The <em>NYT</em>'s Tom Friedman is wrong | Gristmill: The environmental news blog

The NYT's Tom Friedman is wrong

We are not yet the 'people we have been waiting for' to solve 'global weirding'

Posted by Joseph Romm (Guest Contributor) at 4:20 PM on 04 Dec 2007

Read more about: climate | energy | climate change mitigation | politics | tech

In general, I am a big fan of New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, one of the few national columnists who writes regularly and intelligently on energy and climate matters. But his recent column, "The People We Have Been Waiting For," goes off track -- twice. First, he writes:

... sweet-sounding "global warming" doesn't really capture what's likely to happen. I prefer the term "global weirding," coined by Hunter Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, because the rise in average global temperature is going to lead to all sorts of crazy things -- from hotter heat spells and droughts in some places, to colder cold spells and more violent storms, more intense flooding, forest fires and species loss in other places.

Well, he deserves half credit. Yes, "global warming" is inadequate to describe the coming nightmare -- but "global weirding" simply isn't a serious-enough term -- it could just as easily be used to describe the world's growing fascination with reality TV (or videos of piano-playing cats and skateboarding dogs).

Also, the word "weird" strongly implies something either supernatural or bizarrely unexpected. What's happening to the planet is pure science and has been predicted for decades -- nothing weird about that except maybe it's happening faster than most scientists projected. Readers know I prefer the term "Hell and High Water" -- since at least it accurately describes what is coming. [Note to self: It didn't catch on. Let it go.] My guess is we're stuck with "global warming."

(As an aside, Hunter probably didn't coin the term "global weirding" (see here), and, of course, she's not at RMI any more. I am a big fan of hers since we worked together at RMI, but those seeking her wise counsel on sustainability should go to Natural Capitalism, Inc. (for-profit) or Natural Capitalism Solutions (nonprofit).)

Second, the entire point of the piece is that what gives Friedman hope is a bunch of smart people working on clean energy technology, who he claims are the "people we have been waiting for." I hate to break the news to Tom, but:

We've had a bunch of smart people working on clean energy technology for about 30 years -- and, of course, we'd have a lot more if Reagan and Gingrich hadn't gutted key applied-energy-technology programs, or if conservatives didn't block efforts to create a carbon dioxide market.
People working on technology are the people global warming delayers like Luntz, Bush, Lomborg, and Gingrich have been waiting for. The people the rest of us are -- or should be -- waiting for are political leaders with the wisdom and guts needed to pass laws limiting carbon emissions and accelerating into the marketplace the technologies we developed in the last 30 years.
It is way, way premature to say "we," or any group, are the people we have been waiting for. Only future generations can say that. If we buck up and start now with the large-scale, multidecade actions needed to avoid catastrophic global warming, we might, come 2050, be viewed as the Greatest Generation of the 21st century. If not, we will surely be viewed as the Greediest Generation of all time, stealing the future well-being of the next 50 or more generations.

That said, I am a very big fan of all the clean energy folks Friedman names:

Google's new program, "RE<C (Renewable Energy Cheaper Than Coal)" is a great idea, though I am a tad unhappy with their website, which touts "Supporting Breakthrough Technologies" -- breakthroughs in energy technology that are fundamentally game-changing are a very, very overrated pursuit, as I have previously noted. Also, Google is just a drop in the bucket of the huge surge in corporate venture capital, and even state government money, going into clean energy.

What gives me hope about Google's effort is that it is being run by Dan Reicher, my savvy old boss at the Energy Department, who, as Friedman noted, is focused on bringing clean energy technologies "across the valley of death" (otherwise known as commericialization) -- a very important task that the Gingrich Congress explicitly tried to stop the Clinton Energy Department from pursuing and that the Bush Energy Department squashed entirely.

[Note to Dan: As you know, commercialization is not the same thing as "Supporting Breakthrough Technologies" -- not that the two are mutually exclusive, but the website should talk about both, especially since breakthroughs, while sexier, are just not likely and may not even be needed.]

Friedman is right to be impressed by the students of MIT, my old alma mater. The Energy Club does great work promoting entrepreneurship (see a keynote talk I gave at their 2006 energy conference here). And the multidisciplinary, multicountry Vehicle Design Summit is working on the right car of the future, which is a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, but Friedman's line -- "They're not waiting for GM." -- misses three points:

First, GM is in fact working on a plug-in, the Volt, which they are promising to debut quite soon.

Second, if MIT developed a prototype plug-in and GM doesn't -- really, what good does that do? We need mass production to make these cars affordable, and only big auto companies can do that. I would ask, in passing, for the name of the last successful new American mass-market car company launched by anybody (and Toyota doesn't count). Hint -- it has been many, many decades. You can start a major PC businesses in a garage in this country, but apparently not a major car company.

Third, no country in the world has ever successfully launched a mass-market alternative fuel vehicle without government mandates. Apologies to all my anti-government readers out there -- but you can't solve either the oil problem or the global warming problem in transportation without mandates like CAFE, renewable or low-carbon fuel standards, and the like.

The people we are waiting for are the political leaders. Everyone else needed to solve the global warming problem has been around for a while.

This post was created for ClimateProgress.org, a project of the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

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15 Comments | Post a Comment

What are we going to say to our children?

We are the "people we have been waiting for" must be a preposterous joke! Is this the fellow that proclaimed, "the world is flat?" In what dream world is he living?

Please forgive me for saying that the point of view from this Tom Friedman is a pitiful reminder of thinking shared widely and consensually validated by the leaders of my conspicuously consuming, world ravaging, not-so-great generation of elders. This woefully inadequate expression of "what is somehow real" is hopelessly unrealistic. Perhaps this Tom Friedman is living on a planet other than Earth. He evidently is not aware of the mountains of good scientific evidence that indicate clearly the Earth is relatively small, evidently finite, noticeably frangible, and without the carrying capacity to sustain the endless, unbridled increase of the current scale and growth rate of human consumption, production and propagation activities now overspreading the surface of our planetary home.

Steven Earl Salmony, Ph.D., M.P.A.
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population
http://sustainabilitysoutheast.org/

by stevenearlsalmony at 5:08 PM on 04 Dec 2007

Uphill battle

Most of the US doesn't see things your way, and I've been in a battle with our local newspapers because they continue to say Climate Change is voodoo science. Take this quote from some dude named Wolfgang Kasper, which was put in today's paper: "The scientific evidence on global warming is not yet settled sufficiently to provide a basis for potentially very costly initiatives ..." By comparison, I think Tom Friedman did much better, and deserves credit for that.

Onward through the fog

by Sam Wells at 5:23 PM on 04 Dec 2007

global warmig

There is more evidence showing up regularly all over the place to indicate the danger posed to the entire world by global warming and the accelerated pace at which it is advancing toward us.

Recent studies in the north show that sea ice (not fresh water locked into glaciers and icebergs eons ago) melts far faster than the ice cubes we drop into our Scotch On The Rocks, the kind of ice most people associate with frozen water. Sea Ice is formed when the temperature of brine is dropped below 0 centigrade. The chemically saturated water forms into channels within the ice, supporting small lifeforms and providing a food source for small fish and seabirds in the margins between open water and the edges of the new sea ice.

Because this ice can be considered to be softer and spongier than ordinary ice it also melts much more easily and faster. And that is the problem. A little rise in temperature overall results in disappearing ice cover and changes the balance of life, resulting in fewer predators (seabirds must travel longer and longer distances between shorebound nestlings and the feeding grounds out at the retreating margins between open water and sea ice). The melt rate goes up rapidly and will result in more liquid water much sooner than would be predicted IF all ice exhibited the same properties.

The North West Passage will open soon, but will become unsuitable for commerce just as quickly.

Des Emery

by Des Emery at 10:11 PM on 04 Dec 2007

Friedman's often wrong...

Tom Friedman has a nice podium there at the NY Times, but that doesn't mean his ideas are much based in reality. He's often close but just not quite there. His "geo-green" arguments for example never seem to mention the problem of coal - coal (coal to liquids for instance) solves the geopolitical problem very nicely. But would devastate the climate. So the two problems aren't as intertwined as he makes out.

Anyway, I am excited to see your connection to Google's RE < C project - I just sent them a resume, maybe you could put in a good word for me with Dan Reicher? :)

by apsmith at 10:49 PM on 04 Dec 2007

In general, Friedman's an ass

The NonSequitur has its own section on Friedman http://thenonsequitur.com/?cat=74 (granted, it's not that large).

But Friedman is like many newspaper pundits who dash out daily Op-Ed pieces -- they're opinion pieces!

He is hardly an expert in anything and is frequently rebutted by letters to the editor and others.

by mrfrazzlebottom at 11:40 PM on 04 Dec 2007

Hey Joe

Saw your comments on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles on the History Channel. Great to see some reality injected into this usually hyper hyped subject.

Friedman was wrong on one really big issue. He kept on and on saying the Iraq invasion was a good idea. I stopped reading him at that point. Is he still talking about how democracy in Iraq will transform the ME?

I remember some of his energy stuff repeated here. The same old fallacies over and over, hydrogen miracles, fuel farming, nuclear power, clean coal. The world is flat? His brain is flat. He is so busy kissing up to power he can't see straight.

Sad to tell you though Joe. You are wrong too.

"...breakthroughs in energy technology that are fundamentally game-changing are a very, very overrated pursuit"

I agree that implementation is the problem, the breakthrough technology is here. But with that attitude those technologies will never be noticed. They need to be talked up, not down.

Dissing Google? The best company to work for on the planet. A real progressive power house that now wants to pioneer smart grid technology. That just doesn't make sense.

Global wierding? Sounds like he reread "Dune" recently, hehey. Don't worry, Tom doesn't count as a phrasemaker anymore, he was on all the news outlets a couple years back, but then he stayed with bush on the war and now gets zero invites. Let's hope that stays like it is, because with his habit of shilling for the corporate energy status quo and touting their diversions like clean coal, he could hurt the cause.

It's better reffered to as GHG global climate disaster IMO. Because that's what it is.

One more crucial fact about the NYT. A couple years back they started "times select" a subscription service you had to pay for to read the oped columns amongst other features. It failed, they recently canceled it. Readership for the oped was dropping precipitously.

Maureen used to be on a lot of news outlets as well as Tom. That pretty much stopped because "times select" put them behind a wall.

The NYT is not only a major part of mass delusional media, it is also self delusional media. The huge mistake with that online subscription service shows the self delusion.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

by amazingdrx at 12:45 AM on 05 Dec 2007

Sorry Joseph, political fixes don't fix...

"you can't solve either the oil problem or the global warming problem in transportation without mandates like CAFE, renewable or low-carbon fuel standards, and the like."

Joseph, I admire your analytical ability, but the answers are still way ahead of you. Anyone who thinks legislation is going to fix anything assumes (a) that politicians would ever dare to upset their economic masters and (b) that legislation will not be reversed when it starts to hurt.

You are right, the people needed to solve the problem have been around for a long while - they are the people who see through the dreams (lies) of the consumer culture and perceive a world where what matters is keeping our life support system operating. The consumer culture will never give up - there are too many people involved in it who have been drugged by its riches - so it is down to the people who have seen through the lies to convince others that consumption is death.

Next time you see an advert urging you to do something that could possibly damage the environment, reject it loudly - destroy it. It is a wonderfully liberating feeling, and the only way out of the freefall we are in.

Keith Farnish www.theearthblog.org

by farnishk at 2:40 AM on 05 Dec 2007

He Got the Next one Right

Although I think you are largely quibbling about semantics on this post, Friedman largely gets the big picture right in his next column:

"To: President Ahmadinejad

From: The Iranian Ministry of Intelligence

Subject: America

As you'll recall, in the wake of 9/11, we were extremely concerned that the U.S. would develop a covert program to end its addiction to oil, which would be the greatest threat to Iranian national security. In fact, after Bush's 2006 State of the Union, in which he decried America's oil addiction, we had "high confidence" that a comprehensive U.S. clean energy policy would emerge. We were wrong.

Our fears that the U.S. was engaged in a covert "Manhattan Project" to achieve energy independence have been "assuaged." America's Manhattan Project turns out to be largely confined to the production of corn ethanol in Iowa, which, our analysts have confirmed from cellphone intercepts between lobbyists and Congressmen, is nothing more than a multibillion-dollar payoff to big Iowa farmers and agro-businesses.

True, thanks to Nancy Pelosi, the U.S. Congress decided to increase the miles per gallon required of U.S. car fleets by the year 2020 -- which took us by surprise -- but we nevertheless "strongly believe" this will not lead to any definitive breaking of America's oil addiction,"

from:

'Intercepting Iran's Take on America'
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/opinion/05friedman.html ...

Is Friedman blowing smoke on this? He is on solid ground:

"Even if the bill becomes law, the fuel-economy improvement that it calls for will probably not be great enough to prevent some increase in American fuel consumption because of the expected growth in the number of cars on the road and miles traveled.

In 2020, the combined total of gasoline and ethanol use would be slightly higher than it is today, according to David Friedman of the Union of Concerned Scientists, on whose calculations the Democratic leaders relied."

from yesterdays article: 'Calculating Energy Bill's Real Figures'
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/washington/04fuel.html

by justlou at 4:50 AM on 05 Dec 2007

Climate Disruption

I think the intent of the phrase 'global weirding' was to emphasize the weather weirdness people are beginning to experience due to climate shifts as the world seeks a new steady-state. I suggest we start referring to what is happening as climate disruption or disturbance to emphasize this aspect without making it sound too gloom-and-doomish. Even though I tend to be on the pessimistic side in terms of where this is going I still talk to people about it as if I believed it is yet manageable. My hope is we can avoid the runaway warming by reducing the CO2 forcing. If we need to get people on board by suggesting we can avoid climate shift problems through framing the issue more mildly but not too mildly, so be it.

As for Friedman: My own take is that he is a good recognizer of new trends (good or bad) and a keen observer along the way. But he too often jumps to premature judgments and draws faulty conclusions as evidenced by the failures of too many of his predictions. But that's just me.

George

George Mobus, Associate Professor, Institute of Technology, University of Washington Tacoma, and Professional Student for Life

by gmobus at 7:29 AM on 05 Dec 2007

It is about WE.

I like TF's column. I said so in my blog. http://lougold.blogspot.com/2007/12/we-are-one-widely-rea ...
The important point is that WE includes folks at the top, the bottom and everywhere.

With regard to google's energy initiative...

What lies beneath all this expenditure on R&D is the incredible energy suck that comes from the Internet. It's HUGE -- expected, by 10 years from now, to draw half the electric energy presently generated worldwide. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.10/cloudware_pr.htm ...

The search for new green energy is appropriate but NOT sufficient. The Internet is the foundation of global trade and consumption -- more Internet hookups mean more cars and TVs and so on. Global forces travel together. All stuff draws resources from the earth. It's made possible by server farms that demand huge amounts of cooling. And demand pushes expansion up to the point of available and affordable energy.

Making energy the focus of attention is myopic because 1) it offers no real protection to the earth and 2) it does nothing to repair damage already done.

The best that alternative fuels and energy efficiency can do is to stop polluting and achieve carbon neutrality. We need more -- we need to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and we need to renew a badly damaged earth.

by lougold at 7:34 AM on 05 Dec 2007

lougold

I have not seen any studies to back up my suspicions but telecommuting and on-line shopping may be reducing miles traveled.

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 8:40 AM on 05 Dec 2007

biodiversivist

Perhaps it has reduced the shopper's mileage some but it's hard to know because shopping is generally a multi-task thing. However, the main mileage is located in the product itself. Jerry Mander's group looked at the mileage traveled by the pieces for a new Prius and concluded that it would be kinder to the earth to buy a good used but less fuel efficient car. It's the global, and not the local, mileage that matters and is most Internet dependent.

by lougold at 9:22 AM on 05 Dec 2007
[ Parent ]

But don't you need people buying new cars

so there will be used ones to buy?

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 9:31 AM on 05 Dec 2007

biodiversivist

Aha, maybe like encouraging waste in order to support recycling?

by lougold at 12:58 PM on 05 Dec 2007
[ Parent ]

no remote power

the thing that makes me crazy is that the so-called "environmentalists" (sierra club, nrdc, etc.) are all on the "renewables" bandwagon - - even when the energy is all REMOTELY generated and TRANSMITTED hundreds of miles, both processes destroying hundreds of thousands of acres of previously pristine wilderness.

are they all ok selling out the land to save the sky? selling out the ocean to save the land? selling out the sky to keep Big Power rich? come on. conservation and LOCAL, decentralized renewable energy is the ONLY solution that makes sense. until every single roof is covered in PV panels and people reduce their energy usage 25%, not one inch of new ground should be plowed over for new power.

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

by stopgreenpath at 5:30 PM on 05 Dec 2007

ADVERTISING POLICY

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