Hot, Flat & Crowded is a book by Thomas Friedman who, as a book reviewer notes, "is a journalist, and journalists needs editors, and this book needs serious editing. It's 400 pages of small type. There's a 220 page book in here somewhere, struggling to get out."
This is not that 220-page book, but the highlights of the book.
First some explanations of the title.
Flat - There was a "prequel" to this book about the world being flatter. By "flat" Friedman means that the internet, globalisation, removal of barriers has opened the world up to almost everyone. You can access ideas and thoughts of some of the brilliant minds in the world via the internet. With internet shopping you can sell things to the US without being there. And if you need to cross borders to pursue a job there are less barriers than in the past. Flat also means that you can see what is happening around the world. So if you can see how the Americans live, you can aspire to want to live like them.
Crowded - In the 1960s, there were about 3 billion people on the planet. Today, there are over 6 billion. In 12 - 15 years, there will be another billion added. Most of us will live to see the world hit a population of 9 billion people. In 100 years, the population of the world has tripled from 3 billion to 9 billion. That is crowded.
But this crowded world is not equally wealthy. About 1 billion people in the world are the "Golden Billion" these are people who live like Americans. They have an American standard of living, and they use and consume resources like an American. (An American on average consumes 32 times as much resources as say, an average Kenyan.) And in a flat world, everyone can see how this Golden Billion live... and want to be like them!
The problem is that behind this Golden Billion are 2 billion people aspiring to have an American lifestyle (think China and India if you need a way to grasp this idea.) The world cannot support 3 Golden Billion. It can't even support 1! Not in the current manner, anyway.
And that's not even the end, because behind that 2 billion aspiring people are another 3 billion hoping to get out of their poverty and improve their lives. And that's just today. In another 12 years, another billion will be added to the world and they will want that American Lifestyle too.
Hot - What's the problem? Well, if each of the 1 billion new people that are coming in the next 12 years were to be given a single 60-watt incandescent light bulb when he or she arrives (Each of those bulb, even with packaging is not very heavy, say about 50 grams, but 1 billion of them would weigh 20,000 metric tons!), when they turn on all the light bulbs at the same time, they will need 60,000 megawatts of electricity! Fortunately, they will only turn them on about 4 hours a night, so at any time, the power needed would 10,000 megawatts. That is still about twenty 500-megawatt power generating stations just so the new billion can have light!
[Comment: Of course, a 60-watt incandescent bulb is rather outdated. Fluorescent is more efficient, but add the need to access internet, refrigerators, hot water, and consider a 60-watt X 4 hours a day or 240 watt per day requirement to be the bare minimum, and the problem can be seen to be a significant one.]
If these 20 power-generating plants were on a clean fuel system, that would be some consolation. But many plants today are coal, oil, or other fossil fuel burning. This means more carbon in the atmosphere. Which leads to climate change, and that is why the world is getting hotter.
Friedman contends that when crowded meets flat, the world gets hotter. As more people see the American lifestyle, they want to consume like the Americans. They want big homes, big cars, big TVs, and iPods and iPads, and all these need energy. And right now the world runs on what he calls the Dirty Fuel System, which leads to carbon emission, which leads to Global Climate Change.
Global Climate Change - The evidence for carbon-caused (or correlated) climate change is best provided by studies of ice-core samples. Ice cores are samples of ice drilled out from the Arctic circle ice sheets. The ice cores can go down to 2.5 km which would be about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Trapped air in the ice core reveal the composition of the atmosphere at that time. What ice core research has found is that increase in CO2 in the atmosphere correlates to warming periods and climate change.
Petrodictators - Friedman makes an argument that our petrol addiction is fuelling petrodictators. As the price of oil goes up, freedom in these oil-rich countries go down. Why? It is the corollary to the American Revolution slogan which was: "No Taxation without Representation". In oil-rich states, oil revenues means govt can function without taxation, and give out freebies. The oil-financed govt can use subsidies and incentives to pursue agendas unchecked by the people who can be bought off anyway with more petrol dollars.
As oil prices increase, these petrodictators can pursue their agenda without scrutiny. So "No Taxation, AND no Representation".
Energy Poverty - But even with all these burning of fossil fuels, there are still about 1.6 billion people who have no access to electricity. They are poor, but in a flat world, their energy poverty is an even bigger obstacle to getting out of the circle of poverty, because without electricity, they cannot get on the internet, and they get left behind even further. Friedman makes the case that energy poverty is the reason for poor health (pollution from in-home wood stoves, oil lamps; poor sanitation; lack of clean water), over-crowding in cities from rural to urban migration (hey! they have electricity there!), illiteracy (children needed to fetch water, gather firewood, so can't go to school, no light, no internet), etc.
Most of the problems of poverty can be solved with access to energy.
With energy, people would be better able to deal with a hot world (think air-con, refrigeration). With energy, people can stop over-crowding super-cities. The internet and global networking can let people work globally and live locally. With work outsourced to people living in smaller towns and cities, the pressure for public services and the impact on the environment can be spread out.
"Energy can make a hotter world more tolerable, and a flatter world more equitable... and a crowded world more comfortable."
However, the solution is not the dirty fuel system. Or the dumb energy system (the energy demand fluctuates throughout the day and to ensure that there is sufficient energy, power companies have to ensure that their supply of electricity always has a reserve capacity above the peak demand and is ready to kick in at any time. That is dumb and wasteful, and polluting).
What is needed is a clean fuel system, and a smart energy grid. And he provides a vision of what that might mean in the book.
Some steps towards that smart energy grid:
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-22-increasing-on-site-consumption-of-distributed-solar
What Friedman has done in this book is to make a compelling case for what the world needs to do. And the solutions are not yet invented. The improvements in solar, wind and alternate fuels/energy are incremental at best, when what is needed is exponential improvements. And there are no "205 easy ways to a greener lifestyle that will save the earth". The one word that we should never use for the green revolution is "easy".
Crowded - In the 1960s, there were about 3 billion people on the planet. Today, there are over 6 billion. In 12 - 15 years, there will be another billion added. Most of us will live to see the world hit a population of 9 billion people. In 100 years, the population of the world has tripled from 3 billion to 9 billion. That is crowded.
But this crowded world is not equally wealthy. About 1 billion people in the world are the "Golden Billion" these are people who live like Americans. They have an American standard of living, and they use and consume resources like an American. (An American on average consumes 32 times as much resources as say, an average Kenyan.) And in a flat world, everyone can see how this Golden Billion live... and want to be like them!
The problem is that behind this Golden Billion are 2 billion people aspiring to have an American lifestyle (think China and India if you need a way to grasp this idea.) The world cannot support 3 Golden Billion. It can't even support 1! Not in the current manner, anyway.
And that's not even the end, because behind that 2 billion aspiring people are another 3 billion hoping to get out of their poverty and improve their lives. And that's just today. In another 12 years, another billion will be added to the world and they will want that American Lifestyle too.
Hot - What's the problem? Well, if each of the 1 billion new people that are coming in the next 12 years were to be given a single 60-watt incandescent light bulb when he or she arrives (Each of those bulb, even with packaging is not very heavy, say about 50 grams, but 1 billion of them would weigh 20,000 metric tons!), when they turn on all the light bulbs at the same time, they will need 60,000 megawatts of electricity! Fortunately, they will only turn them on about 4 hours a night, so at any time, the power needed would 10,000 megawatts. That is still about twenty 500-megawatt power generating stations just so the new billion can have light!
[Comment: Of course, a 60-watt incandescent bulb is rather outdated. Fluorescent is more efficient, but add the need to access internet, refrigerators, hot water, and consider a 60-watt X 4 hours a day or 240 watt per day requirement to be the bare minimum, and the problem can be seen to be a significant one.]
If these 20 power-generating plants were on a clean fuel system, that would be some consolation. But many plants today are coal, oil, or other fossil fuel burning. This means more carbon in the atmosphere. Which leads to climate change, and that is why the world is getting hotter.
Friedman contends that when crowded meets flat, the world gets hotter. As more people see the American lifestyle, they want to consume like the Americans. They want big homes, big cars, big TVs, and iPods and iPads, and all these need energy. And right now the world runs on what he calls the Dirty Fuel System, which leads to carbon emission, which leads to Global Climate Change.
Global Climate Change - The evidence for carbon-caused (or correlated) climate change is best provided by studies of ice-core samples. Ice cores are samples of ice drilled out from the Arctic circle ice sheets. The ice cores can go down to 2.5 km which would be about 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. Trapped air in the ice core reveal the composition of the atmosphere at that time. What ice core research has found is that increase in CO2 in the atmosphere correlates to warming periods and climate change.
Petrodictators - Friedman makes an argument that our petrol addiction is fuelling petrodictators. As the price of oil goes up, freedom in these oil-rich countries go down. Why? It is the corollary to the American Revolution slogan which was: "No Taxation without Representation". In oil-rich states, oil revenues means govt can function without taxation, and give out freebies. The oil-financed govt can use subsidies and incentives to pursue agendas unchecked by the people who can be bought off anyway with more petrol dollars.
As oil prices increase, these petrodictators can pursue their agenda without scrutiny. So "No Taxation, AND no Representation".
Energy Poverty - But even with all these burning of fossil fuels, there are still about 1.6 billion people who have no access to electricity. They are poor, but in a flat world, their energy poverty is an even bigger obstacle to getting out of the circle of poverty, because without electricity, they cannot get on the internet, and they get left behind even further. Friedman makes the case that energy poverty is the reason for poor health (pollution from in-home wood stoves, oil lamps; poor sanitation; lack of clean water), over-crowding in cities from rural to urban migration (hey! they have electricity there!), illiteracy (children needed to fetch water, gather firewood, so can't go to school, no light, no internet), etc.
Most of the problems of poverty can be solved with access to energy.
With energy, people would be better able to deal with a hot world (think air-con, refrigeration). With energy, people can stop over-crowding super-cities. The internet and global networking can let people work globally and live locally. With work outsourced to people living in smaller towns and cities, the pressure for public services and the impact on the environment can be spread out.
"Energy can make a hotter world more tolerable, and a flatter world more equitable... and a crowded world more comfortable."
However, the solution is not the dirty fuel system. Or the dumb energy system (the energy demand fluctuates throughout the day and to ensure that there is sufficient energy, power companies have to ensure that their supply of electricity always has a reserve capacity above the peak demand and is ready to kick in at any time. That is dumb and wasteful, and polluting).
What is needed is a clean fuel system, and a smart energy grid. And he provides a vision of what that might mean in the book.
Some steps towards that smart energy grid:
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-11-22-increasing-on-site-consumption-of-distributed-solar
What Friedman has done in this book is to make a compelling case for what the world needs to do. And the solutions are not yet invented. The improvements in solar, wind and alternate fuels/energy are incremental at best, when what is needed is exponential improvements. And there are no "205 easy ways to a greener lifestyle that will save the earth". The one word that we should never use for the green revolution is "easy".
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