Hot, Flat and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman

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Hot, Flat and Crowded, by Thomas L. Friedman

By Ernest ⋅ January 29, 2009 ⋅

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Tags: climate change, population growth

Hot, Flat and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York © 2008

Hot refers to climate change, flat refers to the growing interconnection of human society everywhere, and crowded refers to population growth. This very important book presents a deep view of many key issues in the race against time to make a sustainable social-economy on this planet. A minor flaw is the many small errors in technical terminology, including writing “electrons”, instead of “electrical energy”. The author has obviously discussed his thoughts with many brilliant scientists and engineers, but he hasn’t yet absorbed their vocabulary.

The combination of “Hot, Flat and Crowded” is a recipe for disaster. The Author seeks solutions in energy efficiency, driven by economics. This is the same message given by Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute: the hope that price signals (high cost of energy and materials) will be sufficient to change our economy around to use about a third of the present energy, and that mostly renewable, without actually changing how we live. This view of technology is probably too optimistic. Future Americans will probably have to live in well-insulated smaller homes, and drive a lot less, but in electric cars. Growing use of renewable electric sources, particularly wind and solar, will not phase out all use of fossil fuel for a long time. In the meantime, as China is becoming more affluent, America will have to reduce its demand for fossil fuels. Can we show them a better way, before resource conflicts erupt into violence? As others have noted, conflict over available resources, such as water, arable land, and fish, have led to past wars, and present genocide.

A bigger flaw is not following through on the crowded theme. Population increase is the “elephant in the room”, which no one mentions but can eat up all possible gains from efficiency and changes of life style. Presently, Western Europe, and to a lesser extent, America and Japan, are holding internal population increases in check, but are absorbing a small part of the population boom from the less affluent areas. Those who have large families in spite of poverty tend to have even larger families when their incomes rise in affluent countries.

One point picked up by the author is that the appetite for oil in the industrial nations, and the rapidly industrializing nations, supports a number of what the author calls “petrodictatorships”. Many countries which are just lucky enough to sit on vast pools of oil, are using the resulting economic leverage to attack the democratic, capitalist West. Perhaps the best (or worst) example is Saudi Arabia, where petro-dollars are used to fund Wahabi Muslim schools world-wide, which have turned out most of the suicide bombers and terrorists who have attacked our society. Chavez, in Venezuela, is also using our petro-dollars to confront us politically.

The final chapter of the book seems the most germane to SSAP. In America, it is relatively easy to rally for government action, and it is relatively easy to live your own “green life”. How can we preserve democracy, and also get the necessary changes in the American economy, to show the world how to live well and sustainably?

Ernest B Cohen

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