Thomas Friedman at UTA: “Hot, Flat, and Crowded”
by Pete Wann
Photo: Beth McHenry. Image courtesy UTA.
Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and bestselling author, spoke to a full-house in Texas Hall at UT Arlington Thursday as the inaugural speaker in the University’s “Mavericks Speaker Series.”
Being an advocate for sustainability and a supporter of free-market solutions for our energy crisis, you can bet that I wouldn’t miss this talk.
Friedman didn’t disappoint. He spoke for nearly an hour and a half, and very succinctly outlined not only the problems we face, but also the ways that he thinks we can best fix them. “The media” and our political leadership have gotten really good at telling us about the problems we face. They’re not so good at telling us what we need to do to fix them.
A few points stood out during the talk –
Friedman claims that the US has lost its “groove.” After 9/11/01, we had a tremendous opportunity to capitalize on a renewed sense of togetherness and collective purpose, and that feeling was allowed to wither away, lost in partisan bickering and exhortations to “go buy something” as a solution to getting the country rolling again.
One example he used is to compare the United States to the space shuttle taking off. The huge cloud of smoke and flame that you see propelling the shuttle skyward is the entrepreneurial spirit and work ethic of the American people, which he (and I) truly believe can overcome any problem. But that spirit and drive is pushing a booster rocket which is cracked (congress and state governments) and is allowing the energy and power to flow without direction. And on top of it all, in the cockpit, are our national leaders of both parties who are bickering over what channel the radio should be tuned to instead of steering the ship.
The other point that I was most struck by is how clueless the general public really is, and how willing we are to accept the over-simplifications we’re being fed by corporations and well-meaning journalists. One of the more humorous moments in the talk was when Friedman quickly read a collection of article titles he had gathered, all offering XXX Easy [cheap, simple, quick, etc.] Ways To Go Green [Green Your House, Baby, Sex Life, etc.]. Friedman says that we’re not experiencing a “green revolution” as so many magazines would have you believe, and he says “When has there ever been a revolution when no one has gotten hurt? This isn’t a revolution, it’s a party.” Of course he doesn’t mean that people will be physically hurt by the “green revolution,” but there will certainly be industrial and governmental casualties. He compares the coming change to the IT revolution that came in the early 90’s, where companies had to innovate or die, and gave several examples of former powerhouse companies that simply aren’t here any more, like DEC, Burroughs, WYSE, etc.
Although I haven’t read his current book, and I honestly didn’t give “The World is Flat” enough time or energy, it’s clear to me that Friedman and I agree to a great extent on what is needed to fix the problems we’re facing. The only question that remains is whether we and our leaders are ready to make the tough decisions and sacrifices needed to do it.
Tags: environmentalism, sustainability, thomas friedman, UTA
5 Comments, Comments or Pings
Brian S
Who’s the next speaker @ UTA?
Sep 12th, 2008
Pete Wann
Next up is NPR (and Fox News?!) contributor Juan Williams, on October 14th.
Sep 12th, 2008
cozette
Regardless of whether it is Obama or McCain, we will need to have some long-term support for alternative energy from our government. For all you ‘free market’ folks, recognize that the ‘market’ for crude oil is dominated by OPEC and National Oil Companies. So ‘Big Oil’ is now ‘little oil’ by comparison. The market for energy is not ‘free’ in any meaningful sense.
OPEC has long practiced what economists call ‘barrier to entry’ pricing. They have kept the price of crude sufficiently low, or at least sufficiently uncertain, to discourage major investments in alternative energy.
Recently, we have seen some internal struggle as members of OPEC have acted as if preserving the value of the oil they have in the ground [think, reservoir asset management] has been more important than keeping alternative investments down. [The latest proposed 500kbpd increase in Saudi lifting’s make indicate a resurgence of barrier-to-entry pricing thinking.]
If we are going to get significant investment in alternative energy, we need to set a floor for crude prices below which investors in alternative energy will receive a subsidy. Joe Kernan, of CNBC has suggested that a floor that was the equivalent of $50/bbl crude would stimulate investment.
I’m sure he is right. But a $60/bbl floor would stimulate more investment, and a $70/bbl floor more again. As I see it, there is a great deal of suspicion and emotion on all sides of the energy issue. This is clouding the issue and making solutions more difficult to achieve.
Well, perhaps ’solutions’ is too optimistic a term. We are really talking about alternative life-styles to the one we have been living heretofore.
As I see it:
We need to develop ’secure’ sources of crude oil or crude oil equivalent.
We need to develop alternative energy sources.
We need to conserve energy.
This is not an ‘either-or’ situation. The brutal truth is that both the folks that want to drill in ANWAR and the ‘greens’ are right. Even if we do all of the things that the various factions want, energy prices will still go up.
It is much too simplistic just to look for someone to blame.
We need to figure out a way to transition the US economy from one that is dependent on importing crude oil to one that is energy independent [or, at least, not energy vulnerable].
In my view, most of the folks on both the left and the right of the ‘aisle’ will need to change their ‘positions’ before the US can make real progress on energy.
We need to start thinking about Big Oil, not as part of the problem, but as part of the solution. Big oil is making all this money. How can we encourage them to use that money in a way that will increase the energy security of the USA?
Think out of the Barrel…
Sep 13th, 2008
Suzette Watkins
” Big oil is making all this money. How can we encourage them to use that money in a way that will increase the energy security of the USA?” Cozette
Cozette - I don’t see any other way of encouraging Big Oil to work on increasing the energy security of the USA w/out the use of more money. Give them tax breaks for making strides in more environmentally friendly, cleaner energy and hiring x-convicts. (notice the word “and” which means both) I don’t know of any other carrot that would turn the heads of Big Oil other than money itself. Sad but true, IMO.
Sep 14th, 2008
concerned citizen
Friedman is simplistic in dealing with complex issues like globalization or energy crisis. He neatly forgot all the millions of people left out of the “developmental” fold of globalization in his “The world is flat” book. Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel winner for economics and was Chief Economist at World Bank) said while on a trip to India, that 600 million people from India (out of the one billion!) have been left out of the “development” fold of globalization. So, obviously, all India is not going to migrate into middle class, if anything the inequality is far, far worse now, after the advent of globalization.
Similarly newspaper reports have pointed out how Chinese workers are working in apalling conditions, to churn out the low cost products, with poor pay, cramped rooms, no accident or health insurance benefits, no job security, no overtime, long working hours - so who is actually benefiting from this sort of globalization? Corporates ofcourse,
There is this small, but interesting book, by Aronica and Ramdoo, “The World is Flat? A Critical Analysis of Thomas Friedman’s New York Times Bestseller,” which offers a counterperspective to Friedman’s theory on globalization. This book, written about 2 years back, also gives a pointer about where the american society is headed, economy-wise, with its debt-ridden society. And it is as if that scene from this book were playing itself out now, with the a huge financial crisis looming in US.
It is a small book compared to the 600 page tome by Friedman, and aimed at the common man and students alike. As popular as the book may be, some reviewers assert that by what it leaves out, Friedman’s book is dangerous. The authors point to the fact that there isn’t a single table or data footnote in Friedman’s entire book.
“Globalization is the greatest reorganization of the world since the Industrial Revolution,” says Aronica. Aronica and Ramdoo conclude by listing over twenty action items that point the way forward, for understanding the critical issues of globalization.
You may want to see http://www.mkpress.com/flat
and watch http://www.mkpress.com/flatoverview.html
for an interesting counterperspective on Friedman’s
“The World is Flat”.
Also a really interesting 6 min wake-up call: Shift Happens! http://www.mkpress.com/ShiftExtreme.html
There is also a companion book listed: Extreme Competition: Innovation and the Great 21st Century Business Reformation
http://www.mkpress.com/extreme
http://www.mkpress.com/Extreme11minWMV.html
Sep 25th, 2008
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