My post and iHof’s post are both in reference to Thomas Friedman‘s article “The Power of Green,” published in the New York Times Sunday Magazine on April 15, 2007 (here relinked via the International Herald Tribune).
Friedman attempts, and succeeds to a certain degree, to examine global climate change through three specific filters, “jobs, temperature, and terrorism.” As a political-economist he does a great job examining the first and last facet but that middle facet, the sticking point of the science behind this entire dilemma, is left relatively unexplored. I guess he’ll leave that to Al Gore.
Still, Friedman, the king of catch phrases, writes powerfully and carefully on the issue, pulling no punches in looking this issue head on. In calling “green” the new “red, white, and blue,” Friedman relegates the current administration’s lack of environmental concern to casual treason. Our continued reliance on, and active defense of, Middle Eastern oil is directly funding the terrorism we claim to be combating in our war on terror, Friedman goes on to explain. Instead of pretending to bring freedom to the Mid East why don’t we bring energy independence to the Mid West? How much longer will petropolitics rule our foreign policy?
I think it is when Friedman applies his system-oriented economics to the issue that he produces some novel content in the increasingly crowded arena of green-washed journalism. He asks do we save more money by not paying to reduce emissions and producing goods cheaply or by decreasing emissions and reducing the number of sick workers with respiratory problems. In crowded, smog ridden cities like Beijing there is not a clear answer.
Optimistically, Friedman ends by rephrasing this problem as an opportunity. In so many sectors, green business has already been proven to be good business. And the green business revolution will be a market that the US can succeed and lead in. It doesn’t take cheap labor or cheap resources to innovate and reinvent. It takes the world’s smartest engineers and entrepreneurs. These we have and can continue to have if the US decides to reinvest in science and math in our education system. The space race revitalized these programs in the mid 20th century. Perhaps the green race with do the same at the start of the 21st.
