Thomas Friedman 3: Danger of Too Many Americans & AmeriCOMS?

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Why Are We Threatened by an Over Crowded Planet? 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: There is only one problem. The good Lord did not design this planet for this many Americans. Unless we, the original Americans, redefine what it means to be an American and invent the tools, the sustainable tools, that so many other people can live like us, we are going to have a problem. 1:55 1:56 my friend Tom Brook, who runs a wonderful ngo in England, has actually created a new unit of measure. He calls it the Americom. And one Americom is 350 million people living like Americans 2:07 when I was born in 1953, there were 2.5 Americoms in the world - America Western Europe and Japan. Today there are nine. 2:14 there is one America and America, there is one in Western Europe. There is no one in Eastern and Central Europe and Russia. There is one in India giving birth to another. One in China and giving birth to another. One in Latin America. One in East Asia. We have gone in just the last 30 years from the world of 2.5 Americoms - units of 350 million people living like us, to a world of nine Americoms. 2:36 and the energy and natural resources implications of that is going to be enormous.

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