Friedman’s optimistic fatalism

a review of Hot, Flat and Crowded

by Thomas Friedman

(from The Scrambler, November 2008)

With over half of the book dedicated to a section called “How We Move Forward,” we want to believe Thomas Friedman’s newest meta-analysis of the modern world will finally offer us the strategies for solving our global climate crisis. Friedman’s vision opposes the fatalism of Huxley and Orwell, insisting that the answer to our predicament is technological innovation. He paints a utopian picture of 20 years forward when our appliances will be connected to an energy monitoring grid that distributes power at appropriate levels in appropriate times and is monitored much like a cell phone plan. In this Utopia all our light bulbs will use six watts and we will commute with plug-in hybrid electric vehicles that get 100 miles to the gallon. These and other technologies populate Friedman’s future, but only if we agree to begin to stop panicking and view the climate crisis as an opportunity for creative innovation.

As a “sober optimist,” Friedman believes change is possible and should be embraced as a political and economic public relations tactic. This is our opportunity to shine in a quintessentially American fashion, through experimentation and innovation, and to strengthen our economic and social standing in the world. As worldwide recognition of the energy-climate crisis spreads, we will recognize green advancements and legislature as competitive advantages in the global market. While Friedman insists we embrace our necessary role in checking the environmental crisis, he does agree that our green trademark consumer trend is not the answer. When companies tout the environmental friendliness of their products and magazines print articles about 101 easy ways to save the world, we feel better about ourselves, but are not effecting actual change. The environmental catastrophe is traceable in part to proliferation of the American Dream. As countries with growing populations and increased access to the global market aspire to an American standard of living, the demand for resources has become unmanageable. Even with only about five percent of the global population, the United States consumes around a quarter of its resources. Having one or two countries with American-sized consumption is barely sustainable. Increasing that ten-fold would be a disaster. Of course, we cannot simply deny others the chance to have the opportunities we have had. Instead, Friedman says we need to focus on “reinventing what living like us means.”

Here is where his optimism gives way to sobriety. How do we transform the way we live? There are many ways to reduce our wild CO2 levels, for instance, but they all require us to make significant changes. Can we demand that two billion cars double fuel efficiency or mandate reductions in the amount we drive? Should we install carbon capture and sequestration at 800 coal-fired plants or increase solar power 700-fold to displace all coal-fired power? Is it possible to cut electricity use in homes and business by 25 percent? He admits it would be a miracle if any of these actions could actually be implemented. In the end, even Friedman’s prescriptions are dependent on legislature and the willingness of corporations. Like Al Gore’s film, Friedman can hope that his book will touch enough individual people who will increase the pressure on the agents of change in politics and industry. He is confident that this will be the case.

 

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Bitter Business

Do you know who picked the cocoa beans for your chocolate bar? Historically, beans picked by Mayans were treated like currency and were a deeply valued food source. When Cadbury and Hershey were growing business empires, plantation slaves picked beans without pay. We’ve learned that this slavery has not been entirely abolished. Browsing your local market, you will find that chocolate bars are dressed in labels with checklists of consumer concerns. Whether your chocolate is organic, GMO free or packaged in recycled paper, the most important information on the label may be that iconic Fair Trade Certified stamp.

Knowing the importance of Fair Trade certification (fair pay for labor) has become more common, but information never spreads fast enough. That is why Bitter Chocolate: The Dark Side of the World’s Most Seductive Sweet by the As it Happens radio host Carol Off is so valuable. Released in the United States this spring, Off’s book is a smart and captivating investigation of the chocolate trade, from ancient Mayan uses of cocoa though the rise of big chocolate business and the human lives compromised or out-rightly destroyed in its wake. Fortunately, Off closes with a more promising chapter that brings us back again to the Mayan cocoa farmers today and the efforts of chocolate makers who are helping transform workers’ living standards by choosing a Fair Trade business approach.

Off’s book provides a gruesome history of international chocolate trade, but she also offers encouragement that grass-roots activism and purchase voting for Fair Trade products can make a difference.

ECOlogue

Are you willing to pay more for your tote bag and T-shirt?
Do I need to buy a tote bag or a T-shirt?
Your dollar is a powerful vote!

Has the environmental movement been limited to the people who can afford luxury items? When did creating Eco-conscious consumers become a means to encourage more consumption. It is true that people here in the states will continue to buy things, whether or not they need them. It seems that having more luxurious Eco products and more contagious advertising strategies to convince consumers to buy green is the 21st century strategy for spreading environmental consciousness.

I understand this strategy for food and cleaning products, things we will be buying regardless, but now we have a green product substitute for almost every item you could hope to buy. Unfortunately, these green products are beginning to feel just as much a part of our expendable product lifestyle. Buy this now and do your part to save the world! Replace your flooring, curtains, bedding, dishes and clothes with these products that were more consciously created than the ones you already have.

There is a dearth of literature encouraging consumers to think long and hard about what things they actually need to buy. On top of that, nobody is encouraging consumers to carefully select quality products that won’t need to be so readily replaced. What we are missing is depression-era sustainable thinking through frugality.

Every ECO-themed magazine I open has product review pages that keep tabs on Eco-consumables including food, clothing, shoes, home decor, outdoor gear and technology. I am not arguing that we return to an age of undereducated consumers, but must everything be about products? We are encouraged to purchase organic bamboo undershirts for $30 because they are made attractively and from a renewable resources rather than encouraged to set up a neighborhood clothes swap or to frequent second-hand shops. In the reduce, re-use, recycle system we are already ignoring reduce and what about re-use?

I was so excited when in one product article called “Eco Chic on the Cheap,” the author Donna Garlough wrote about re-use. She said we ought to look around our homes for old things to re-make, re-design and re-purpose. She quoted Eco design author Danny Seo who said, “As a society we spend so much time and money accumulating new stuff.” My attention was piqued. Finally! The article begins with a DIY approach and suggests making centerpieces from your old jelly jars and perfume bottles or reupholstering dinning room chairs with old sweaters. But, indubitably, the focus shifts half-way through to recommendations for purchasing bamboo salad tongs for $12, stylish recycled glass bowls for $25 each and microfiber cloths to replace you paper towel habits.

We have been raised in a culture of disposable commodities. When I was 15 and ambitious about environmentalism I never predicted Eco-Chic would be such a hot consumer market. I am not blaming the author of the article, it is big trend she was reporting on. I have found myself in the same position. I heard about the black-background search engine Blackle.com, which was started by Eco conscious company Heap Media. Google could save 750 megawatt-hours each year simply by switching to a black background screen, Heap Media claims. That is the equivalent of ten thousand 100-watt light bulbs burning for over 31 days. Great article idea, I thought. The little things we can do when we choose to save energy: switch to compact fluorescent bulbs, use Heap Media’s Blackle.com for all your web searching needs, switch off lights when you leave a room and power down or even unplug your computer when it is not in use. But, that information is boring. All those tips are boring, chiding and moralistic. Who wants to read an article that tells you, remember to turn out that light! Our mothers told us that and we rolled our eyes. We want something more tangible and more satisfying that proves we are doing good. Enter the consumer market. So, suddenly I was reviewing Eco software that monitors your energy use and the Eco-button that drops your computer to sleep at the single touch and keeps a running tally of how much good you did by touching that button. Simple tips became a list of products to buy.

Will we really make the world better by buying green gear, asks Adam Fisher in Ready Made Magazine. He traces the green consumption strategy to Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce. Hawken holds to the supply and demand of social change and claims that if we change the way the world shops, we change the world. I recall the book from my High School Global Environmental Options class. My teacher listed the title on his suggested reading chart. I wasn’t interested in the economic model of ecology. I still don’t consider it a great answer but it has had the most visible effect.