Thomas Friedman 12: Change Your Leaders, Not Your Light Bulbs.

http://www.eco-rescue.info
http://www.eco-rescue.com

Leaders write the rules, leaders shape the environment. So to truly advance the green revolution, we need to support and pressure the right leaders. 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: This is a scale problem. Without a fixed, long-term, durable price signal, that does not just stimulate investors to go after some government subsidy, but creates massive, consumer pull. That is what the game is about. Hence, my motto: change your leaders, not your light bulbs. Okay? It is leaders who write the rules. It is leaders who shape environment. And California, with the leader it has, is the leader in energy and climate cause of the leader it has. That is why u are ahead. It is not just a miracle, it did not just happen. Okay? Leaders write the rules. Rules shape markets. Markets are what give you scale.

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Rulers change the rules and the markets, and people own both, but cannot respond to either one without encountering severe repercussions. The men who own and control the legal weapons will not suffer the loss of tax-at-the-pump shadow government, nor will they consider using water (the greatest known source of electron grounding) as a fuel to be powered by solar energy.