Without a Price Signal...

Hi Tom

Congratulations on your book which gave me lots of new perspectives on the state of the world. Thank you!

My opinion:

We need a well organized hub for future oriented people, where one can get informed about who is doing what, when and where – perhaps a web site (or even a new political party) that not only helps to connect people but also to coordinate efforts and act politically. I think the resulting focus would help reorient society in the ways you propose.
I live in Germany and know that the Green Party here has had a great deal of influence in German politics because it helped keep the issue of ecology in focus. Today, even conservative parties adopt green positions to the point that some coalitions between conservative parties and the Greens exist.
In a similar way, a “Future Party” might give focus to and help establish your vision in American society. I would like to see this vision evolve strongly, even after a political turn to the right, AFTER Obama.

Hi Tom-

Firt time visitor to this page, and first time posting an opinion. I am not sure this is the right area on you website, but the following is in the form of a letter to President Obama.

Regards- Paul M.

Dear President Obama,

Thank you for the quick movement to re-ignite the economy. While the decisions ahead are complex and difficult, thought I would provide my input on the situation.

Regardless of how it’s done, we taxpayers are footing the bill to recapitalize our banks/credit markets. In addition to re-capitalizing banks from the back-end (Fed), we also should recapitalize banks by leveraging the households that are in good-standing credit wise, and pay their mortgages on time.

This plan, while outlined in a simplified, non-academic fashion, is designed to provide the following,

1. A quick confidence boost for consumer spending,

2. Assist with the re-capitalization of our financial institutions via a separate source other than the Federal Reserve.

Plan Summary

Action

1. For home owners in good standing, Congress should give the banks the incentive to provide new and refinance fixed rates of 3.5% for 30years

2. Financing points TBD, but this has to be a win-win for banks and credit-worthy consumers.

3. For tax purposes, as with a bank or other commercial organizations, perhaps let homeowners in good standing, have a one time write-off of the drop in value of their home.

Targeted Result

A. Consumer and business short term benefits (not limited to the following),

1. A lower monthly payment, for majority of households, provides an additional sense of security, increasing consumer confidence.

2. The increase in monthly disposable income will increase the propensity to consume. The plan gives folks the confidence to spend. 401Ks are disappearing, the market is diving – and the job losses mounting. Those that have the ability to spend will need to soon, but will not, until short term fear of spending is minimized.

3. It will help small business and retail. Consumers will spend these dollars on non-essential items such as restaurants, entertainment, hard-goods, travel, etc.

4. State and Local Government - the spending will assist with the recovery of the dwindling tax revenue base for cities and governments. It will provide state and local officials new options to consider before cutting essential programs/services.

B. Banks/Financial Institutions Benefit (not limited to the following),

1. The 3.5% refinancing will help recapitalize banks from the end-consumer side from the resulting fees and deposits. Banks will then have an influx of capital for loan generation.

2. With the refinancing, banks will extend existing 30 year annuity streams.

3. Although the loans are at a lower rate, the alternatives, I believe, are much worse. If the economy continues to spiral, prime borrowers, will also need a rescue as well. At which time, banks will be re-active, extending similar programs just to preserve annuity streams, and asking for additional funding from the Federal Reserve.

4. The new mortgage annuity stream will be based off of credit-worthy consumers; these loans could be securitized, and re-sold, if/when the proper risk governance measure in place.

Why consider this option?

This crisis has showed us that there are those who borrowed and invested responsibly, and there are those who borrowed and invested in an irresponsible fashion. This list includes banks, financial houses, investors, insurance companies, rating agencies, our own government sponsored agencies, etc – the list goes wide and deep. The reverberations have been felt by all, very few are immune. We can look back and see many instances where our financial governance mechanisms failed, where checks and balances went, well, unchecked. The warning signs were there years prior, several folks did sound the alarms, but they were ignored because the money continued to be cheap, plentiful - with little to no covenants.

For the majority of Americans who invested and borrowed within their means, the result of this crisis has been to see hard-earned, invested dollars, evaporate. Moreover, they see their sense of financial security disappear while footing the bill to save institutions deemed too big to fail and/or individuals who borrowed way beyond their means.

The plan above should be considered within your stimulus options because we need to ensure that we help and recognize the majority of Americans that are silently assisting to resolve this crisis (whether they agree or not) by preserving their capability to continue to do so.

Let’s make sure we spur the economy from every angle.

All the best-

Paul Marrero

First, I must say that I am extremely upset with you Mr Friedman. You stole my theory. Of course only my two sons and a good friend listen to me so I guess I shall forgive you since you have a slightly larger audience. Great minds like ours do indeed think alike. No, I'm not nuts, just a warped sense of humor.

I just checked your hf&c book from the library. (YES, we do have libraries in Las Vegas) I being neither a new yorker nor a hot house liberal try to avoid the Times but I had encountered some of your columns in the past and tended to think well of you. (don't tell any of your new york friends that the likes of me likes the likes of you. They would be so embarrassed for you}

To stop being silly, one thing that you addressed minimumally in the book is the very real possibility that the world is way down the road to running out of oil. At the least the oil we are finding is difficult and increasingly expensive to extract. I would like to see your opinion and knowledge of this possibility treated in greater depth in chapter eighteen, even if you disagree with my assumptions.

Changing the subject, the public seems to have forgotten that not only the mortgage mess but also the run-up in oil prices over the first 6 months of 2008 contributed to the terrible state that the economies in the world including the USA find themselves now suffering. What will happen down the road when we begin recovering from our current malaise? All the petro producers will beginning bringing oil prices back up which will dampen and prolong the recovery. We absolutely must become energy independent unless the US is willing to settle for what England was in the 20th century, namely a country that is much less important than it thinks it is.

I believe you have written a very important book not just because it deals with a very serious subject but even more because it presents the subject in a common sense way that can be easily understood by a large audience.

Thanks for doing it.

A story of the CFC/Carbon Cap and Trade ; Changing the engine at 90 MPH when no one really knows there is a problem...

I don't know if anyone will read this at this point, but twenty years ago, my then boyfriend, now ex husband, took a job I yanked off the job board at Georgetown for him. I was at the University of Vermont. While at PWC- Washington National Tax Service, he, and I believe three other economists worked on a project he thought "uncool", no pun intended, but which I, a Mr. Ely A.P. Bio former student(Go Cow Valley!), and a plane mate of the UVM Professor who first discovered the harm Acid Rain was causing (on Mt. Mansfied), 20 years before we met,...well, we thought it was VERY cool. I would tell my boyfriend everything I got from Mr. Ely, and from this professor, and I like to think he heard it, and included some of it (sort of like the annoying side-seat driver). Ten years, grad school (where he worked on the medicaire and medicaide issue with Havemen at UW Madison), and a divorce later, I learned, again in Vermont, that the CFC capping and trading that he had worked on (revelling in putting the skids on his father, a GE CFC manufacturing leader), had become something special, had cleared hurdles in the Senate and was proof "it could be done". I lump it in with the Carbon cap and trade , which I heard used the same idealogy.

At any rate, my point is this: it wasn't easy. While our friends were partying and going to Vegas, we were studying and going to extra math classes. We had fun, don't get me wrong. But life really did feel like we were changing a bus at ninety miles an hour, and then, with one, and then two kids in tow, that we were hurled to the next bus when the work was done (Medicare and Medicaid). As it turned out, we were exhaustible, mind, body and soul.

However, I find two things humbling about this. A high school biology teacher taught us that this matterred more than anything, and I was able to infect my now ex husband with that same passion. He worked 18 hour days, and, at the end, four straight days to get the project done before leaving for grad school. I look at our scars now, and they are many, and I wear them with pride. When my son got his insurance at 17, the agent, whose daughter had skied with him growing up, said "My company would be honored to insure the son of the author of the CFC ." I was out of town on business, and so, when I returned, my mother asked me what it meant. I told her the story, I told her it meant nothing more than my life, other than having been their mother, had purpose greater than I could ever have hoped for, or dreamed of. I didn't write it, he did, so he could say the same, and more. But I pulled the job off the job board, and said "this one." I took the math classes. I infected him with Mr. Elyisms and motivation for the green cause. I think there is an advertisement that says it best: "And I helped!"

I will not lie, the scars left at 90 MPH are not minor, and not all projects will succeed (and crashing the bus sucks). However, jump into the engine anyway. Heed the Mr. Ely's of the world, listen to the UVM professors. You may not see any results for twenty years, like we did, no one may ever know what it was at all, or that you did it (he described his work, FYI, as "for some lobbyist for a junior senator from somewhere.")

But... high school and biology teachers everywhere, rant and rave about how the bill is due and "your" generation, like it or not, is going to pay it, you've got to find the answers, etc., or you're just going to pass it on to your children, which no parent wants to do. We listened to Mr. Ely, and all the Mr. Ely's of the world, we still listen, and we will continue to listen. Educators matter.

And people in the engine, don't think it won't matter. It will. You may not realize it until far far after it's done and implemented, but it will matter. And, even without a Nobel, it feels really, really good to have at least tried. Succeeding, well, that just makes you want to try again.

Oh, and talk to the person next to you on the plane. You just never know!

Go Green! (the cause and UVM)

Anyone who has read "Hot, Flat and Crowded" should also read the National Intelligence Council report "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World". It is available online at http://www.dni.gov/nic/PDF_2025/2025_Global_T...
and complements much of what Tom discussed in the book with forecasts for that year, backed up with statistical analysis.

Hi Tom,

I haven't read the book yet, but I've seen an interview with you today in CNN "talk asia". There, you mentioned that with a pessimistic attitude in the 60s, it would not have been possible to land a man on the moon before the end of that decade. It surely needed to charismatic president to formulate this goal.

Now, you again have a charismatic president. I don't know how good your links to the white house are, but maybe you could convince Barack Obama to stand up and make a statement similar to the following:

"I promise that by the end of the next decade, the United States will generate 50% of its electrical power from solar energy and 90% by 2030."

With solar-thermal power technology and efficient DC lines, this should be achievable. And at the same time, such an investment should stimulate the economy in an area with long-term future.

Greetings from a German living in South Africa...

Why can't we have a price signal??? Gas is down 50% in the State of California and the State gov't is broke. For some reason all I hear about is raising state income tax or sales tax to solved the problem. Haven't any California legislators read your book? Are these guys owned by big oil? They need to slap a 25 cent tax on right now while it's barely noticeable. It infuriates me that there isn't more discussion around this. Can't you call Arnold and talk some sense into him? Please!!!! My children's future is at stake!!!

No new gas or carbon tax need be levied -- we are already paying it. The revenue is just going to the wrong people. The "price signal" need only take the form of removal of the subsidies oil companies receive to produce gasoline, and expose the public to the real price of the resource. Some say the price of gas would go up to $7 - 9 per gallon, more like European countries. Removal of this public-funded market distortion would result in a quick restoration of urgency to migrate to efficient vehicles and well-placed pressure on our cultural obsession to frivolous consumption. The savings in public revenue could be used to clean up the mess from burning it and invest in long-term carbon compensation, or -- heaven forbid -- tax cuts. And speculator - induced run-ups in oil prices like experienced in 2007-2008, brought to us by the same criminals who squeezed California in the Enron electricity bubble in 2001, would be self - regulated by market forces. See RFK Jr's article, http://www.waterkeeper.org/mainarticledetails....

Dear Mr. Friedman; great book! Very inspiring and thought provoking. Truly appreciate your profession and dedication to producing good work. Thank you. Here is an idea for Chapter 18. One way to make clean energy popular and consumable by “America” is to make it dumb.

Lots of writing already so briefly: if you don't have taxes or cap and trade, you can also stimulate through government spending (subsidies), or government policies (power purchase agreements, dedicated infrastructure, 'Manhattan or Apollo' style project, pricing controls, etc.). You take part of a stimulus or recovery package and you say we are going to use these funds to bootstrap renewable energy. These may not be economically preferable alternatives, but the political reality may require this more executive style approach for the moment. On the plus side, a government policy or spending approach will cut through the delayed fits and starts of the market appproach which is what we are seeing now with a low ebb on gas prices.

I propose a modest step toward lessening the hold that petrodictators have on us and to provide more funds for transportaion improvements as part of your ambitious green revolution:

Increase the federal gasoline tax to $0.20/gal now, during the recession, then when the price of crude oil begins to increase again, as it surely will, increase the gas tax by $0.10/gal when the price of a barrel of oil reaches $50, another $0.10/gal each time the price rises another $10/barrel, with no ceiling and no reduction if the price declines again as it did this past fall. The gradual increase would hardly be noticeable in the price at the pump and most likely wouldn't produce a hue and cry that a steep one-time gas tax increas would.

We need to take such a step and others to keep gasoline consumption lower and, I'd hope, lower it even more over time in combination with more fuel efficient vehicles.

Mr. Friedman,

I was just listening this afternoon to an excerpt from your book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." You basically state that the electric grid, and electric cars and electric stoves, will all save us from global catastrophe.

Do you realize that the same amount of energy which is propelling gasoline-powered vehicles will need to be added to the power grid so it can be transferred to the electric cars' batteries by a plug to propel them? Do you realize how much energy that is? Regardless of government edicts and funding, it is simply impossible to do this without an equivalent carbon-producing power generation system added to the power grid. You will have no net carbon savings by converting to all-electric cars and stoves.

Best regards,
Fred

Mr. Friedman,

I would like to bring to your attention a perspective on energy, the economy and the environment. It may be found at www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse. Particularly I recommend looking at Chapter 17 for a model for thinking about various types of energy options. All the low hanging fruit is gone and ethanol is at the wrong end of the spectrum. I sure hope the new administration gets this. The discussion of coal was eye opening. The model presented can be a useful guide or way to think about future investments in alternative and traditional energy.

Some of the key benefits of the model presented are some of these ideas: We should consider the cost of acquiring the energy as part of the equation; and the surplus of the cost of acquisition over the cost of the energy has a huge impact on the economy and the social life styles that can be supported. The author even brings in consideration of the present economic conditions and fiscal and trade deficits. I commend the model to you.

Thank you. I always enjoy reading your work and your media appearances. I learn each time and am challenged to think more broadly.

The $100 component: One simple and vitality important solution to this very large and complex issue is clearly enunciated in this video clip. To be sure it is not the entire solution, but it is one that is practical, and one that can make a major positive difference with the stoke of our governments pen.

http://www.setamericafree.org/index.php?optio...

Engage your elected representatives.

Jim

Thomas Friedman’s latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, deftly explores our increasingly unstable world that has become defined by decades of excess and often deleterious business practices. This book illustrates both the complexity and severity of our environmental situation, while simultaneously calling for a global revolution to address these problems.

Innovation must be a critical aspect of this revolution, but traditional innovation methods will prove to be untimely and insufficient in addressing such a wide scope of urgent issues. Code Green will require extensive collaboration to be successful; thus, we must approach this challenge with a fresh perspective about how to harness and best utilize the world’s abundant innovation resources.

NineSigma currently works with companies across industries who are investing extensive resources in new energy technologies, renewable materials, manufacturing efficiencies and other sustainable practices to address this global dilemma. We leverage our open global network of innovators and cast a wide net in order to identify potential breakthrough innovations in other industries or disciplines that can be applied to the challenge. High power conversion systems, energy harvesting, improved power sources for appliances and solar power in automobiles are just a few of the many challenges for which we are currently identifying solutions with our clients.

We are eager to further discuss Code Green and the role of innovation in Mr. Friedman’s challenge, and would welcome any feedback his readers have for us. Our business model and experience has put us in a unique position to accelerate the introduction and application of breakthrough sustainability solutions, and enable industry collaboration where it wouldn’t otherwise exist. We are actively seeking opportunities to bring leading innovation companies together to address challenges surrounding global sustainability. It is only through collaborative innovation and the rapid cross-pollination of knowledge that we will obtain a clear view of how to tackle today’s biggest challenges.

Matthew Heim
President
NineSigma, Inc.
www.ninesigma.com

I am in great favor of going underground. After learning of the great resources of the constant temperature of the earth in the famous '6 feet under' area that can be harvested in the warmth of the earth itself using geothermal power on a more massive scale could help in many areas of this planet. Of course as Tom says being an eclectic is necessary to have a full development for all parts of conservation and a green economy to be effective. I wish the current technology and the old electric cars of gm would be put back into production as well as the other current technologies be more widely understood and applied in a practical stage.

Mr. Friedman,

This is not really a response to the price signal but more of one to an idea I read in your book. In the chapter "If it isn't Boring, It isn't Green," one key point you made that I love is when you compared the Energy Internet to the World Wide Web. More specifically, your idea was that by producing a common platform for "electrons to flow freely," people will write energy efficiency programs to share around the world (much like open source software).

I enjoy this section so much simply because it ties in with an idea I have for utilizing the cloud we have created over the past several years. I have studied and researched cloud computing rather extensively, and the more I read about it, the more I see its potential for helping to accelerate the changes necessary for a green revolution. I understand the negative impacts it can have, some of which you explained in The World is Flat, but I see it as a possible worldwide "Collectivist Movement." I'm sure you have heard about crowdsourcing and its increased use among companies today (If not, in short it is the act of taking a task traditionally performed by an employee and "outsourcing" it to a relatively large group of people for completion), but what you wrote about in Hot, Flat, and Crowded directly ties into the idea of crowdsourcing. If the smart grid is implemented, the cloud could empower individuals to collaborate and produce new ideas on energy efficiency through localized programs. To sum it all up, the power companies could crowdsource (allowing communities) to collaborate with each other, setting their own standards for energy efficiency. With all appliances connected to each other and the smart grid, online communities could develop new ideas for more energy efficiency. More collaboration means more innovation AND, crowdsourcees are paid by the power companies.

These cloud communities could also act as a free liason service to China and India and any country in the world. Making this a global effort is the most challenging of all and with the cloud, the world can be updated in real time on our newly developed ways to cut energy use and cost while simultaneously providing their own ideas to our communities. Just like code can be reused in online communities, IDEAS can be relayed everywhere in the world that there is a connection. If you think about it, using the system correctly with the speed at which information can travel today, we could possibly cut the estimated time period for implementing a working strategy to significantly reduce carbon emissions while developing a market for a renewable energy system.

I know that the idea above is a stretch based on theory, but my main point is we all need to consider the possibilities the technological revolution produced and utilize the abilities it created for us to help eliminate our economic and environmental troubles. We got ourselves into this mess and the best and quickest way to get out is to put all 6 billion or so minds together in search of a common goal. The only feasible way to do that is through using the cloud.

Adam

How can the auto companies be bailed out?
There is lot of debate on whether the big 3 GM, Chrysler and Ford should be bailed out by the government. Should they be allowed to go bankrupt and create millions unemployed? What and how the government can help the auto burst out? The companies are like an unemployed alcoholic person, the more you give him money the more he will drain in beer and come again begging for more. Many are still skeptical after the billion dollar bail out will the company stay for another year. There is huge possibility of them begging for money in next quarter.
Bad decision by management of these companies like making and promoting big trucks even when gas rate were rocket high, not producing or concentrating on energy efficient vehicles, giving damn shit to global warming, labor union and lobbyism, has created this type of grim situation for these companies wherein the CEO has to work for $1 salary. Adding to these hitches, the subprime crisis and credit crunch has escorted customers to not buy any vehicles further on. With US economy or rather world economy slump down, car sale seems to be difficult. US government has never tried to create a good mass transportation for an American is born with two hands and four wheels. The bigger question is will this bail out help the companies to come out of the self created mess. Is there any added plan of action which could help these auto monsters?
Concentrating on making energy efficient cars is the essence of the moment. There is need for more economy cars than those gigantic useless trucks. Investing on electric car could be helpful but with such economic crisis and gas prices at bottom rock seems to be difficult and impossible. Other way to eluding the customers is making high quality car at lower price which should be done on urgent basis. Removing the union contract could help in some way to decrease the cost of cars. The above few methods could help them in small way, but a revolutionary change can bring a huge change. US is short of mass transit. Investing in mass transit vehicles could help these companies. Auto Company should sign a contract with big car rental companies by providing them cars at a minimal cost for 5 years or so and in exchange get some profit from the rental companies. After years of use the company can buy back the cars and use many of its components and use it in making in new cars. Make the manufacturing greener. Reuse it well whatever possible, recycle whatever that can be recycled, and thus eliminate waste. Auto industry should concentrate more on transportation business rather than selling unsold cars and pushing them in the market. This can benefit both the rental companies who change cars after ever few years and the auto company who wants to sell cars every year. Instead of making big trucks why not make buses or vans which can be used as mass transit vehicle. Contracts with state government for creating such vehicles for state transportation can boost sale and also make everybody happy. Governments as they are able to produce mass transportation solutions, Auto Company can make profit on the vehicles and public can get affordable transportation. Green supply chain management will play a crucial role in Auto shore here after. Breaking the union contract is one more viable option.
After every recession there is a bigger reform to come. History shows that bigger the recession bigger are the reforms. Hope this recession brings greater changes for the good. Mr. Obama has got elected in tough times. Create new jobs, stabilize the prevailing economy, and restructure the organization you will be hero greater than Martin Luther King or else be the successor or Bush…
-Anil Jain
Clemson USA.

I stumbled across this site in my endeavour to track down and make some sense of this credit crunch/environmental mess we are in. Having just read through the other comments and as yet not having had the pleasure of reading HFC I feel the future is in the hands of our children and their education/life skills and for me personally eco-art! Less talk and more peaceful actions.

Hi Tom,

I very much enjoyed your book especially your comments on climate change. I have a question rather than a comment and it is this - What role do you see meteorologists or weather experts playing in the Re-Generation era in the near future?

Thank you,
Randall P. Benson, PhD

Dear Mr. Friedman:

I am a big follower of your writings and recently finished your latest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded which I enjoyed very much. However I (along with many others I am sure) have been deeply missing your expertise on the Middle East ever since you turned your attention to globalization and more global issues.

I would like to bring your attention to the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and their relevance in a hot, flat and crowded world. Of all the Mahatma’s teachings (Ahimsa, racial and ethnic equality and reconciliation), none is more relevant today than what he had to say about consumption and man’s relationship with earth’s natural resources. As with everything else, the Mahatma lived by example by consuming as little as possible and living the most natural and organic of existence. Larry Collins and Donimique La Pierre said it best: “Not a few of Gandhi’s ideas which once appeared an old man’s quirks have become, five decades after his death, strangely relevant in a world of dwindling resources and expanding populations. Cutting up old envelopes to make notepads, rather than wasting paper, consuming only the food necessary to nourish one’s frame, eschewing the heedless production of unneeded industrial goods, protecting the air we breathe and the water we drink, appear, as a world turns to a new millennium, not so much a set of charming eccentricities as a prescription for man’s uncertain future on his exhausted planet”.

Growing up in India, our textbooks were full of easily understandable examples from the Mahatma’s life demonstrating his teachings on consumption. One of the stories that I am particularly fond of, was about an incident that occurred in a South African train that he was traveling in. A white gentleman who was seated next to Gandhi was rather annoyed by the fact that his companion was a non-white and shabbily dressed (in the western sense) Indian. After several minutes, he handed Gandhi a wad of papers filled with derogatory caricatures of Gandhi that the man had put together in the train. Gandhi however, thanked him profusely in response because he could re-use the paperclips that kept the wad together.

I firmly believe that the Mahatma’s teachings are in some (significant) way responsible for India’s laughably low per capita energy consumption. Our family, not poor by any means especially by Indian standards, had a strict requirement of all its members: turn off the light bulbs and ceiling fans when you are the last person to leave a room in the house. My mother used to get a count of the number of rotis (Indian bread) each of us were planning to consume for dinner before she started cooking. These are just two of many examples I can remember from home and school that demonstrated a healthy respect for conservation.

I am certain that there are many things people around the world can learn by reading the Mahatma’s teachings on living a simple life. His foresight on issues such as energy poverty, global warming, pollution, and the corruption that excess consumption breeds are only now being fully understood.

Ashif Panakkat

P.S.: On a sad side-note, it has been my observation after seven years here in the US, that many of us Indians lose our ethic of conservation once we get settled into the American lifestyle.

Wonderful and much needed book - thank you.

There is one area I wish you had written about, although I understand why you did not. That is the part being played in global climate change by the greatest areas of the Earth's land surface - the savannas and grasslands, which dwarf our forests. While the burning of our forests is stupid and tragic, it is completely overshadowed by the burning of the world's grasslands. While most forests burn once, the same grassland burns repeatedly - over 2 billion acres are burnt annually in Africa alone. And as the research shows, a one and a half acre grassland fire puts out more and more damaging pollutants than 4,000 cars per second.

I would like to send you more information - too long for comment here. Could I please have an email address to which I can send a paper I wrote recently to guide the two organizations I founded that are dealing with root cause of what is really a single issue - world-wide biodiversity loss, land degradation (desertification) and global climate change - massive environmental malfunction. Without biodiversity loss there is no desertification. And desertification, as you rightly point out in your reference to Brazil's forest loss, itself leads to climate change. Biodiversity loss and it's symptom desertification had already destroyed many civilizations in all climates world-wide long before we discovered and used coal and oil. As I point out in that paper, if we were by some miracle able to stop all fossil fuel emissions 100% tomorrow we would still fail to address the problem because the other two legs of this three-legged stool would remain unaddressed. I look forward to sending you more information. If for some reason you are reluctant to provide an email address to which I can send an attachment, you, or anyone else, could locate the paper (bottom left in section under my name in the web site below)
Sincerely,

Allan Savory
Founder Holistic Management International
www.holisticmanagement.org

Inelastic? Really? Then why did demand for gas drop as the price increased?

OPEC does have influence over the price, but OPEC also knows that if the price goes too high that it will make alternative sources more attractive, thus it is constrained in what it can charge.

If you are really and truly concerned both about OPEC and giving money to countries that don't like us very much -- as John McCain said ad nauseum -- then I assume you favor increasing domestic development of oil supplies, no? I also think that the argument about handing over money to countries that hate us is overstated. Take a look at the top 15 sources of imported oil and tell me which ones hate us:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/...

Of the 15 I can only think of two -- Saudi Arabia and Venezuela -- that promote policies hostile to our own. If you include Russia that makes 3.

Look, if the price of oil goes too high then alternatives will make economic sense and we will pursue them without government intervention in the market. And if the price doesn't go high then we have nothing to worry about. Indeed, spending $20K on a hybrid when you can get a conventional auto for $15K when oil is cheap is penny wise and pound foolish. Promoting such policies only serves to make us poorer.

With regard to your last two points, air quality in the US has actually been on the upswing for at least the past couple of decades. Man made climate change, meanwhile, I believe is either vastly overstated. I think the narrative there is already starting to unravel.

To the extent government should intervene it should simply to increase the gas tax to the point that it accounts for negative externalities. Make prices reflect costs, then let the chips fall where they may. If people continue to rely overwhelmingly on petroleum, fine. The notion that Thomas Friedman -- or anyone else -- has the insight to accurately predict what industries we should be promoting or what types of energy sources we should be relying on is absurd in the extreme.

Thanks,

Colin

http://togetrichisglorious.blogspot.com/

Well, what the current price is telling us is that petroleum-based energy sources aren't in any imminent danger of running out. So really it seems that conservation efforts aren't needed. You are promoting a solution in search of a problem.

You probably need additional chapters 19 and 20 and more to do justice to the many issues and possible solutions and the way out of this mess. HFC (and now busted) could address the current global economic meltdown and indications that no one really knows where this expanding crisis will end.
While many factors contribute to the crowded and flat situation, marketing is one field of activity that can be singled out for attention. For over 30 years I have seen Kotlerism and the numerous clones of marketing texts preach the gospel of finding and satisfying “needs” which invariably and/or inevitably become/include wants and desires for stuff we don’t really need at all … thein the creation of new Americas in all parts of the world. And while marketing is the pivotal commercial activity here, the whole body of business training programs and research which shape our academic degrees and thereupon business attitudes and practice need a total rethink with a view to a new paradigm in line with the energy-climate era.