Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5456 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-08
• Released on: 2008-09-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780374166854
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

Amazon.com Review
Book Description

Thomas L. Friedman’s phenomenal number-one bestseller The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see the world in a new way. In his brilliant, essential new book, Friedman takes a fresh and provocative look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America’s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. In this groundbreaking account of where we stand now, he shows us how the solutions to these two big problems are linked--how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time.

Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is “hot, flat, and crowded.” Already the earth is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things--unless the United States steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation that Friedman calls Code Green.

This is a great challenge, Friedman explains, but also a great opportunity, and one that America cannot afford to miss. Not only is American leadership the key to the healing of the earth; it is also our best strategy for the renewal of America.

In vivid, entertaining chapters, Friedman makes it clear that the green revolution we need is like no revolution the world has seen. It will be the biggest innovation project in American history; it will be hard, not easy; and it will change everything from what you put into your car to what you see on your electric bill. But the payoff for America will be more than just cleaner air. It will inspire Americans to something we haven’t seen in a long time--nation-building in America--by summoning the intelligence, creativity, boldness, and concern for the common good that are our nation’s greatest natural resources.

Hot, Flat, and Crowded is classic Thomas L. Friedman: fearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the challenge--and the promise--of the future.

Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria: Author One-to-One

Fareed Zakaria: Your book is about two things, the climate crisis and also about an American crisis. Why do you link the two? 

Thomas Friedman: You're absolutely right--it is about two things. The book says, America has a problem and the world has a problem. The world's problem is that it's getting hot, flat and crowded and that convergence--that perfect storm--is driving a lot of negative trends. America's problem is that we've lost our way--we've lost our groove as a country. And the basic argument of the book is that we can solve our problem by taking the lead in solving the world's problem.

Zakaria: Explain what you mean by "hot, flat and crowded."

Friedman: There is a convergence of basically three large forces: one is global warming, which has been going on at a very slow pace since the industrial revolution; the second--what I call the flattening of the world--is a metaphor for the rise of middle-class citizens, from China to India to Brazil to Russia to Eastern Europe, who are beginning to consume like Americans. That's a blessing in so many ways--it's a blessing for global stability and for global growth. But it has enormous resource complications, if all these people--whom you've written about in your book, The Post American World--begin to consume like Americans. And lastly, global population growth simply refers to the steady growth of population in general, but at the same time the growth of more and more people able to live this middle-class lifestyle. Between now and 2020, the world's going to add another billion people. And their resource demands--at every level--are going to be enormous. I tell the story in the book how, if we give each one of the next billion people on the planet just one sixty-watt incandescent light bulb, what it will mean: the answer is that it will require about 20 new 500-megawatt coal-burning power plants. That's so they can each turn on just one light bulb!

Zakaria: In my book I talk about the "rise of the rest" and about the reality of how this rise of new powerful economic nations is completely changing the way the world works. Most everyone's efforts have been devoted to Kyoto-like solutions, with the idea of getting western countries to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions. But I grew to realize that the West was a sideshow. India and China will build hundreds of coal-fire power plants in the next ten years and the combined carbon dioxide emissions of those new plants alone are five times larger than the savings mandated by the Kyoto accords. What do you do with the Indias and Chinas of the world?

Friedman: I think there are two approaches. There has to be more understanding of the basic unfairness they feel. They feel like we sat down, had the hors d'oeuvres, ate the entrée, pretty much finished off the dessert, invited them for tea and coffee and then said, "Let's split the bill." So I understand the big sense of unfairness--they feel that now that they have a chance to grow and reach with large numbers a whole new standard of living, we're basically telling them, "Your growth, and all the emissions it would add, is threatening the world's climate." At the same time, what I say to them--what I said to young Chinese most recently when I was just in China is this: Every time I come to China, young Chinese say to me, "Mr. Friedman, your country grew dirty for 150 years. Now it's our turn." And I say to them, "Yes, you're absolutely right, it's your turn. Grow as dirty as you want. Take your time. Because I think we probably just need about five years to invent all the new clean power technologies you're going to need as you choke to death, and we're going to come and sell them to you. And we're going to clean your clock in the next great global industry. So please, take your time. If you want to give us a five-year lead in the next great global industry, I will take five. If you want to give us ten, that would be even better. In other words, I know this is unfair, but I am here to tell you that in a world that's hot, flat and crowded, ET--energy technology--is going to be as big an industry as IT--information technology. Maybe even bigger. And who claims that industry--whose country and whose companies dominate that industry--I think is going to enjoy more national security, more economic security, more economic growth, a healthier population, and greater global respect, for that matter, as well. So you can sit back and say, it's not fair that we have to compete in this new industry, that we should get to grow dirty for a while, or you can do what you did in telecommunications, and that is try to leap-frog us. And that's really what I'm saying to them: this is a great economic opportunity. The game is still open. I want my country to win it--I'm not sure it will.

Zakaria: I'm struck by the point you make about energy technology. In my book I'm pretty optimistic about the United States. But the one area where I'm worried is actually ET. We do fantastically in biotech, we're doing fantastically in nanotechnology. But none of these new technologies have the kind of system-wide effect that information technology did. Energy does. If you want to find the next technological revolution you need to find an industry that transforms everything you do. Biotechnology affects one critical aspect of your day-to-day life, health, but not all of it. But energy--the consumption of energy--affects every human activity in the modern world. Now, my fear is that, of all the industries in the future, that's the one where we're not ahead of the pack. Are we going to run second in this race?

Friedman: Well, I want to ask you that, Fareed. Why do you think we haven't led this industry, which itself has huge technological implications? We have all the secret sauce, all the technological prowess, to lead this industry. Why do you think this is the one area--and it's enormous, it's actually going to dwarf all the others--where we haven't been at the real cutting edge?

From Publishers Weekly
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Friedman (The World Is Flat) is still an unrepentant guru of globalism, despite the looming economic crisis attributable, in Friendman's view, to the U.S. having become a "subprime nation that thinks it can just borrow its way to prosperity." Friedman covers familiar territory (the need for alternate energy, conservation measures, recycling, energy efficiency, etc.) as a build-up to his main thesis: the U.S. market is the "most effective and prolific system for transformational innovation.... There is only one thing bigger than Mother Nature and that is Father Profit." While he remains ostensibly a proponent of the free market, he does not flinch from using the government to create conditions favorable to investment, such as setting a "floor price for crude oil or gasoline," and imposing a new gasoline tax ($5-$10 per gallon) in order to make investment in green technologies attractive to venture capitalists: "America needs an energy technology bubble just like the information technology bubble." To make such draconian measures palatable, Friedman poses a national competition to "outgreen" China, modeled on Kennedy's proposal to beat the Soviets to the moon, a race that required a country-wide mobilization comparable to the WWII war effort. Recognizing the looming threat of "petrodicatorship" and U.S. dependence on imported oil, this warning salvo presents a stirring and far-darker vision than Friedman's earlier books.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Of course, rousing a full-bellied nation, groggy from decades of energy overconsumption, is no small task. As the current election debate reminds us, the United States has proven inept at developing a serious energy strategy. Our approach, says one expert quoted by Friedman, is "the sum of all lobbies"; we have energy politics rather than energy policy. In the aftermath of 9/11, George W. Bush ignored calls by Friedman and others for a "USA Patriot Tax" of $1 per gallon on gasoline. Instead, the president offered tax cuts and urged us to shop. Rather than stimulating the economy to move toward fuel-efficient vehicles and renewable energy, we became more dependent on China to finance our deficit and Saudi Arabia to fill our gas tanks. Americans wound up paying even more for gas in 2008, but we enabled OPEC to be the tax collector instead of using the revenues ourselves. Friedman calls this a "No Mullah Left Behind" policy and quotes former CIA director Jim Woolsey: "We are funding the rope for the hanging of ourselves." Friedman believes we need to become "green hawks," turning conservation and cleaner energy into a winning strategy in many different arenas, including the military. ("Nothing," he writes, "will make you a believer in distributed solar power faster than having responsibility for trucking fuel across Iraq.") We should stop defining our current era as "post-Cold War," he says, and see it as an "Energy-Climate Era" marked by five major problems: growing demand for scarcer supplies, massive transfer of wealth to petrodictators, disruptive climate change, poor have-nots falling behind, and an accelerating loss of bio-diversity. A green strategy is not simply about generating electric power, it is a new way of generating national power. Incremental change will not be enough. The three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer for the New York Times scoffs at the kind of magazine articles that list "205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth." In the 1990s, global carbon dioxide emissions rose 1.1 percent annually, and many nations (not including the United States) signed the Kyoto Protocol to try to curb those emissions. But from 2000 to 2006, growth in CO2 emissions tripled to 3 percent per year. Friedman cites an estimate by Royal Dutch Shell that it typically takes 25 years for a new form of energy to capture 1 percent of the world market. Shell predicts that if we do things right, renewable energy will provide 30 percent of global needs by 2050, but fossil fuels will still provide 55 percent. Friedman says we need to do better than that. "Carbon neutral" is not ambitious enough; companies and institutions should seek a "carbon advantage" over rivals. This will require innovations in clean energy; greater energy efficiency (including the use of information technology to create smart grids and smart buildings); and a new ethic of conservation. Friedman argues that rather than costing too much, such initiatives can create investment opportunities, new jobs and global leadership for the U.S. economy. Here one wishes he had provided more evidence from some of the pettifogging academic economists. Friedman is skeptical of treaties, and he argues that "a truly green America would be more valuable than fifty Kyoto Protocols. Emulation is always more effective than compulsion." He makes a good case that "outgreening" other countries would contribute to America's soft power as well as our hard power. "We are still the city on the hill for many Chinese," he notes, "even though they hate what we've done at times at the top of the hill." But the problem of China could overshadow what we do at home. In 2007, China surpassed the United States as the world's leading emitter of carbon dioxide. Chinese argue that on a per capita basis each of their citizens is responsible for only one-fifth the emissions of an American, and that developing countries should not have to cut back until they reach rich countries' CO2 levels. This is a formula for global disaster. As Friedman says, "Mother Nature isn't into fair. All she knows is hard science and raw math." China uses coal, a particularly CO2-intensive fuel, for 70 percent of its commercial energy supply, while coal accounts for a third of America's total energy. China builds more than one new coal-fired power plant each week. Coal is cheap and widely available in China, which is important as the country scrambles for energy resources to keep its many energy-intensive industries running. But Friedman does not deal with the issue of cleaner coal in China, and no amount of renewable energy in America will solve the problem. At the rate China is growing, a Chinese switch to renewables will come too late. What can the United States do about this security threat? The bombs, bullets and embargos of traditional security policy are irrelevant. A 2007 report from the International Energy Agency urged a cooperative approach to helping China and India become more energy efficient. In other words, to promote our own security, the United States and other rich countries may have to forge a partnership with China, India and others to develop a full range of creative ideas, technologies and policies to prevent dangerous climate change. This requires a reframing of what we think of as national security and a more inclusive strategy than we have had in the past. If we finally move in that direction, Friedman will deserve some of the credit.
Copyright 2008, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

Customer Reviews

Spurring on Energy Creativity
Friedman writes on world population, the increase of the global middle class, and the growing energy crisis. All of this has contributed to a world that is in desperate need of an energy solution. The thing I like about Friedman's approach is he's optimistic and he's practical. His major points are...

-- The battle over green (energy) will define the first part of the 21st century, just like the battle over red (communism) defined the last half of the 20th century.
-- Everyone needs to accept that oil will never again be cheap...
-- Off-shore drilling may be a temporary fix, but it's not the long-term solution.
-- The fossil-fuel age will end only when we invent our way out of it...
-- The last big innovation in energy production was nuclear power half a century ago, which is an important component to solving our energy problem, but we need additional solutions...
-- In order to further real innovation we need people "throwing crazy dollars at every idea, in every garage, that we have 100,000 people trying 100,000 things, five of which might work, and two might be the next green Google."
-- Friedman emphasizes the practical side of green - "It's the incredible sense of opportunity here. It's not just about saving the polar bears. It's not just about saving three generations from climate change. It's also about rising to the greatest economic opportunity that's come along in a long, long, time."

In the end, he is asking for collaboration and innovation. Of course that begs the question - where does the money come from for all of this? It's always easy to point at the government, but when we look at where real economic solutions have come from it's most often private industry. I wish Friedman would have written on how governments can create environments were private industry is incentivized to create, invent, and discover. Even so, Friedman's book is a needed wake-up call.

A useful book on energy and climate change
Overall it's a good thing that Tom Friedman has taken up the cause of renewable energy. This book is a useful contribution to the national debate over energy policy.

The cause of renewable energy should not be a "political" issue. It's an issue that liberals and conservatives should work together on. Many conservatives concerned about our country's national security are already becoming strong supporters of renewable energy here in America. I don't agree with some of Tom Friedman's past views on economics but this book quite frankly is truly inspiring (particularly the last chapter) and sets a positive tone for people to work together.

A key part of the book is the last part, specifically the last two chapters. Here's where he gets to the heart of the problem, political leadership and government policy. On page 375 he states that the needed energy revolution "will never go to the scale we need as long as our energy policy remains so ad hoc, uncoordinated". On page 407 he again emphasizes the need for a major concentration of federal government power to meet the challenge.

In his interviews with top business executives such as the CEO of General Electric Friedman makes it very clear that America is not going to be able to unlock the power of private industry in an adequate manner unless there are major changes in U.S. government energy policies.

Some say this is "tampering with the free market" but people should be aware that in energy as in all too many aspects of global environmental policy, there really is no purely "free" market. There are already huge subsidies for various industries.

It's very encouraging that the cause of American energy independence is becoming a mainstream political goal. People might also be interested in the fact that legendary oil man, Boone Pickens, is now investing huge amounts of money in renewable energy and is running ads on TV on U.S. energy policy. He has set up a web site too. Part of his energy vision can be read in his new book The First Billion Is the Hardest: Reflections on a Life of Comebacks and America's Energy Future.

I don't share a lot of Friedman's economic views but he is an intelligent journalist who previously wrote some excellent books on the Middle East. Friedman understands the disastrous geopolitical aspects of America's current addiction to foreign oil. He deserves credit for seeing that major government action is needed to reverse this.

Along with this book I would recommend Lester Brown's Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition. I have other relevant books in the lists on my profile.

Friedman's high visibility makes this book relevant even if you don't agree with him. He has access to many important people, and their comments are in the book. Thus, the book is also a way to see what certain leadership elements think about the subjects at hand.

I would recommend buying this book.

Top-down vision that avoids some fundamental issues
If you're not yet convinced that climate change is real or needs urgent and radical attention, this vision of a flat world -- with America on top -- may be able to change your mind. Maybe, thanks to huge sales, this book will able to open a lot of minds that needed opening; and that would be a good thing. Unfortunately, it won't open them quite far enough. While faulting others for not confronting the tough issues around climate change, Thomas Friedman (TF) avoids many of them himself.

Other reviews summarize some of the book's main themes. This long review will deal with some of TF's more striking arguments, good and bad, that most others have not yet commented on.

A. GOOD POINTS

Some points I especially liked: It's great that TF is so explicit about his exasperation at magazine articles and books offering glib solutions like "205 easy ways to go green." He'd prefer our leaders "propose the one or two hard ways that could actually make a difference" (@ 400). His proposal for how a Presidential candidate might defend the idea of a carbon tax (@265f) is what we ought to be hearing now, instead of "Drill, baby, drill!" His description of why the US military is enthusiastic about going green (@ 317-322) is fascinating. And he bravely makes strong arguments that government regulation can be a good thing in appropriate circumstances.

B. THE POINT OF GOING GREEN IS ... REGIME CHANGE?

One curious feature of TF's argument is its emphasis on America's going green as a means of promoting change in other countries. TF's "Laws of Petropolitics" (Ch. 4) purport to show how "freedom" (or sometimes "the pace of freedom" (@96)) in certain oil-producing countries waxes and wanes inversely with the price of oil. (I won't dwell on the speciousness of the graphs, which use undefined units and misleadingly truncated axes for "freedom," which is sometimes political and sometimes economic.) America should reduce its demand for oil because of our "need to drive reform in the Arab-Muslim world" (@108; I suppose that means we think non-Arab Iran is OK as is).

Moreover, new American technologies will reduce "energy poverty" in poor countries and enable the next Thomas Edison or Sally Ride who may be living there (Ch. 7 & @164). And the Chinese leadership will give its people freedom of speech because of our threats to "outgreen" that country (Ch. 16, esp. @ 367). Aside from these notes of noblesse oblige, TF's vision of other countries is only as competitors to America, not people with whom we should be cooperating (e.g., "America wins! America wins! America wins!" @ 242).

What does America get out of this? The first chapter promises to show how going green will lead to "nation-building in America" (@9). But TF never returns to that topic; the impacts on America that he describes all seem to be economic. He also promises we'll get "more and more knowledge-intensive green-collar technology jobs - which are more difficult to outsource" (@23). What do these turn out to be? Construction jobs installing solar panels and retrofitting buildings (@338).

C. GREEN'S IMPACT ON INCOME INEQUALITY

TF seems blind about the issue of income inequality, especially within nations. Only four pages of the book (< 1% of the text) even come close to talking about income inequality in America; these take the form of an interview with a community activist from Oakland, CA (@335-339). Those construction jobs are the punch line, presented as a boon to the urban poor. How about the rest of the book?

(1) TF regales us with a long utopian fantasy about the snazzy technology and perfectly working markets (unlike any in real life) of the "Energy Internet" (@224-236). He imagines "you" as having a real estate development job that you can telecommute to most days of the week. Too bad for folks who have manufacturing or minimum wage jobs, like the folks who flip your burgers; I guess he expects they won't read the book. Moreover, TF is excited by the idea that someday we'll all lease our household appliances instead of owning them (@71). A society of a few who own and the many who rent, even at the most basic levels of daily life? Sounds less like science fiction and more like a Charles Dickens novel.

(2) TF enthuses about imposing a $5-$10 per gallon tax on gasoline, and using that money to offset payroll taxes (@262). Let's check the math. When I lived in Silicon Valley, I went through about 20 gallons of gas per week - and I had a home office. TF's gas tax would have cost me $5K-$10K per year (to say nothing of higher pre-tax prices per gallon). Plenty of folks commute more than 1 hour per day, because their jobs don't pay them enough to afford to live in the communities where they work; but let's assume they use only as much gas as I did. According to the 2008 US tax tables, a head of household earning even $43K won't have $10K of tax to offset. Even a married couple filing jointly with income over $60K won't have that much payroll tax - but they might have to pay the gas tax for two cars.

(3) How about the day-trading class? According to TF, stock bubbles "have actually been a key driver of America's remarkable record of economic growth and innovation" (@259). The "overinvestment of billions of dollars in fiber-optic cable" left the infrastructure for low-cost Internet services after the bubble's 'pop'(@258). BTW, as I recall, that pop also resulted in a huge wave of job loss. It also wiped out the small investors who didn't have privileged access to IPOs, or the inside information to lead them to bail out ahead of the game. I suppose TF likes neutron bombs, too. And despite this, Americans' Internet access speeds are still way slower than those enjoyed in Japan and Korea.

(4) To be fair, TF is almost as blind about the poor in foreign countries. His fantasy beneficiary of green technology in the developing world is "Senhor Verde" (a Brazilian 'Mr. Green'), who has a 1,000 acre farm, with high-tech tractors and sprinkler system. But the mean size of a farm in Brazil is < 150 acres; and as a mean, that number is inflated upwards by some megafarms. Roughly 40% of Brazilian farms are under 10 (ten) acres. In Africa and many Asian countries, that percentage is closer to 80%-90%. See, e.g., the paper "Farm size" by Eastwood & al. of University of Sussex (2004), available in draft online. Bottom line: when TF talks about Mr. Green, he's talking about a rich dude.

TF's vision for the foreign poor is data centers set up by outsourcing companies, such as one he saw in a village in India (@166-169). One of his interviewees tells him, "[I]n the village, no one gives up these jobs." I'll bet. But keeping their jobs isn't necessarily up to them. Outsourcing work is especially vulnerable to being moved around the globe, according to the whims of the market forces that TF extols. See, e.g., Andrew Ross's outstanding "Fast Boat to China: Corporate Flight and the Consequences of Free Trade" (2006).

D. UNASKED QUESTIONS AND UNPURSUED CONCLUSIONS

The deepest problem is that TF doesn't question his key assumptions or pursue his arguments to their logical conclusions. Especially, he doesn't question whether American-style market capitalism might be part of the problem, beyond the fact that it relies on heat-based energy sources.

(1) GROWTH & GDP: "I start from the bedrock principle that we as a global society need more and more growth, because without growth there is no human development and those in poverty will never escape it" (@186). Growth in what? "Economic growth" usually means growth in GDP, and TF never indicates he means something else (see also his discussion of China @ 345f). The usual assumption (not stated by TF) is that higher GDP per capita (GDP/C) is associated with higher "welfare" or "well-being".

TF says "Too many environmentalists oppose *any* growth, a position that locks the poor into poverty" (@194). This is painting with a broad brush. First of all, GDP/C numbers don't tell you anything about how wealth is distributed. As Warren Buffett gets richer, our mean GDP/C goes up, but that doesn't mean your income goes up. In fact, check Wikipedia on "Median household income": although US GDP/C grew 67% since 1980, median real household income went up by only about 15%. Real median income is lower now than in 1999 - i.e., at least half of us are worse off since then, despite growth. Second, TF's blind eye overlooks that income inequality has been growing within nations, including the US. Based on US Census Bureau's computed Gini Index for 2007 (46.3), we're by far the most unequal of all developed countries. So it's not obvious exactly what growing GDP or GDP/C does for the poor.

Moreover, TF doesn't mention that GDP/C can grow because of bad stuff, such as the costs of treating disease and cleaning up pollution - not really well-being at all. Or that the supposed relationship between GDP/C and happiness as measured in surveys is at most a correlation -- not a causation, as TF's comment suggests. (Or that whether such a correlation exists at all is highly contested among researchers, and that even the papers arguing most strongly for it ignore other obvious factors, such the relationship between happiness and recovery from a devastating war.) Or that despite growth, income inequality can lead to unhappiness because of perceived relative differences, even if everyone's income is improving in an absolute sense.

Since so much of the book's attention is on America, not a "global society," you'd think that TF might specifically address the question of how growth benefits Americans. But aside from mentioning that to turn off growth would be "political suicide" for politicians (@64), he's mum on the issue. Bottom line from TF: growth is good for poor people somewhere, and for politicians in the US (or maybe everywhere).

(2) GROWTH & CONSUMPTION: TF is a fan of consumption. He argues, through the mouths of interviewees, that consumption is necessary to grow the economy (@194), that we can "consume more and conserve more at the same time" (id.), and that with the right carpet design, "not only would you be able to change your carpet as often as you wanted without guilt, but you'd be producing massive amounts of jobs in America" (@71). As for energy, he wants to see "huge demand - *crazy, wild, off-the-charts demand*" for clean power technologies (@244; emphasis in original). His Energy Internet technotopia is a paradise for consumers who love to choose service plans.

An interesting irony is that TF sees the main obstacles to changing America's energy mindset as lobbyists and failed political leadership (Ch. 17). Some American scholars of politics have observed that the same market forces that maximize our opportunities as consumers have sapped our power to effect political change as citizens, especially in the past 40 years or so. See, e.g., R. Dahl's "On Political Inequality" (2006) and "On Democracy" (1998), and R. Reich's "Supercpitalism" (2007). TF never questions whether the ultra-consumerism for which he cheerleads could be contributing to the political problem he complains about.

But considering that TF's theme is energy, it's also ironic that he ignores economists like Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and Herman Daly, who have pointed out that unbounded growth and consumption run afoul of the laws of thermodynamics. Economic processes aren't different from any other kind of activity, in that they all produce physical waste, in the form of heat or stuff. Just as you can't have a perpetual motion machine, you can't recyle all of that heat or stuff. The more stuff you consume (or produce), the more waste that results. (Note that Communism, which emphasizes unlimited production, is no less dumb than gonzo capitalism in this regard.)

Yet while TF often stresses the urgency of addressing our energy problems -- e.g., quoting Dana Meadows, "We have exactly enough time, starting now" (@170) -- he doesn't want us to "opt for the drastic" by make any "radical changes in lifestyle" just yet (@194). Though he mocks others for their "easy" ways of going green, his prefers to stick his head in the sand rather than to ask whether our lifestyle has any physical limits.

(3) ARE WE REALLY GROWING ANYWAY?: I was very happy to see TF criticize economists' use of the word "externalities" to describe pollution, waste and CO2 emissions (@260). That terminology disguises such problems as trivial annoyances. Farther down the page TF says "We have been fooling ourselves with fraudulent accounting by not pricing those externalities. ... We rack up stunning profits and GDP numbers every year, and they look great on paper `because we've been hiding some of the costs off the books'. Mother Nature has not been fooled" (@260). Right on.

But now, as the Talmud says, let your ears hear what your mouth is saying. If our growth figures are "fraudulent" because we don't consider the true costs of pollution, biodiversity loss, etc., who's to say our economy is truly growing anyway? Or that the American versions of market capitalism and consumer lifestyle, both of which TF so staunchly defends, are really defensible?

E. CONCLUDING COMMENTS

I won't dwell on the many small quirky things that none of the zillions of people thanked at the end of the book were able to persuade TF to change, such as a mistake about when the current millennium began (@47) or an overly exuberant reference to "10,000 inventors working in 10,000 companies and 10,000 garages and 10,000 laboratories" (@ 244 - each of these people has a garage AND a lab AND a company?). But it's interesting that among those zillions of names the only Europeans seem to be some folks from a Dutch oil company.

Interesting because many of the questions TF doesn't ask are being asked in Europe. And not just from the political left. TF mentions French President Sarkozy as an admirer of America (@ 177). That same rightist politician has asked two US-based Nobel laureate economists to come up with an alternative to GDP, in order to get a better measure of well-being and happiness. Moreover, many European thinkers on issues of energy, economic growth and ecology (among them André Gorz, Dominique Méda, Alain Gras) often start from a deep analysis of the nature of human work, and its spiritual meaning. TF's approach, in contrast, is entirely materialistic and technocratic. [UPDATE 2009/09: Two pertinent reports available online are the March 2009 report "Prosperity without growth?" from the UK Sustainable Development Commission, and the September 14, 2009 final report of the Stiglitz Commission appointed by Pres. Sarkozy. While the Stiglitz Commission focused more on measurement issues than on policy, the UK SDC report questions the policy of growth in great detail.]

The problem of human survival in the face of global climate change seems to call for cooperation, and some reflection about what we really want life to be. TF's proposal instead is for America to overwhelm other countries in international competition, with the help of market forces and smart appliances. Are "out-greening al-Qaeda" and "America wins!" really the best attitudes with which to approach this challenge facing all humanity (and, thanks to us, much of the rest of life on earth)? It's not clear to me that this is even good for Americans. We're humans, too, not just consumers and innovators.

I hope TF will win over some skeptics about climate change. But if we don't think more deeply, critically and globally about the solutions than he has, we could end up in a world that's hot, flat, crowded, hostile and lost.