Thomas Friedman Lectures at the LSE

AND SO IT WAS that the master magician and Green spokesperson, Himself, came to the LSE to lecture and inspire us humble students to get something done with our silly little lives.

The Old Theatre was packed for this one-
Tickets were given out a week earlier and were gone in 30 minutes.

Thomas Friedman is a bit smaller that I'd imagined, and very New York. His mode of speech is very fast-paced, very American, and therefore rather witty. There were some amazing lines from his talk on how the world is now "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," a synopsis of which is to follow.

Friedman articulates his point that America needs to
figure out her program, or become a BANANA Republic.
(Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)

Seeing Friedman talk about his own book was probably more inspiring than reading it. Apparently the book starts in Istanbul, Turkey, at the new consulate where Friedman noticed the security was so built up "not even the birds can fly in." Friedman quips: "Where birds don't fly, freedom don't ring." How very true. America really has isolated itself from the rest of the world for that past .. oh I dunno.. 8 years? We got into the business of exporting our fears.. didn't we Mr. Bush? Moreover, the US lost its most serious competitor (Russia) back in the late '80s, and ever since then (especially after the IT boom) became rather lazy (we'll get to it when we get to it). All valid points. This would not be so bad if it weren't for three things: The world is becoming

HOT: Since 1750 we're up 2 or so degrees farenheit.. The climate system is like the human body. 2 degrees more and we're in the hospital;

FLAT: The rise of the global middle class is here. Thinking in terms of "Americoms" (IE- populations of 300 million or so who live like Americans), there are now 9 such populations in existence. All of them consume more or less the same amount. There are 9 Americas now.. that's right. Nine;

CROWDED: By 2053 there will be 9 billion people on the planet. Heh.. oh yeah.. we're adding another 1 billion by 2020. The population of the world will have tripled since 1960 by the time it reaches 9 billion.

This is a rather complex problem. But wait, there's more to be concerned about:

1) Energy and Natural Resources Supply and Demand
As the number of Americoms increases, the need for energy GREATLY increases. This is fairly obvious. Friedman gave a bunch of cool examples. If the next billion people were to have 1 lightbulb lit, some 20 new 500 Megawatt power plants would have to be built to power those light bulbs.

2) Petrol-Dictatorship
Interestingly, when the price of oil is low, Freedom reigns! In 1991, oil was about $10 a barrell. This was the lowest price ever, and America and Saudi Arabia were best of friends. Of course, we were bombing the living hell out of Iraq somewhere in there, but this was acceptable. Everybody was happy. Friedman makes a few points about oil diplomacy and power in the Saudi-Arabian region. This discussion is interesting to me because, to be honest, we only get about 17% of our oil from there currently (12% from Saudi Arabia, 5% from Iraq). It might be as high as 20%. This is a lot of oil, but it's not the bulk of our supply. I'm still curious why we have such a vested interest in this region.. There's some sort of 'King of the Hill' policy at play here. Since we get another 12% or so from Russia, perhaps we're interested in the area more as a power play to assure some of our other oil connections.
At any rate, those with the oil are our pals. They've been growing with us, consuming energy with us, and fighting wars with various of our friends and enemies. The whole thing is rather complicated and somewhat odiose. Let us move forward.

3) Climate Change
As Friedman quips, "It's not so much global warming as it's global weirding." Everything is going to get more intense, and apparently Al Gore owes us a BIG apology, as he SERIOUSLY UNDERESTIMATED and UNDERSTATED the scope of the problem. That's right friends. Current predictions are the Arctic Ice will be gone by 2015 or so (not 2050 as Mr. Gore maintained). Apparently climate change is a non-linear problem. For those of us who aren't too into math, it means that instead of changing at the same rate, the problem gets EXPONENTIALLY WORSE the more we get into it. The last two weeks I've been reading the economics of climate change and some of the ethical considerations that go into it. The biggest problem we seem to have is that we have NO REAL WAY to predict how bad things are going to get (in the words of Weitzman, a philosophical economist, the probability distributions have large left tails, wherein we have not a clue as to how high the true risk is of global collapse). We're basically playing god with the planet in a very real and very serious way.

A cool note: Friedman brought up Katrina, and asked us what bothered us about Katrina? His take was that we're unsure if God made Katrina, or if we did? This is some pretty scary stuff.

In Friedman's words: "We are playing lead electric-guitar in mother nature's orchestra."
Holy moly, great balls of fire.

4) Biodiversity Laws
A new species now goes extinct every 20 minutes. Apparently we are the first generation of humans who are actually going to have to think like Noah.. as in Noah, the guy with the ark. Friedman had a few of these biblical references that really added to the overall emotional weight of the account. I think that by the time he got here we were all pretty swayed. There were other interesting lines in the speech, for example, in relation to the loss of biodiversity due to climate change: "We're burning all the paintings in the Louvre just to cook dinner."

At this point, Mr. Friedman switched gears to American Innovation Guy, and told us that all of these problems are unique in that they have one common solution:
Abundant, Cheap, Easy-to-Produce Energy.

Friedman's proposed solution is to shape the market toward innovation of ET (Energy Technology) as opposed to the latest binge of Finance and IT. He believes (and I think he's correct here) that, if properly guided, the American spirit of 'garage and basement' innovation will be enough to create 10,000 interesting ideas, of which maybe 100 will be useful, of which maybe 2 will be the next Google or Facebook of ET.

He then went on to explain the seriousness of this 'ET Revolution' that needs to occur. Basically, it's going to be "Change or Die." Right next to out-maneuvering in the dictionary will be the term: out-greening. Apparently Green is no longer 'lame,' or 'hippie,' or 'vaguely European.' It's the new Red, White and Blue.

An example: During the Iraq war, General Zilmer asked the Pentagon for Solar Power for one of his bases. He wanted to 'Out-Green' Al-Queda. Basically, the problem was his advance base was being supplied by gas TRUCKED in along roads loaded with IEDs at a cost of nearly $20 a gallon. Solar power would get rid of the supply line, freeing resources and keeping the soldiers off the road where they could get hurt. In war, the commander who utilizes all resources in the most efficacious manner emerges victorious. Life is dynamic. Hats off to General Zilmer and the Green Hawks.

Friedman goes on to explain that right now, the world is not having a Green Revolution. It's having a 'Green Party.' Green is currently fun, trendy, and kitsch. It's no revolution. People aren't slaving away on new technologies. People really don't understand the scope of the situation, or how the world is about to change. The country that learns to control ET will be the next country in charge of the planet. This is the point that Friedman stressed, and I have to agree with him. He did an excellent job of explaining how in China a young student told him: How can Americans insist that China not pollute when America has had nearly two centuries of doing just that? Friedman answers: "You're right. We grew dirty for 100 years, and now you have every right to as well. Go right ahead. No problem. We only need about 5 years while you guys are doing this to invent the technology that's going to fix this mess, and THEN WE'LL SELL IT TO YOU!!"

Friedman embodies something so very American. I found myself proud, and somehow, deeply inspired. He then proceeded to explain what the big problem is for America: Nobody is able to shape the policy. The grass-roots innovation is there, but the problem is the technologies have to compete with existing cheap, dirty energy. Price bases need to be set on gasoline, and there needs to be a carbon tax. Existing policy needs to change.

Wait.. did Friedman just say policy.. as in Public Policy.. as in.. what I'm studying?

The talk ended on a positive note, when Friedman quoted a line from Dana Meadows' (some really cool environmentalist) eulogy:

"We have exactly enough time, starting now."

There's always enough time. Just enough. I hope this information has been helpful for those who have read it. All the little things we're doing are great, but BIG CHANGES need to happen, and millions of lives hang in the balance. Our way of life hangs in the balance. The world is not such a big place, and we're all connected. Policy must be designed to promote human welfare and liberty, not to stifle us or lock us away from the world in some misguided sense of fear.

"When you put the people together, you put the planet together."

I hope that when the time comes, we will all do what is necessary. Otherwise, somebody else will, and America will become a BANANA Republic.

LSE's Professor Sterns (The creator of the Stern Report) asks
Friedman a question about how to create effective horizontal
collaboration in order to solve this disaster. Friedman's answer
centered around solid leadership for America.

Whoever wins this election, I pray you lead us in the correct direction.

Lastly, a cool view of LSE from one of the various rooftop overlooks.