Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #513886 in Books
• Published on: 2008-09-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 448 pages

Customer Reviews

A Call for Laws, Regulations, and Tax Incentives for Encouraging Conservation and Clean Energy Use
If you oppose conservation and clean energy, I wonder why you would. Typical concerns relate to when conservation and clean energy reduce economic growth or reduce profits for some special interest in the near term. Longer term, most people would agree that conservation and clean energy make sense.

Journalist and social activist Thomas L. Friedman could have written a much shorter book if he had simply started with the premise that it's a good idea to have conservation and clean energy. He spends most of the book providing arguments in favor of those approaches.

Those arguments are related to these propositions:

1. Rising carbon dioxide levels are either causing global warming and more violent weather . . . or will at some point fairly soon.
2. Rapid population growth and concentration into urban areas are making pollution a greater problem.
3. Fast economic growth in the developing world is accelerating pollution.
4. Natural environments are disappearing at a rapid rate, taking with them weather-dampening resources and species which might have value that we don't yet appreciate.
5. Free markets encourage polluting rather than nonpolluting solutions.
6. Extractive energy sources encourage dictatorships, terrorism, and harm to women.

Most of these points are exemplified by an anecdote from when Mr. Friedman talked to someone while on a speaking tour, was traveling from country to country, or was helicoptering around to see some sight that interested him. Much of this book has a travelogue aspect, even though it is a book about social change.

When Mr. Friedman gets into his arguments in favor of laws, regulations, and tax incentives, his thesis is sometimes contradictory. He argues that it is more profitable to use conservation and clean energy, yet cites lots of business leaders who seem to say that they won't employ those methods unless forced to by laws, regulations, and tax incentives. That argument didn't make sense to me. It also seems like many countries are already using laws, regulations, and tax incentives to encourage conservation and clean energy use. If those approaches are a good idea, there should be all kinds of incentives to change.

The crux of Mr. Friedman's argument in favor of these governmental changes is that it is critical that the United States do more in these areas than anyone else for the following reasons:

1. It will be a competitive disadvantage to lag in these areas.
2. Economic growth in the United States depends on creating a large clean energy and conservation industry.
3. Safety from the Muslim world depends on these activities, as well.
4. Other countries will do more in these areas if the U.S. goes first.
5. People in other countries will support more change if U.S. consumers are making these changes.

The major flaw in this thesis is that the United States government can make such a large change and sustain it for several decades. Since the 1960s, there has been little consensus in the United States on any changes other than ones that favor growth of individual incomes and wealth in the short term.

The current economic crisis will put a heavy burden on economic growth for many years to come. The pending retirement of the baby boom generation will be an even heavier weight to carry.

I suspect that there will be little appetite for government to lead such changes.

Ultimately, I suspect that a more likely path to success in making these changes would be for state, city, and county governments to boycott suppliers who don't use clean energy and employ good conservation practices. Action at those levels of government often works, doesn't take a long time, and is already being successful in areas like California.

I praise Mr. Friedman for wanting to encourage conservation and use of clean energy, but I fear that he needs to spend more time thinking about how to do that . . . and less time on arguing for national changes in U.S. laws, regulations, and tax incentives. With our political system, I think he is whistling in the dark.

What do you think?

A political call to arms for Americans to radically change their way of life and lead the Green Revolution
This is a comprehensive and well-researched book intended for the American public, and despite being very American-centric, definitively is of interest for readers of all nationalities. Friedman often becomes very annoying, as he tells one too many personal anecdotes to the point of "show off". Also he is so vehement in his cause that ends up repeating some phases "ad nauseam", particularly "abundant, clean, reliable, and cheap electrons". It really makes you feel he is trying to make you memorize a prayer. Friedman also introduces in this book a whole new crop of buzzwords to advocate his cause, such as Green Code, Energy-Climate Era, outgreening, and even he defines a new meaning to the term BANANA republic, now referring to the US.

Friedman focuses on five key problems: growing demand for energy and natural resources, the massive transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries, climate change, energy poverty and biodiversity loss. He warns the reader that a revolution is required and revolutions are not painless. Friedman argues that the US should lead this green revolution but recognizes that China's participation is essential. In a nutshell he advocates that price signals are required to shift the current energy system, so a carbon tax, a cap-and-trade scheme, or any other pricing mechanism should be established. Therefore, he is advocating for Americans to accept higher energy prices in order to change to a cleaner energy system, just as the Europeans are doing. I think that here he should have been more specific about the magnitude of the sacrifices Americans would have to make, as the US culture has been built around the automobile and cheap electricity and energy in general. Just imagine gasoline at $5+ a gallon due to carbon taxes, or 90% of commuters traveling by public transit. Friedman is talking about a major change in the American way of life. He is not naïve regarding the political difficulties of selling such huge change, and that is why he goes as far as to daydream and wish the US can be China for one day, just to make this giant leap happen.

He closes the book discussing how lobbing and parochial politics got in the way to make the necessary changes, making you realize how difficult it will be for this Green Revolution to take place in the short-term. I think he is very idealistic regarding the solutions but indeed he is very realistic in the diagnosis and in analyzing all the good reasons for the US to move away from the current carbon society, whether global warming is real or not, as he also notes in the book. By the way, his declaration that the latest IPPC report is underestimating global warming does not help to his cause, as Americans are highly polarized on this issue for political reasons. Just read some of the reviews below. The climate change advocates need to stop exaggerating if they want to make their cause more credible!

The comprehensiveness regarding all available clean alternative sources is one the high points of the book, but Friedman is wary of using food crops for fuels in general, and particularly of corn as feedstock for bioethanol. However, in a long footnote he recognizes that Brazilian ethanol from sugarcane is a completely different story, particularly to satisfy this country's transportation needs. He also recognizes that ethanol from sugarcane might work for other countries in the tropics, from Africa to the Caribbean, but he considers that what makes sense in Brazil does not makes sense in the United States, as biofuels cannot be a large-scale solution to America energy problems.