Tom Friedman Foolery
- Posted by: Andrew Price
- on September 19, 2007 at 5:06 pm
We can link to New York Times Op-Eds now. Sweet! Check out Tom Friedman’s latest call to apathy.
He argues that because booming cities like Doha in Qatar and Dalian in China have such voracious energy appetites it doesn’t matter what you do to reduce your impact.
Tom says:
“Hey, I’m really glad you switched to long-lasting compact fluorescent light bulbs in your house. But the growth in Doha and Dalian ate all your energy savings for breakfast. …I am thrilled that you are now doing the “20 green things” suggested by your favorite American magazine. Doha and Dalian will snack on them all, like popcorn before bedtime.”
Good point, Tom, and inspirational. In fact, whenever you feel like doing some small, positive thing for the world, just remember Doha and Dalian and litter instead. Voting? No point. Some union or megachurch will grub your lone vote like Fourthmeal.
DISCUSSION: 3 Comments
Friedman is such a loser it’s not even funny. What’s scary is the platform he has to spew his nonsense.
I think the headline and quote mischaracterizes the theme of the editorial that’s been linked to.
The quote in the post is from the middle of the article, which uses hyperbole to lead up to his real point in the last paragraph – if we don’t get serious and commit more resources to fighting our environmental problems, we have, in effect, already given up.
“Without a transformational technological breakthrough in the energy space, all of the incremental gains we’re making will be devoured by the exponential growth of all the new and old “Americans.”
He was somewhat clearer in an earlier piece:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green.t.html?pagewanted=all
Where he said:
“big transformations — women’s suffrage, for instance — usually happen when a lot of aggrieved people take to the streets, the politicians react and laws get changed. But the climate-energy debate is more muted and slow-moving. Why? Because the people who will be most harmed by the climate-energy crisis haven’t been born yet.”
He says in this post:
http://select.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/opinion/24friedman.html?n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Thomas%20L%20Friedman
“Climate change is not a hoax. The hoax is that we are really doing something about it.”
To run with the voting analogy, I don’t think he’s saying “don’t bother to vote,” but rather “don’t just vote- treat it as a life and death situation like the megachurches and unions do, otherwise your vote won’t mean as much as your intentions might want it to.”
I had been locked out of the NYT by their subscriptions prior to this and assumed Friedman was more of a free-market cheerleader, but whether he is or isn’t, looking up references to the article refered to here, I don’t think it’s at all a call to apathy, if anything, it’s alarmist.
He isn’t saying it doesn’t matter what you do because of Doha and Dalian, he’s saying no matter what you are doing now, we need to do more, or else in the long run it won’t matter.
Admittedly, Thomas Friedman’s writing style can be irritating, but he is ultimately pretty realistic in his assessment of how the world really works. He got villainized around the time of the Seattle protests for supposedly being a cheerleader for “globalism” rather than a critic of it. Well, I think “globalism” is a far too amorphous concept to be either “for” or “against.” Similarly, can one be “for” or “against” technology? Anyhoo, Friedman is working as a reporter, as an explainer of what he thinks is going on. His ultimate point, I think, is that the green movement must go mainstream in a big way, or it will languish as some sort of upper middle class demographic niche.