fckie.com

I attended a lecture last week by double Pulitzer Prize-winning author Thomas Friedman at the British Museum about his upcoming book “Hot, Flat and Crowded, Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America”. Being involved in environmental strategy for a global brand myself, I was amazed by both the clarity and boldness of the argumentation he laid out. Again, Friedman showed himself brilliant at connecting all the dots. He also showed himself a master of language. Some of the new terms in the book will no doubt become common language. His description of the current state of things as a “Green Party” and his call for a “Green Revolution” is spot on. His renaming of “Global Warming” as “Global Weirding” brilliantly reflects the current reality (see further below).

I would like to share the structure of Friedman’s book as he laid it out, as well as some of the highlights.

Here are some flashes from the introduction chapter, where he talks about the role America could and should play in the green revolution:

“Whether you love us or hate us, whether you believe in American power or don’t, the convergence of hot, flat and crowded has created a challenge so daunting that it’s impossible to imagine a meaningful solution without America taking the lead and being at its best. We are either going to be losers or heroes. There is no room anymore for anything in between. We are either going to rise to the level of innovation, leadership and collaboration that is required, or everyone is going to lose in a big way. Just coasting along, and kinda sorta doing the right things, when they are convenient and easy, and letting the other stuff slip, that is not an option anymore.”

“The simple name for the project I’m proposing is Code Green. What Red was to America in the 1950’s and 60’s, a symbol of the overarching communist threat, a symbol that was used to mobilise our country, to build up its military, its industrial base, its highways, its railroads, its ports and airports, its educational institutions and scientific capabilities, we need Green to be for today’s America.”

The first half of the book is a diagnosis of the unique energy, climate and biodiversity challenges the world faces. The second half of the book is an argument of how we can beat those challenges.

So the first half of the book starts with laying out three major forces:

• Global warming, about the world increasingly heating up
• Global flattening, about the enormous increase in people joining the middle class in every country in the world
• Global crowding, about an ever more crowded planet

This convergence of global warming, global flattening and global crowding are driving five interwoven trends, which he discusses in the five following chapters:

1. “Too many Americans Are Carbon Copies”
About energy and resource supply and demand

We are going from a world of a billion people leading an American lifestyle to a world of 2 or possibly 3 billion people leading an American lifestyle. If we don’t take the lead in redefining what is an American lifestyle, we need two more planets.

2. “Fill Her Up With Dictators”
About petro-dictatorships (from Putin to Chavez)

3. “Global Weirding”
About climate change

Global warming sounds kinda nice. That’s not actually what happens with climate change. What happens is the weather gets weird: the drafts get longer, the rainstorms get heavier.
We’re entering the phase where we no longer know the difference between an act of God and an act of Man.

4. “The Age of Noah”
About biodiversity loss

We’re in the midst of the greatest extinction since the astroid hit the Yucatan Peninsula and wiped out the dinosaurs.
We’re the first generation of civilisation that will have to think like Noah, and think of saving the last two pairs.

5. “Engery Poverty 1.6 Billion”
About energy poverty

There are 1.6 billion people on the planet who don’t have an on-off switch in their lives, who are not connected to a network grid.

To close this first half of the book, and make the bridge to the second half, he makes the point that clean power will for sure become the next big global industry.

“When the world gets hot, flat and crowded, clean power and technology is going to be the next big global industry. It simply has to be. I know that for sure. What I don’t know is if my country is going to lead it, China is going to lead it, Japan is going to lead it, or Europe is going to lead it. […] The single most important competitive advantage will be, as a country or company, the ability to outgreen your competition.”

The next chapter, titled “205 Easy Ways To Save The Earth”, states that the current way in which green issues are tackled by government and companies do not match the scale of the problem.

“Have you ever been to a revolution where nobody got hurt? In the Green Revolution, everyone can win. We’re having a Green Party, not a Green Revolution. […] You’ll know when it’s a revolution when somebody gets hurt.”

In the next chapters, which really are the heart of the book, he goes into more detail about the real revolution which is needed.

“The Energy Internet, when IT meets ET”. This chapter talks about what it would be like to have an eco-system that begins with clean electrons, fed into a smart grid, fed into a smart home, into a smart car, and back.

“The Stone Age Didn’t End Because We Ran Out Of Stones” (it ended because people were incentivised to build bronze tools) talks about the need for strong and bold intervention from governments.

“If we do not have a clear price signal from the government, we are never going to trigger the scale of innovation we need in order to address this problem and build that energy internet. Because the key problem is that we’re replacing something that is already there.”

The one but last chapter is titled “China for a day, but not two”.

“We need a president who will set the regulations. Everybody will cry and scream for a month, and then the whole eco-system will adjust and we’ll take off on this journey.”

The concluding chapter is titled “A Democratic China Or A Banana Republic” (banana standing for “Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything”, as they say in the utility business), which outlines the ultimate choice America (and the rest of the world) is facing.

“We will either do the right and the hard things in a democratic way and launch a real Green Revolution, or we will build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything when it comes to green power. There is nothing in the universe quite as powerful as 6 billion minds wrapping around one problem.”

Curious to see if this book will have the same impact or success as his predecessor, “The World Is Flat”. Let’s hope it will.

Hear him speak about some of these issues in this NY Times video.