FPotD and Tom Friedman

This was a stunt performed by Green Peace. Both clever and dangerous, I don't condone potentially life-threatening acts of (slight) civil disobedience, I wholeheartedly support this particular message. Those faces are not carved in stone because of their crafty politicking, skilled partisan manipulating, or smooth speechmaking, they are etched to honor their courage in leadership. Each of those presidents took monumental risks in pursuit of truth and justice for all Americans, and for that they will be recognized, at least until an earthquake swallows up South Dakota or something.

On a similar bent, we attended a speech at Devos Place by Thomas Friedman, the respected author and New York Times columnist. He spoke at the 60th anniversary meeting of the West Michigan World Affairs Council, with a topic of 'Hot, Flat, and Crowded:Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America'. Ostensibly to sell books (we bought one and had it signed), the talk was informative, entertaining, and very educational. Some notes are after the jump...

- his latest book, entitled ‘hot flat and crowded’, came out one week before the Lehman Brothers collapse September 2008. So this talk included some new and updated thinking.


- In 2008 market and mother nature hit a wall of unsustainability. Throughout the world markets but primarily in the financial sector there was an epidemic of underpriced risk taking, privatized gains including bonuses stretching into the billions, and socialized losses that relied on taxpayers for enormous bailouts.

- The previous generation was the Greatest Generation in terms of freedom and independence and growth, than the next generation will be the re-generation.

- He showed a slide that had an advertisement for a German car that was displayed in South Africa. The ad said, ‘German engineering Swiss innovation American nothing’. They were trumpeting the fact that America had nothing to do with the production of that vehicle. Yet another example of how the USA has lost its groove.

- The IT revolution occurred during the 90s; the next revolution will be the ET revolution - energy technology.

- His latest book is called hot, flat and crowded. The hot refers to climate change, the flat refers to an ever expanding middle class worldwide and its desire to live an Americanized lifestyle in terms of energy consumption, and the crowded refers to rapid expansion in the global population.

- He enumerated the top five problems facing the world today

o 1. Energy and natural resource supply and demand

o 2. Petro dictatorship

 in oil-rich countries such as Russia, Venezuela, Iran, and Nigeria, the pace of freedom operates in an inverse relationship to the price of oil. As the oil price goes down, the population gets unruly and starts to demand more and more freedoms. But as the price goes back up, the dictators become more powerful and can quell uprisings swiftly with their empowered and rich militias.

o 3. Climate change

 a better name for global warming could be global weirding - because as global temperatures rise weather around the world becomes more strange. It no longer is clear what is an act of God and an act of man. Ie - hurricane Katrina

o 4. Energy poverty

 there are 1.6 billion people, one quarter of the planet, that does not have electricity.

o 5. Biodiversity extinction

 more and more species die off everyday.

- The solution to all of these problems is finding a abundant clean cheap new source of energy.

- We are in need of a green revolution - and not a sissy revolution. We need a revolution where someone gets hurt, ie. Old energy industries. He envisions a future where the word green will go away and not need to be referenced, because everything will be green and it will be redundant.

- But in order for this eco-innovation and green revolution to take place, there needs to be a price signal. People won't move willingly from cheap and dirty energy to expensive and clean.

- With a commodity, such as oil, as volume and demand increase the price goes up. With innovation and more volume, such as cell phones, the price goes down. Ie. When everyone has a cell phone, costs to run a network go way down.

- ‘It would be nice if China for a day but not two.’ In their communist, totalitarian government it is extremely easy to enact change, as they are already implementing small green revolutions, while in the democracy of the USA it takes a longer time to enact change and build coalitions and popular support. We do not want to be a Banana Republic where BANANA stands for build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.

- In the future more things are possible with far fewer things guaranteed. There is much money to be made in the green revolution.

You don't have to necessarily go buy a Prius, and use only recycled products, but at the very least be mindful and respectful of the impact your actions have in regards to future generations.