Sunday, March 4, 2012

I hope Thomas Friedman doesn't care what Newt Gingrich thinks

In the spirt of a stuck clock being right twice a day, Tom "Suck on this" Friedman made a very eloquent plea on behalf of sustainable development of energy.
But this is not a column about traffic — per se.

This is a column about energy and environment and why we must not let the poisonous debate about climate change so tie us in knots that we cannot have any energy policy at all, particularly one focused on developing much more efficient use of resources, through better designs and systems. If you are so reckless as to dismiss all climate science as a hoax, and do not accept the data that our planet is getting hotter and the oceans rising, I can’t help you. That’s between you and your beach house — and your kids, whose future you’re imperiling.

But you better believe this: The planet is getting flatter and more crowded. There will be two billion more people here by 2050, and they will all want to live and drive just like us. And when they do, there is going to be one monster traffic jam and pollution cloud, unless we learn how to get more mobility, lighting, heating and cooling from less energy and with less waste — with so many more people. We can’t let the climate wars continue to derail efforts to have an energy policy that puts in place rising efficiency standards, for buildings, windows, traffic, housing, packaging and appliances, that will drive innovation — which is our strength — in what has to be the next great global industry: energy and resource efficiency.
Friedman then goes on to explain how the last paragraph I quoted forms the message of two books, “The Sixth Wave: How to Succeed in a Resource Limited World” by James Bradfield Moody and Bianca Nogrady and “Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era” by Avory Lovins. Despite what I think of Friedman on foreign policy and partisan politics, which isn't much, I agree with him here. I highly recommend reading this column.

I only have one snarky observation about the column itself, separate from its author--the title: "Take the subway." Dude, Newt Gingrich hates your guts.


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