Hot, Flat, and Crowded
Reading New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman鈥檚 latest book, it鈥檚 hard to know how to describe him. A genial Jeremiah, perhaps? Or maybe Thomas Malthus with a clipboard and a 10-point plan for avoiding global catastrophe?
As a professional opiner, Friedman is unusual. He鈥檚 not your typical journalistic chin-stroker, content to gin up a few deep thoughts before knocking out 800 words twice a week.
From world capitals to remote villages, Friedman travels around the world, interviewing world leaders, business dynamos, and ground-breaking innovators. (It helps to have a New York Times expense account, I suppose.)
And he does it with an enthusiastic curiosity that鈥檚 infectious. He comes across as an intellectual who鈥檚 also down-to-earth.
Plus, there are those three Pulitzer Prizes he鈥檚 won for his reporting and writing.
Having backpedaled from his initial support of the United States-led invasion of Iraq (as have all but a handful of Americans), Friedman in recent years has tracked and explained how the world has become 鈥渇lat鈥� 鈥� his phrase for economic and social globalization.
Meanwhile, in his twice-weekly syndicated column he鈥檚 written more and more about energy and the closely-related issue of global climate change.
In Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need A Green Revolution 鈥� And How It Can Renew America, Friedman brings it all together, adding in the inexorable growth in world population and consumption because much of the rest of the world is becoming more like the US in levels of wealth and therefore has the ability to buy stuff that depletes natural resources, creates greenhouse gases, and ends up in landfills.
Although he seems always hopeful, Friedman鈥檚 message is sobering. Two sentences sum up his warning:
鈥溾�� 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. In particular, the convergence of hot, flat, and crowded is tightening energy supplies, intensifying the extinction of plants and animals, deepening energy poverty, strengthening petrodictatorship, and accelerating climate change.鈥�
(It鈥檚 both sly and appropriate that the book jacket is illustrated with 鈥淭he Garden of Earthly Delights鈥� painted by Hieronymus Bosch in 1500.)
If this 鈥渨e鈥檙e in a heap of trouble鈥� message sounds like Al Gore, it is. But it鈥檚 broader 鈥� beyond climate science 鈥� and it represents the best kind of mainstream media reporting: highly informed analysis with a point of view and a conclusion that make sense.
Friedman loves lists, and he loves phrasemaking. We have now entered the 鈥淓nergy-Climate Era鈥� or 鈥淓.C.E.鈥� We need a 鈥淐ode Green鈥� revolution in which America leads the way in innovative development of clean energy and 鈥渁n ethic of conservation toward the natural world.鈥�
Antidemocratic leaders whose coffers swell because of Americans鈥� appetite for oil he calls 鈥減etrodictators.鈥� This is gimmicky, but useful.
And lists: 鈥淭hree broad trends鈥� in America today. Five key problems 鈥渢hat a hot, flat, and crowded world is dramatically intensifying.鈥� 鈥淔our fundamental ways鈥� in which the nation鈥檚 oil addiction is changing the international system.
That鈥檚 OK, too. Lists help organize thought and form understanding.
Friedman can be a bit windy at times (what columnist isn鈥檛?). And he frequently quotes others at great length, which can be useful to readers while also giving the book its 400 page-plus heft. But he also writes excellent tutorial chapters on climate change, biodiversity, and 鈥渆nergy poverty鈥� in Africa and other parts of the developing world.
As he has in his columns over the past few years, Friedman expresses frustration at the lack of national leadership regarding energy and climate policy. And he sees this as one of the nation鈥檚 most important security issues, directly related to the growth in militant Islam.
鈥�President Bush鈥檚 refusal to do anything significant after 9/11 to reduce our gasoline consumption really amounted to a policy of 鈥�No Mullah Left Behind,鈥� 鈥� he writes.
This is not a book designed to cheer us up but to get us off our backsides. And Friedman doesn鈥檛 mean just changing light bulbs and installing low-flow toilets. Saving the world will be a lot harder than that.
But the tone and the innovative ideas reviewed here leave me optimistic and energized. And certainly with a better understanding of the connections between energy, the environment, the economy, and national security.
鈥淭he future does not have to be a Malthusian nightmare 鈥� if we think strategically about how to mitigate what we can, adapt to what we can鈥檛, and innovate our way to new possibilities that right now seem unimaginable,鈥� he writes.
But, he adds, 鈥淭he longer we wait to set out on such a strategic path ... the deeper the pail out of which we have to climb.鈥�
Brad Knickerbocker is a Monitor staff writer.
