Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution--and How It Can Renew America by
Thomas L. Friedman My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
Extremely fascinating book! Things I liked: witty, clever, lots of interviewee quotes, learned things I never knew about congressional sluggishness and big oil company lobbying to keep minimum fuel efficiency levels down, etc. A lot about biodiversity, global warming, carbon emissions, wind/solar/geothermal energy, etc. Did you know deforestation releases trapped carbon gases from the tree into the air? Just so much information and so much knowledge that it's hard to wrap your head around it. It's like multiple college courses crammed into one book. He really did a great job w/ his research. Loved the discussion of all the different experiences, views, failures, and successes of foreign governments and foreign/domestic businesses. I really liked his chapter that described the future home w/ smart appliances and smart box & future parking ramps. Fascinating and really captured my attention. It's a behemoth read.
My absolute favorite aspect of the book is the whole cynical and satirical discussion of yeah yeah you supposedly green American citizen w/ your energy saving bulbs, Prius, reusable grocery sacks, etc., you're so great, yay you, but guess what? One city in China eats that energy savings you would take years to built up for years all for its breakfast. The paradigm shift perspective that this book introduces is phenomenal- that it's such a HUGE global issue- that it's going to take so much to challenge countries like China, India, & Indonesia to try and out-green us and to try and skip the dirty-oil-based or coal-based development and jump straight to the clean development in an effort to get to that marketplace dominance before we can. Kind of like how China successfully skipped the whole telephone landline infrastructure development America went through and leapfrogged straight from no phones at all to cell phones. We need to as a global community encourage these economonies that despite it sucking and being completely unfair to them, that it's to their advantage and our advantage that they leapfrog their energy development. Whoever gets there first has the advantage in the global marketplace. I also loved his theories on petro-dictatorships- I completely and wholeheartedly agree w/ that one.
Things I didn't like, because I'm a critical cynic like that :) would be: How it got more and more partisan as it went on. I liked how it started off very non-partisan, not one political party does "green" right or wrong, but then as it went on and on, I felt it more and more partisan. Also, Friedman talks about needing quick and sweeping change from the government in the form of regulation and standards to make a guaranteed market stability for green venture capitalists, tax subsidies for clean energies, etc. Which I agree w/ to a certain extent- but I have major red flags and alarms that come up w/ government's hand being too involved in the marketplace. Friedman says government needs to set the regulations to jumpstart the free market and then let the free market take over, but I am so skeptical and leary of that much control and that much involvement, that our country will overtime be more authoritarian and lose the free market driven economy. Friedman even goes so far as to say he wishes we had the government of China for just one day to get things done and then go back to our own US government after that. To me that's a scary statement to make. I agree in the sweeping change and drastic measures, but be careful out there.
Overall, pretty awesome book, very educational, but don't take what he says as religious truth and become a worshipper. Extremely enlightening book, though. I recommend it to everyone!
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