Hot, Flat and Crowded

Title: Hot, Flat and Crowded 3.5 / 5
Author: Thomas L Friedman
2008
Began Reading: 7/1/2009
Ended Reading: 7/16/2009



Format: CD



Hot, Flat and Crowded. To some this book may be a Green Bible or for others like me, it is a wakeup call. No kidding.

I am not, nor will I ever be a Green Lunatic. I do not care that you have plastic water bottles. I do not care that you have not upgraded to energy efficient light bulbs, I do not care that you don’t drive a Prius. That will never be me. I am not a Green Nazi; and I do not fully understand what carbon credits are. From what I can tell, they seem to be a way to make money from folk with guilty conscience. I don’t shop at Whole Foods, I think vegans and Co – Op shoppers are weird, pretentious, poseurs and I leave the water running when I brush my teeth, take that.
What I did take away from Friedman’s book, is that if America is to survive we have to downgrade somewhat because we are not the only one’s able to purchase scarce resources. There are other developing nations that want what America has and they are competing with us to get them.

China is a country that has over a billion people. Thankfully, those people are rural dwellers, but their cities are growing at alarming rates and they want to have homes that have all the bells and whistles just like Americans. Friedman is telling everyone in no uncertain terms that everyone can not have everything, at least not how we have it now.

Our power grids and infrastructure are old and over tasked. Friedman proposes that we invest in a new power grid that does things during off peak hours. I immediately thought of how I use my DVR. I know that if I want to TiVo Real Housewives of Atlanta (no redeeming value) and Penn and Teller Bullshit (one of the smartest shows on television) I record them in the middle of the night. That way I can watch other idiotic TV shows and these two will record while I sleep. You see, those two shows conflict with each other. If I wanted to watch say, Mad Men (one of the best dramas of all time) I couldn’t because the system is overloaded and can only handle so much at one time.

Friedman posits that if we had a smart grid the electrical load will be distributed more evenly. We would use less energy and our bills should reflect this.

Friedman thankfully, was not about being trendy with going green, a term he disdains. For that matter, me too. He did not give us 200 ways to go green. He gave real life examples of how we could change our lives for the better by changing the old consumptive way of thinking.

Not only is China under fire, but he brings up India as well as the Middle East. He gives clear succinct reasoning for why we must abandon that hellacious region. Not only is the way petrol is taken from the Earth a horrible experience, but that resource is obviously funding terrorist activities around the world.

Then there is the problem of water conservation. I was just watching Penn and Teller; they did a show on lawns. In a gated community in Florida the home owners’ association requires a variety of grass that needs 4000 / gal of water per week to maintain. What a waste. This type of consumption must be checked. The average person in the Third World, according to National Geographic “Lacks access to adequate sanitation, one person in six lives without regular access to safe drinking water." How can we justify wasting the precious resource of water, on grass? This is a kind of wasteful action must be stopped.

If Americans can all be attuned to change, we can, as Friedman says "Have a green revolution. The kind of change revolution like the world has never seen before.

Oh, and BTW, that means me too. I will start doing things like turning off the water when I brush. But I still will believe vegans and Whole Food shoppers are weirdos.