I am reading Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat and Crowded. It is an excellent book and addresses the essence of the problems the world faces, although I get this nagging feeling that it is like so many such books, overly optimistic about the possibilities for the future. I suppose it has to be, since the alternatives are too depressing.
I just finished reading a section where he talks about how if the world helps to electrify the poorest parts of the world, they will be better prepared to take the few remaining jobs that remain in the industrialized world, essentially transferring their poverty from rural India or Africa to Alabama or Chicago or San Jose or London or Munich. Of course that isn’t how he phrases it, instead he presents the sunny view that outsourcing workers in crowded Mumbai will be able to move to less crowded rural India where they will have lower pay yet a higher standard of living which makes them able to undercut American or European workers more effectively. As I write this, U.S. unemployment rates are well in excess of 10% and continuing to rise at an alarming rate, many areas as high as 20%. Unemployment rates in India and China are also rising which basically points out that the competition for jobs and the need for jobs has never been greater, but this isn’t about jobs, at least not entirely.
Not too long ago I didn’t see the free markets and capitalism as a zero sum game but as one where everyone could achieve a higher standard of living if they played smarter, invested well, and worked hard; but that was before I started to better understand just how serious the problems facing the world are. I have known about and written about and acted upon issues such as global warming and pollution and a looming energy crisis for decades, but I’d always sort of convinced myself that my personal sense of alarm was an aberration and those making the big decisions must have better insight than I. Now I am entirely convinced that the so called leaders have taken greed and self-interest to unimaginable new levels that actually and profoundly threaten the entire planet in nearly every way imaginable, threaten it so severely that global collapse of society as we know it seems inevitable. I pray I am wrong, yet the handwriting is on the wall.
In Hot, Flat and Crowded Friedman indicates that the world is vastly overcrowded, that resources will be the source of conflict, that mankind is killing off millions of species of living things every year and as bio-diversity is crushed, eventually we will sew the seeds of our own destruction. Of course, like any author, he’s making a point and presenting his argument, and a compelling one, yet I sense he is forced to try to present an optimistic spin at the tail end rather than conclude that mankind is both too arrogant and too stupid to recognize that there is only one solution to the problem – make fewer people and soon. As I write this the swine flu pandemic is just starting to unfold. Those of us that studied the 1918 Spanish Flu know what may happen. It could be awful, but it very well may be nature’s way of relieving the overcrowding and insane resource depletion that will surely kill even far more people if it is allowed to run to its logical conclusion unimpeded by something like a pandemic or a horrific global war.
I wrote a book proposing a solution to the world’s energy problems that suggests a different model for funding the trillions needed to produce a 100% renewable energy infrastructure. It is simple, logical, feasible, profitable, and 100% doable and requires almost nothing of government. I won’t rehash the proposal here, you can read the book or visit the web site if you are interested; but what is important is the fact that such ideas require overwhelming popular support before our myopic leaders might even consider them since such ideas represent actual thinking and comprehension, two items that are in short supply when it comes to leadership anywhere in the world, perhaps especially here in the United States. As an example, last weeks episode of 60 Minutes had the CEO of Duke Energy stating that he acknowledged that his company along with the other major energy producers in the United States and the world are knowingly destroying the planet with their massive coal fired power plants and he stated quite clearly that he believes the only solution is more coal fired power plants, but ones that use “carbon capture and sequestration” to bury the CO2 they emit, yet he also acknowledged that his company has not spent even one dollar toward that end. The unspoken portion of his statement was that his company has no intention of spending a dime on “clean coal”, instead he expects the government (aka taxpayers) to pay for it. He did state that before anything can be done, we will need decades of research, millions of miles of infrastructure similar to the current oil infrastructure to support the movement and containment of liquified CO2, and the cost will be in the trillions, far in excess of the cost of just buckling down and build an entire energy infrastructure based on renewable resources. In other words, he’s going to use his and his industry’s considerable political clout to get the taxpayer to fund the wrong and most expensive solution so that he and his cronies can continue raking in enormous profits while imperiling the planet. His most optimistic view is that we will see the first fruits of such a massive undertaking in 40 to 50 years, about 30 to 40 years after what nearly all experts agree is the tipping point beyond which global warming and energy resource depletion will become runaway trains. His solution isn’t guaranteed to work, is entirely wrong headed and illogical, and will cost more than the solutions he and his cronies once said were too expensive – yet the sad truth is, if I were a betting man, the coal industry will win and we’ll all lose.
In his book, Mr. Friedman points out that globalization is accelerating the rates at which third world players are striving to lift their economies by plundering their natural resources. These of course are short term decisions that will have long term implications. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and while they see short term gains by leveling millions of square miles of timber in order to plant non-indigenous crops, they, like others before them, will find that a decade from now their resources will give out, drought and pestilence and whatever else will undermine their efforts and they will be left without their rain-forests and without their new economy. Mr. Friedman paints globalization as both a problem and a blessing. The problem is that it contributes to the eventual collapse of the world ecosystem, exacerbates global warming at an alarming rate, and increases competition for what turns out to be a finite and nearly fixed number of jobs which in turn might lead to worldwide conflict. On the upside he sees globalization lifting millions out of poverty, yet he points out that in so doing we actually increase the demands on the planet even if some of that upward mobility leads to the use of greener forms of energy.
His optimism stems from the potential for green energy jobs to reinvigorating what is clearly a failing economy and economic system based on flawed logic at nearly every juncture. Our entire economy and the economy of the entire world are based on fossil fuels and every week another major coal fired power plant goes on-line, yet many people such as Mr. Friedman are calling for more people to get connected to the grid or be given access to green technologies for electrification, but he fails to acknowledge that those that desperately need electricity that they never had before have no means of acquiring it and the demand for green technologies is so great that with even the most optimistic projections the world could absorb any and all manufacturing capacity for all such technologies for the next century yet are still at the stage of saying we need more research and it is too expensive. Neither of these arguments is true, but the point here is that the world needs fewer people consuming electricity, not more. Yes we definitely need fewer people consuming electricity generated by fossil fuels, but we also need fewer people using power from all sources.
I hope to be dead and gone before the worst of this mess hits, but within most people’s lifetimes, they will see the catastrophic predictions unfold in dramatic ways. With mankind’s tendency to revert to war as a means to solve so many problems, we can expect to see one war after another pop up as countries scramble to secure dwindling resources. We’ve already seen the US and other countries engage in massively expensive wars in the Middle East over oil, and they are about oil regardless of what the politicians tell us. We will see wars over food and water, especially water. Water flows from country to country and as rivers start to run dry, downstream countries will be left without adequate water supplies to feed their populations and there is little doubt that conflict will arise.
Mr. Friedman rightfully points out that what we need is a massive and intensive push to a green world with green energy and that the United States must lead the way and do so rapidly and without delay. I agree, but the vested interests won’t allow it to happen and we are already close to the point where we won’t be able to raise the capital to even get started let alone complete the task. The plan I spell out in my book would work, yet since it works against the status quo by distributing the profits to be made from future green energy to consumers, those that want it all for themselves will fight tooth and nail and they will win, they always have. Our economy collapsed because of these people and we are rebuilding the same economy with the same people calling the same shots so how can we expect anything to be different. The world economy collapsed because of greed and corruption and the greed and corruption are still there being perpetrated by the same people, so expecting a different result is just crazy.
Mr. Friedman states again and again and again that the government must do everything, pay for everyting, plan everything and be the source of our salvation. I disagree and disagree wholely. Government should lay the groundrules and little else. He calls for various forms of taxpayer funding and incentives and penalties, yet with the plan I propose, all this is unnecessary. With my plan every energy consumer can invest in renewable energy and own their own production by owning a piece of a wind farm or a solar park or ocean hydro facility and receive their energy directly from their investment. The utility company is paid for backup power and for delivering our electrons and little else. This plan cuts out the government, cuts out the banker, cuts out the middle man and allows those of us willing to invest in our energy future to do so and to profit from it. Mr. Friendman and I and anyone else that is willing to do the math realizes that over the course of the next 30 years the average electic consumer will pay upwards of $50,000 for electiricity, yet if you could invest as little as $5,000 today, you’d be able to avoid future payments to the utility for 30 years, so anyone with $5,000 to spend would be crazy not to invest today. People with less to invest would simply be offsetting less of their electric bill, but my plan would allow every consumer to invest in their future should they so choose. With Mr. Friendman’s plan and all the other plans I have read about, we’ll all pay not only the $50,000 in utility rates but we’ll pay at least that amount in taxes to cover the incentives and grants and waste and corruption and whatever goes into a government sponsored “solution”, and if you look at the past 35 years, that “solution” won’t happen for decades at best since it should already be in place and yet we have nothing, nothing to show for 35 years of advanced warning of what we have today. The power companies are immense, powerful, flush with cash, and paying ludicrous salaries to those at the tops of their organizations and sadly, they will win this battle and we’ll all be far poorer in so many ways. Mr. Friendman’s book has the best intentions but like so much of what happens in the world, it is calling for a more of the same sort of thing that got us into this mess. Asking the government and the utilities to fix the problems they created is just crazy, they’ll simply find ways of funneling more money into their own pockets and if the consumer benefits, that’s just a fortunate byproduct, not the actual goal or intent. We’ll pay even more as we always have since it will be the taxpayer that pays for nuclear storage of utility company waste, the taxpayer that pays for cleanup from the aftermath of coal mining, oil drilling, oil spills, gas leaks, air and water polution. Sure the companies responsible make a token gesture toward cleaning up, but it is always the government and the taxpayer that takes the really big hit.
A hundred, maybe two hundred years from now, Mr. Friedman’s vision of the energy grid will likely be reality, yet that’s after we’ve suffered through droughts, famine, political upheaval, economic collapse, wars and whatever because we took too long and cow-towed to the power companies and the politicians and the corporate giants and ignored the handwriting on the wall and did little to solve the pressing energy and enviornmental issues in time. What we are watching happen is a runaway train and we’re now only able to stand a safe distance away and watch as it heads for a deep ravine where we’d talked about building a bridge for decades but didn’t actually build it. The politicians are standing in front of the crowd of onlookers and continuing to talk about how great the bridge will be, how many lives it will save, how it will be modern and efficient and cost effective. Our bridge will provide jobs and make huge profits for the companies that build it and the companies that make the steel and on and on, yet the train is already heading toward the bridge that isn’t even designed. People are telling us that other trains are also on their way not far behind that first train, lots of trains and hundreds of journalists are talking about the trains and hundreds of others are writing about the possibilities for our bridge and a few are suggesting that we need to get started, but most are calling for more research and saving money and on and on and on.
Mr. Friedman paints a rosy picture of cooperating energy companies and consumers and technological advances and how we’ll all work from home and commute for special occasions and how we’ll allow the utility to control our energy usage to better manage the load. This will likely happen, but it won’t happen in the near term and it won’t happen when our government is already increasting the national debt by trillions and trillions and very little of that money is going toward energy, it’s going to keep the crooks on Wall Street afloat. With my plan, at least you and I get to decide if we want to invest in our futures and to profit from that investment instead of watching as someone else profits at our expense and on their timetable.
