In this talk, New York Time columnist and author Tom Friedman exposes the irrationality of U.S. policies that promote consumption of vast quantities of oil.
Friedman stresses that the United States must lead efforts to develop energy alternatives that would 1) free us from our dependence on petro-dictatorships and 2) help preserve the earth, oceans, and biodiversity.
The program concludes with a Q&A between Friedman and Editor of The New Republic, Frank Foer- Sixth & I Synagogue
Bio
Carla Cohen
Carla Cohen is co-owner of Politics & Prose Bookstore.
Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade began in a small store at 5010 Connecticut in the autumn of 1984, by themselves and a part-time employee who worked at night. Before a year was up, there were two full-time employees. By 1988-89 there were a half-dozen and the store was bursting.
They moved across the street to 5015 in the summer of 1989, and since then we have grown at intervals of every three years. They now occupy 10,000 square feet of sales space, and close to 13,000 feet, including offices and café. They have a staff of 50-55 full-time employees.
Franklin Foer
Franklin Foer is an American political journalist and the editor of The New Republic.
Foer graduated from Columbia in 1996. Before joining The New Republic, Foer was a frequent contributor to the online magazine Slate.
His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Spin, U.S. News & World Report, Lingua Franca, The Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, New York and Foreign Policy. In 2004 he published his first book, How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization.
Thomas L. Friedman
Thomas L. Friedman is a foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times. Friedman is an internationally renowned author, reporter, and columnist; the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes; and the author of five best-selling books: From Beirut to Jerusalem; The Lexus and the Olive Tree: Understanding Globalization; Longitudes and Attitudes: Exploring the World After September 11; The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century; and Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need A Green Revolution – And How It Can Renew America. His foreign affairs column in the Times, which appears twice a week, reports on US domestic politics and foreign policy, Middle East conflict, international economics, environment, biodiversity, and energy.
Any of various renewable power sources to use in place of fossil fuels and uranium. Fusion devices (seenuclear fusion) are believed by some to be the best long-term option, because their primary energy source would be deuterium, abundant in ordinary water. Other technologies include solar energy, wind power, tidal power, wave power, hydroelectric power, and geothermal energy. The amount of energy in such renewable and virtually pollution-free sources is large in relation to world energy needs, yet at present only a small portion of it can be converted to electric power at reasonable cost.
Process by which the experience of everyday life, marked by the diffusion of commodities and ideas, is becoming standardized around the world. Factors that have contributed to globalization include increasingly sophisticated communications and transportation technologies and services, mass migration and the movement of peoples, a level of economic activity that has outgrown national markets through industrial combinations and commercial groupings that cross national frontiers, and international agreements that reduce the cost of doing business in foreign countries. Globalization offers huge potential profits to companies and nations but has been complicated by widely differing expectations, standards of living, cultures and values, and legal systems as well as unexpected global cause-and-effect linkages. See alsofree trade.
"America nothing". This is only a prejudice which is due to the observable fact, that the USA is using 25% of worldwide ressources while having less than 5% of the world's population. If somebody buys american technology, the first thing he will perceive is a big energy bill. To maintain capitalism wasting is vital. Mr. Friedman has problems with reality.
"Global Wierding" because "warming" is attractive to someone in Minnesota? Poor Tom doesn't seem to realize that the weather is wierd much of the time. Nothing happens that hasn't happened before. Since it's not really "warming" any more they had to have something to use; "climate change" must be passe now so it's "weirding". Got to keep that problem with carbon going to justify putting a meaningless carbon content label on things now. They have really lost it - get two signatures and a bed...
As irrelevant as the "global warming/weirding" situation is, or the inanity of a benevolent government being anywhere in the world let alone in the US, Tom Friedman is right twice here...very much like a stopped clock manages to be right twice a day. Usable energy supply was destined to be and is now a planetary issue, and secondly, Al Gore does owe an applolgy (although, not the one suggested).
Why would the Chinese spend billions of dollars researching green energy when they can simply, and cheaply, steal it from others after its been invented?!?!?
The "green evolution" that Tom speaks of bombastically about is no other than the evolution of green, i.e. dollars. He's joined the "green" bandwagon just like the latest American floor detergent companies because it sells. Tom talks the talk very well, sells books and sends another daughter to college.
A whole hour lecture exorting the U.S. to lead in an ET world (not IT) is his complete thesis.
Tom Friedman is a cheerleader. His admonishment that the U.S. must lead in his quirky, if not inane term ET is an empty observation. Of course he goes off in his popular "lexus and the olive tree" analogies that the populous finds enthralling because it's an alibi for them for not going out to get their G.E.D.s.
Is the world flat, hot and crowded? The problem is not energy, it is baby production.
tom friedman,the champion of globalization,thought it was so great to tour India's new job market while Americans were going on welfare,becoming homeless and getting swindled by all that is BUSH.
Now he discovered energy policy-good for him.He should flip burgers,stand and wait for a bus,get on line(no pun) for some food handouts,move into a shelter or with relatives or stand on a corner with all the illegal aliens waiting for a day job.
Tom Friedman sucks and makes us all sick to our stomachs-even Madelyn Albright put him down in her book on the next president.
member. 
