take a serious look at extending US Federalism to the Globe to confront global issues?
August 24th 2009, 2:14 pm
While it would be great if America underwent a paradigm shift from being a country of consumers to a country of conservationist, but we have to take practical steps to bring about change. We speak so much about energy conservation, but we also have to be aware of the landfill impact that we've created. I believe one simple and practical step is to use alternatives than plastics and styrofoam products that clutter our oceans and lands. I've found products like biodegradable cups and food containers eliminate waste substantially. Real products that work check out www.green-tooth.com and their biodegradable cups have worked really well for me. http://www.green-tooth.com/biodegradable-cups....
Additional alternatives is to use recycled products. Simple ideas like flags from recycled plastic is such a novel concept and one that can go a long ways. Look at these http://www.republic-flag.com/green-flag.html from http://www.republic-flag.com/. Anyhow just some practical steps that I've included in my life and think we all can learn
August 18th 2009, 2:52 pm
I recently read a book called The 12 Caesars (great book) and it quoted either Cicero or Cato (I always get them mixed up) in ancient Rome. He said something like: Every politician is compromised, every contract is for sale, every day the citizens of Rome get shortchanged.
2000 years ago, and it was like it was written yesterday. I know it's a sweeping statement to say End Corruption and clean out the cesspool that is Washington, but can a clean energy program really work when there are those who make billions of dollars (a quarter) who are not behind it?
July 14th 2009, 2:02 pm
There is only one thing that will save us...and that is a fundamental change in our thinking. A true paradigm shift. Albert Einstein said it best, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." With all due respect, the ideas offered so far are just more of the same...build more power plants, dig more uranium, deface more desert. More, more, more.
Earth is over-populated with humans and will just continue to get worse because, unlike rabbits or rats, we have no natural predators to manage our population. We need to stop mindlessly procreating ...we have the free will to do so and can make the choice. Education is key.
One of the most impressive minds of our time, Dr. Stephen Hawking, has said, "I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space." And maybe that is one way to look at it...we should just abandon Earth and go mess up some other unsuspecting planet. But I truly believe that the human race has the capacity to stop squabbling about the small stuff and embrace the larger collective good right here on this planet. It will take a monumental shift...almost like a new religion. The mind set must be broadened from "me" to "we"...and that "we" includes the entire Earth, without political boundaries. Our thinking cannot be about the next 25 years or the next 100...we must look at the next 1000 years and design a global society built on sustainability of existing resources and the development of new, as yet undiscovered, technologies and sciences (I don't know the right words for this). We need the dreamers and the visionaries...the ones who say, "what if...?" I don't believe that this fundamental shift in thinking will happen in my lifetime...our political and business leaders are still wrapped up in the "us versus them" syndrome, which will take another generation or two to change. I wish it was otherwise. But, I believe we can start, and that the answers are available to us, if only we have the eyes to see and the courage to act now.
May 27th 2009, 9:58 pm
We have all been hearing about the mass closing of Chrysler and GM dealers; Ford likely to follow Suit. How about moving Tesla, Better Place, Zap, Mini E, Aptera, Fisker, and the host of up-and-comers into these vacant lots? The supporting infrastructure is sure to follow.
May 27th 2009, 2:59 am
Thank you for a fantastic book. I feel like biodiesel is hugely overlooked. Beyond the greenhouse gas advantages there are huge efficiencies in distribution and supply-control.
Obama should elucidate for americans that their current child behavior impacts the entire world's future.
May 22nd 2009, 4:28 pm
Mr. Friedman,
I have enjoyed your books and really appreciate the insights that you provide.
As an American with degrees in Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, International Management, and Nuclear Engineering, I am extremely disappointed that the comments listed here from your readers have largely ignored the absolute best alternative for clean energy that we have--nuclear powr.
Nuclear power has been given a bad rap in this country. If you ask the person on the street about nuclear power, they will quickly respond with "it is not a good idea" and cite Chernobyl and Three Mile Island.
The two events could not be more different. The former was indeed a disaster, brought about by poor reactor design and (literally) untrained operators. It cost lives and forced generations of people to move from the only home they had ever known. Three Mile Island, on the other hand, was really just an industrial incident. No one died. No one got cancer. In fact, the single greatest risk to the people in the surrounding community was the evacuation brought on by incompetent government decision makers.
Here are some other points of clarification that need to be shared with the people:
A reactor CANNOT explode like a nuclear weapon. It is physically impossible.
Someone cannot pull a truck up to a reactor, steal the fuel rods from the core, and make a nuclear weapon.
The burning of coal in a power plant releases more radioactivity into the environment than a nuclear power plant of the same size.
The fission of a single uranium atom releases over 1,000,000 times the energy released from the burning of a molecule of coal.
Reactors can be designed to shut down automatically, without operator intervention, when they approach the limits of design parameters.
Building reactors will make the country safer by limiting our dependence on foreign oil. (It is important to note that over 40% of the world's uranium reserves are in Austrailia, Canada, and the US.)
Uranium reserves could last several hundred years without fuel reprocessing. With fuel reprocessing, since reactors can create more fuel than they burn, reserves could easily last hundreds of thousands of years.
Radiation is present everywhere, emanating from the banana you eat, the brick walls of your house, and the campfire you use to cook marshmellows. If you live in a brick house in the mountains in Colorado, you will get more radiation than the person who lives downwind from a nuclear reactor in south Texas. But, not to worry, the small amount of radiation we receive from our environments actually helps our body by stimulating the system that allows our cells to isolate the abnormal cells that we all have so they cannot reproduce.
Not reprocessing fuel is a bad idea. Unreprocessed fuel will remain radioactive indefinitely because of the uranium and plutonium present (after all, uranium has been around for billions of years). However, if the uranium and plutonium are extracted from the spent fuel, it can be burned in the reactor as fuel. The rest of the radioactive material can be stored and will be relatively harmless in a few hundred years.
Nuclear power costs are comparable to coal. And if people want even cheaper power all they have to do is stop groups from intoducing litigation when faced with the prospect of a nuclear power plant being built in their neighborhood. This is the "Not in my backyard" mentality.
The government and nuclear scientists need to make a concerted effort to educate the public about the facts of nuclear power.
As someone who wants to leave a better world for my children and grandchildren when my time is done, I wish that you would research nuclear power. You would readily discern that America's (and the world's) best fuel alternative is nuclear power.
MAJ Buckley O'Day, student, Command and General Staff College, Fort Belvoir, Virginia
The views expressed in this blog response are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
May 17th 2009, 12:22 pm
Saving energy is the most cost effective way to reduce greenhouse gases - and one particular concept has a huge impact because it is aimed at where we consume most: building efficiency. The Pasive House concept developped by Dr. Wolfgang Feist and Bo Adamson is simple, feasible with todays technology and works in nearly all climatic conditions. The proof: 24% of all new flats in Vienna are built by this standard in 2009, Frankfurt am Main is investing in public buildings only if they meet pasive house criteria. Why? Because the average extra investment cost of 4-8% (depending on building type) pays itself from day 1.
As architects we now only build such buildings - not to do so would be irresponsible towards investors and ourselves.
Bjorn Kierulf, Slovakia
May 3rd 2009, 5:54 pm
Tom:
When do you expect to complete Chapter 18? Will it be at the book store or on the internet?
April 20th 2009, 5:01 pm
... let me add to my last entry regarding Clean Tech/Energy initiatives... we must now make a long term commitment (15 years of the proper price signals [investment/subsidies])... so that American companies especially would grow/scale their new Clean Tech businesses without fear of things changing with every Presidential/Congressional election cycle. Thomas your excellent example (Hot,Flat, and Crowded) of the American company, First Solar Inc (Thin Film Solar manufacturer), really shows what happens when the American government does not support these new industries... this company needed to scale their markets to survive/thrive... they had to turn to the German government (long-term 20 yr solar industry investment commitment) for help. Maybe we should just let more unsustainable companies fail (instead of the recent U.S. auto organization bail-outs)... they could re-tool with new viable business plans, and begin manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, geo-thermal pumps, etc.?
April 19th 2009, 8:15 pm
What is President Obama leaving out regarding Clean Tech/Energy for the USA? Clean Tech/Energy initiatives and implementations starting at the U.S. federal level... we now need National leadership guiding all the states & counties to set these standards/mandates (dramatically increase renewable energy sources & reduce the dirty fuels, nationally integrated grid, green building codes on all buildings, 35+ auto MPG, energy efficiencies & conservation, Cap & Trade [Carbon tax], set price signals for dirty/clean energies [will finally set our unique innovation, investment, employment, and markets in forward motion], etc.) The USA National leadership must be BOLD, DECISIVE, and QUICK (less debate & deliberation) to act, or other countries (Germany, Japan, China, etc.) will develop the upcoming Clean Tech/Energy before us! What can we all do now in the interim? "51% of USA Clean Energy is CONSERVATION and Energy Efficiency... greater than all the solar, wind, biomass, bio-fuel, and geothermal combined!" HowDoUconserve... learn & share how you can economize your conservation @Home to maximize your savings and reduce environmental impacts...
http://www.howdouconserve.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/pihlenfe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BBuVD_c-s6o
April 11th 2009, 10:24 pm
Obama's plan to double renewable energy is a step in the right direction. Although the goal of doubling renewable energy to 0.8% is only a drop in the bucket, I'm happy to see someone at the top make this a high priority. Now let's see if the trickle down effect works.
April 10th 2009, 3:38 pm
What Obama really needs to do is something that will work by the end of the next decade. His plan to "double" renewable energy won't make a difference, since wind & solar are so small. Doubling 0.4% of our energy to 0.8% is too little, too late.
http://www.robertbryce.com/node/265
And if his definition of renewable energy includes hydroelectric dams (over 90% of our renewable electricity) then he's really out of touch. We need more nuclear power in this country. Steven Chu has said that nuclear power is our only source of emissions-free, base-load power generation.
http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/2009/03/c...
April 7th 2009, 4:06 pm
Dear Tom,
What I think Obama left out in the energy plan is that the 75% of the cars in the us should be a hybrid or hydrogen, or biofuel, or electric over the next five years. The environment is on the point of tipping, and yet just 50% of all the government cars purchased by 2012 is going to be plug in hybrids or all electric. I think that should be 75% by 2011 and have electric, hydrogen, hybrids, biofuels, or have a city mpg of at least 40. As for America, he should make sure that all cars in the united states have at least a city mpg of 35 by 2012, and by 2015 all cars in America should get at least 35. there should by engines available with tax cuts that have at least 35 mpg and there should be at least 1 billion put for financial help to get a new engine. I also think that Obama should give money to the states to put solar panels on government buildings, and have a fund where people can get money to get renewable energy or to get solar panels or a wind turbine.
also no one can get sued for putting up any wind turbine or any other object that collects renewable energy. Finally I think he should regulate the amount of natural gas, coal, and oil that comes into our country.
If you would like a bit more detail, you know how to contact me.
Joshua Martin Adamson
New York, NY
5th Grade
Columbia Grammar
March 31st 2009, 7:19 pm
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