8 January 2009

Pinto's Point

Friedman's new book, 'Hot, Flat & Crowded'

By Jim Pinto

Tom Friedman’s bestseller The World Is Flat has helped America to see the world in a new way. Now, his brilliant new book, published September 2008, takes a fresh and provocative look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America’s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. Friedman shows how the solutions to these two big problems link and we can restore the world and revive America at the same time.

Friedman, also a columnist at The New York Times, explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world’s middle class through globalization have produced a “hot, flat, and crowded” Planet.

The earth is already being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things, unless America steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation. Friedman calls this “Code Green.”

This is a great challenge and a great opportunity that America cannot afford to miss. Not only is American leadership the key to the healing of the earth; it is also our best strategy for the renewal of America.

Friedman makes it clear the green revolution is like no other revolution the world has seen. It will be the biggest innovation project in American history. It will change everything from what you put into your car to what you see on your electric bill. This needs to be a major American goal, with defined time-tables.

The payoff for America will be more than just cleaner air. Americans will be inspired to something we have not seen in a long time: American nation-building. It will stimulate the intelligence, creativity, boldness, and concern for the common good that are our nation’s greatest natural resources.

Related links:

• Review & Buy Tom Friedman’s Book at Amazon.com:
  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0374166854/jimpintocom/103-0805027-7623017
• Pinto Review of Tom Friedman’s The World is Flat:
  http://www.jimpinto.com/writings/flatworld.html
• Newsweek review: Let’s Rally Around the Green Flag:
  http://www.newsweek.com/id/158747

Behind the byline

Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and founder of Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com. Read the Table of Contents of his book, Pinto’s Points, at www.jimpinto.com/writings/points.html.