Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Change America. Embark on a transformative journey with ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0’, a visionary book that challenges and inspires. Thomas L. Friedman’s masterpiece delivers a powerful message, urging immediate action to spearhead a green revolution.
Dive deeper into the insights of ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0’ and discover how you can be a part of the pivotal change towards a sustainable future. Keep reading to explore the profound implications for our planet and society.
‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0’ by Thomas L. Friedman is an updated version of his earlier work that addresses the pressing issues of climate change, global population growth, and the increasing demand for energy. The book argues that these converging challenges have created a world that is hotter, flatter, and more crowded, leading to a crisis that demands a comprehensive and immediate response. Friedman calls for a ‘Geo-Greenism’ approach, advocating for a national strategy to lead a green revolution that can renew America and the world. He emphasizes the need for innovation in energy technology (ET) and outlines how the United States can take the lead in this transformative era.
Table of Contents
Genres
Public Policy, Politics, Environment, Science, Economics, Business, History, Sustainability, Climate Change, Industries, Environmental Policy, Political Economy, Environmental Economics
Review
Friedman’s ‘Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0’ is a compelling and incisive work that captures the urgency of the environmental and energy crises facing the world. His writing is clear and persuasive, making a strong case for why America must embrace a leadership role in the global green revolution. The book is rich in detail and offers a forward-looking perspective on how embracing green technology can lead to a healthier, wealthier, and more secure future. While some critics may find the book’s viewpoint overly optimistic or politically charged, it remains an essential read for those interested in the intersection of environmental policy and national security. Friedman’s ability to connect complex global issues with everyday concerns makes this book a valuable resource for understanding the challenges and opportunities of the Energy-Climate era.
The earth is hot, flat, and crowded — and getting more so with each passing year. We have passed over the edge of global crisis; all that remains now is what to do about it. The only way forward is to embrace environmental technology, and America can either lead the way or be dependent on technology and energy developed elsewhere. In this book summary of Hot, Flat, and Crowded 2.0, you will learn about the political crisis that put us here, and how to extricate ourselves from it.
How we became a generation that devours wealth — and how to start turning things around.
READ THIS BOOK REVIEW IF YOU:
- Want to cultivate an ethic of sustainability, both financially and environmentally
- Care how environmentalism can be patriotic and advance national and global security
- Are curious how climate change works and how it can be mitigated
Introduction
It may seem odd to begin a book on environmental crisis with stories of financial collapse. However, this is the logical place to begin because it reveals that the financial meltdown of the first decade of the 2000s and the melting of the polar ice caps have a shared cause; the unsustainable environmental and financial conditions that the world is grappling with come from the same bad habits. These habits are underpricing risk, a lack of commitment and accountability, and a system that privatizes the gains of risky behavior while socializing the losses.
Underpricing risk means, broadly, failing to account for the true cost and danger of operating in a certain way. The subprime crisis illustrates this plainly. The mathematical models that made bundles of “good” and “bad” mortgages look like a safe bet were based on the assumption that, surely, they couldn’t all default at once — and then they did.
Selling mortgages on to increasingly remote financial institutions and flipping houses as mortgage rates reset also introduced a culture of limited accountability. Everyone was operating on the mentality that, even if the situation was precarious, “I’ll be gone when the bill comes due.” The people who created the risk got to keep the profits while passing the losses on to someone else. In the case of banks, which were “too big to fail,” that someone else was the American people.
The case of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in western Antarctica shows how these same practices set us down the path of environmental destruction. This shelf began to crumble in 2009, the same time the global economy was in free fall. The shelf lost a third of its area within a decade. Why? Because energy companies sold hydrocarbons at prices that did not reflect the environmental cost. As with the banks and hedge funds, private gains were made at the expense of public good, and the increase in the global standard of living in this generation came about in a way that robs the next generation of theirs.
Instead of being a “grasshopper generation” that devours wealth — both natural and financial — at the expense of the future, we have a chance to become the “regeneration.” Taking inspiration from the sacrifice and patriotism of the Greatest Generation, Americans could lead the way to a green future by treating environmental damage as the genuine threat to our security and independence that it is.
Where We Are
We are at the dawning of the Energy-Climate Era — so named for the challenges that will define the epoch to come. The key problems we face: growing demand for ever-scarcer resources, a transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries and petro-dictators, disruptive climate change, energy poverty, and accelerating biodiversity loss. That is to say: the earth is becoming hot, flat, and crowded.
How crowded is the earth getting? By 2030 an estimated 5 billion people will live in cities. Moreover, by 2053 the global population will have tripled from its 1953 level. There will be exponentially more people, and there will be a large population of young people looking for stability and a future on our warming planet.
The flattening of the global economy is a product of technological advancement and the collapse of communism. As more people were able, through the internet and the end of Cold War isolationism, to enter the global market, the demand for a middle-class lifestyle, with cars, meat, and air-conditioning increased, just as the resources to enable that lifestyle started to run out.
The world is getting hot too. The increase in global temperatures since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century is having demonstrable effects on our global ecosystem. Because of greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide from cars and even methane gas from farming — the effect that keeps the earth habitable by trapping heat from the sun has been enhanced to the point that it is cooking the planet. Just as a small change in body temperature produces a fever in a person, a small fluctuation in global temperatures is producing all kinds of nasty symptoms for life on earth.
China and India face an increasing demand for infrastructure to support their growing populations. However, everything from oil to aluminum is getting more expensive. The subsidies that countries like the United States had in place to keep the prices on these goods low are becoming unsustainable.
This same demand transfers power to oil- and gas-rich countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia. When Russia cut off Ukraine’s natural gas access in 2006 as a way of asserting political dominance, this action was all the more powerful because of European dependence on Russian gas. Energy dependence increases the power of dictators with access to hydrocarbons.
The fever throws of our heating planet can be seen in the increasing number of environmental crises. An early warning was Hurricane Katrina. In 2007 the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reflected on the hurricane and concluded that global warming was an unequivocal reality and that it would have sudden and irreversible effects, including floods, droughts, heat waves, and wildfires. And things could get worse. The consequences of a 10-degree change in global temperature will be far, far worse than those of an increase of only 1 degree.
As access to resources becomes increasingly scarce, energy poverty and its political consequences become more and more of a concern. For example, in 2007 a series of blackouts hit South Africa and Zimbabwe. The results were politically explosive. The sudden loss of the material and economic benefits of electrification is a recipe for political unrest.
Our planet has also reached its biodiversity tipping point; we are entering an age of mass extinction. For many, it was the extinction of the Yangtze River dolphin that drove this point home. While many smaller species had been dropping off, this was the first large mammal to go extinct because of human activity in a century.
Despite these challenges, these problems also offer opportunities. We have reached a point where everyone on the planet will be forced to pay the true cost of their energy use; despite borrowing from future generations, our environmental savings account is empty. Nonetheless, technology that provides clean, cheap energy is the next big industrial opportunity — and America can and should take its place as an innovator in that field. Imagine if the best and brightest in the country put their efforts into solving our energy problems instead of into designing the kinds of financial calculation formulas that helped justify the risk taking that led to the mortgage crisis.
Our country needs a “code green,” an approach to environmentalism that is strategic, geopolitical, patriotic, and capitalistic. Even if climate change turns out to be less severe than predicted, a smart green economy will still be more strategic and efficient than our current one. On the other hand, the risk of climate change being as severe as all the scientific data suggest, and continuing on the current path, is incredibly high.
What would a code green look like? It would use scientific innovation to create more efficient energy use. Family planning would slow the rate of population growth — not through restrictive laws but through increased access to information. An ethic of conservation would build a system of values based on minimizing impact on the environment. This could start with small changes, such as businesses being required to turn their lights off after-hours.
Adaptation will be necessary. We have crossed a threshold — some change is unavoidable. We must consider whether and where to strengthen shore protection as coastal weather becomes increasingly violent, where urban tree planting can make the biggest impact, and so on.
How We Move Forward
It may seem like we are already in the throes of a green revolution — every magazine, TV show, and website seems to offer tips on “easy” ways to go green. However, there aren’t a bunch of easy ways to save the earth — there isn’t even one. A true green revolution will not be easy and will not be painless. It will require a real change in the way our normal lives operate, because our “normal” is not sustainable. However, just because it isn’t going to be easy doesn’t mean it’s impossible — as many in the oil and gas industry would like people to believe — and we shouldn’t just give up and give in to continuous consumption.
Princeton University’s Carbon Mitigation Initiative came up with 15 proposals — some carbon-free, some carbon-reducing — that, with large-scale implementation of any eight or substantial implementation of all 15, would prevent the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere from doubling by the middle of the 21st century. Proposals include doubling the fuel efficiency of 2 billion cars; increasing wind power fortyfold to replace all coal power; halting all cutting and burning of forests; and cutting electricity use in homes, offices, and stores by 25% and carbon emissions by the same amount. None of this is easy — achieving even one goal, let alone eight, would take incredible political and social leadership. That the politically feasible responses to climate change fall so short of the necessary responses is one of the most pressing crises to tackle. Perhaps a way to do that is to envision what a green revolution might look like.
One pending driver of the green revolution is the energy internet — a system that could take technological advances and turn them toward maximizing efficient energy usage. In such a future, the energy of every appliance and device in your home could be tracked, and efficient energy use would garner financial rewards. Instead of a flat rate based on kilowatts per hour, you would sign up for a cheap, offpeak plan that would flatten the demand for energy. A variety of tailor-made plans would discourage inefficient and environmentally hazardous usage. Solar panels and electrochromic glass would be used to create self-sustaining, net-zero buildings that send energy back into the grid by making the most of solar light — for power and as an alternative to heating and air-conditioning.
While this might seem like a far-fetched, far-off future, the technology to achieve it is with us today and being tested in pilot communities. A green revolution may seem as daunting as hiking Mount Everest, but the tools we need for the climb are already available.
China
On a global scale, from population share alone, China has a huge impact on the climate. Can Red China ever become green?
The truth is, China can no longer afford to wait to clean up environmentally until it feels economically ready. There is an intuitive sense of unfairness that developing economies in the East are not able to grow economically at the expense of the future the way the United States and Western Europe did. Nonetheless, the Chinese government has realized that, although it must continue to grow economically to eschew political unrest from its ever-growing population, it must grow greenly — lest the deaths of Chinese citizens as a result of its coal-powered energy economy give rise to the same unrest it is trying to avoid.
So, though China is still just as focused on GDP growth, it has shifted toward green GDP growth. Despite mixed results, the Chinese government has, at least on paper, committed to ambitious environmental goals and is one of the leaders in developing environmental technologies. In 2008, Vestas, a Danish wind turbine company, saw 35 new Chinese competitors (but not a single one from the United States).
When it comes to energy technology, the great industrial opportunity of our era, the United States has a chance to lead the way or follow others — but the rest of the world, and certainly China, will not sit still and wait while we decide.
America
America’s energy crisis is a crisis of government as much as anything else. Without clear and credible energy targets, political policy does not have the power to push the market toward environmental technologies. With clear carbon goals, investors could make long-term bets on our environmental future instead of continually hedging on the status quo.
As it stands, only a sixth of the top renewable energy manufacturers are from the United States. If the green revolution is the next step forward in technology, America risks being left behind. Personal commitment to the environment is not enough — we need a political movement to force the creation of environmentally minded laws and practices.
And not just for the traditional “green” reasons but also because it is financially smart and geopolitically strategic.
Conclusion
We are living in a world that is hot, flat, and crowded — and getting more so. The status quo is no longer an option in the Energy-Climate Era. Instead, we must look for ways to lead a green revolution — one that strengthens American economic competitiveness and increases national and global security by reducing dependence on petro-dictators.
Instead of being a “grasshopper generation” that devours wealth at the expense of the future, we have a chance to become the “re-generation.” Green is not just sympathetic; it is strategic, economic, and patriotic.
Thomas L. Friedman is a three-time Pulitzer Prize–winner and a weekly columnist for The New York Times, where he frequently writes on environmental issues, global trade, and the Middle East.
Table of Contents
Preface to the Release 2.0 Edition ix
Part I When the Market and Mother Nature Hit the Wall
1 Why Citibank, Iceland’s Banks, and the Ice Banks of Antarctica All Melted Down at the Same Time 3
2 Dumb As We Wanna Be 28
3 The Re-Generation 49
Part II Where We Are
4 Today’s Date: 1 E.C.E. Today’s Weather: Hot, Flat, and Crowded 63
5 Our Carbon Copies (or, Too Many Americans) 85
6 Fill ‘Er Up with Dictators 110
7 Global Weirding 146
8 The Age of Noah 180
9 Energy Poverty 194
10 Green Is the New Red, White, and Blue 210
Part III How We Move Forward
11 205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth 249
12 The Energy Internet: When It Meets ET 263
13 The Stone Age Didn’t End Because We Ran Out of Stones 288
14 If It Isn’t Boring, It Isn’t Green 320
15 A Million Noahs, a Million Arks 353
16 Outgreening al-Qaeda (or, Buy One, Get Four Free) 373
Part IV China
17 Can Red China Become Green China? 399
Part V America
18 China for a Day (but Not for Two) 429
19 A Democratic China, or a Banana Republic? 456
Acknowledgments 477
Index 485