Thomas Friedman 6: Biodiversity Loss One Species every 20 Minutes? Why We Are Like Noah?

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Why are we in the age of Noah? Because we are in the middle of a mass phase of extinction just like when the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs.
These are excerpts from Thomas Friedman, the multi-Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist and author (Hot, Flat & Crowded), while speaking at Governor Schwarzeneggers Global Climate Summit 2 in Los Angeles, October 2, 2009. See book review & verbatim of excerpt below.


Book Review From Barnes & Noble
In his latest best-seller Hot, Flat & Crowded - Thomas Friedman, the influential New York Times Op-Ed columnist, presses his case that Green is the new Red, White, and Blue. Friedman argues that environmentalism isn't just a survival imperative; it's the best way to make America richer, more productive, and, not least, more secure. Spanning the globe, he presents case study after case study that shows that Green-oriented practices and technologies are the key to revitalizing our country and stabilizing an increasingly energy-starved world.

Publishers Weekly
Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (The World Is Flat) 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.

VERBATIM: The last of the mega problems, I can only go through these really quickly, is biodiversity loss. We are in the middle of a mass phase of biodiversity extinction, friends, akin to the moment when the asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs. According to conservation international, we are now losing one new species about every 20 minutes. Basically biodiversity loss today is running at about 1000 times the normal background rate. I call this moment we're in right now the age of noah. we are in the age of Noah, I actually build it around the last two giant soft shelled turtles in the world that were living in to Chinese zoos. One was a male, 100 years old. Other was a female, 80 years old. And they've been trying to get them to mate. Not so easy. They are the last two. and those two turtles really symbolize for me the unique challenge of our generation. We are the first generation that is actually going to have to think like noah. We and our kids because we, and especially our kids, are actually going to meet the last two, the last pair, of more and more species in our lives. 6:56 the word later is going to be removed him a dictionary of our children because later, for them, will be too late so whatever you were going to save, please do it now because later is over.

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