Thomas L. Friedman - Thomas L. Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times, is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner and a member of the Pulitzer Prize Board.
Friedman was bureau chief for The Times in Beirut and Jerusalem before writing, From Beirut to Jerusalem, which won the National Book Award for non-fiction. His book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree won the 2000 Overseas Press Club award for best nonfiction book on foreign policy.
His latest work, The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century, won the inaugural Goldman Sachs/Financial Times Business Book of the Year award. He has a B.A. in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University and a Master of Philosophy degree in Modern Middle East studies from Oxford.
Thomas Friedman talks about Hot, Flat & Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution -- And How It Can Renew America.
Friedman explains how global warming, growing populations, and the expansion of the world's middle class have produced a planet that is "hot, flat, and crowded."
It is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things - unless the U.S. steps up now and takes the lead-Book Passage
As an environmental scientist I can honestly say everyone should be very scared. Please check out 350.org or wecansolveit.org for more info on climate change. Or Audubon Society, GreenPeace, Sierra Club, the Pew Center, etc. etc, etc. Get involved and use your voices any way you can to catch the ear of the new administration. Also, please push for the President to attend the upcoming climate change conference in Poland. What good for the environment is good for America. Thanks from Western PA.
I appreciate Thomas Friedman's ability to effectively write about and discuss contemporary issues. While he certainly is prone to over-referencing his own previous works, he describes key phenomenon in the world very well.
It's kind of funny that Mr. Friedman asks during his talk for someone to turn down the air conditioning right above him. He's thinking only about himself because he is used to getting what he gets. It seems that if the AC were turned off above him it would have to be cut off for everybody in the room. Other alternatives could have been to move the podium over a little or for him to put on a coat.
This is relevent because the ones who preach Green Revolution are the ones who can handle the monetary cost of it. Mr. Friedman is the same as us when we are feeling cold, but unlike us, he can afford solar panel heat energy while the rest must use coal. He can afford a green car, although he has another, and probably two, gasoline backup cars/SUVs that he can use when he goes where no one will see him.
This is not an attack on Mr. Friedman. My apologies if the editors feel so.
But the Green Revolution is an attack on developing nations. America was able to build its infrastructure and consumption economy precisely in the way that the Green Revolutionists are dictating to others that they can't.
Before you can have a Green revolution you have to develop into one. A Green revolution are for the few.
Can it be that America is fearing its economic power diminishing in the near future with the economic beast of China ready to surpass the USA with 4x the population? How can this juggernaught be held back when 10 USA armies cannot stop it physically?