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Should we put aside the “Friedman unit” and the certainty that things will be magical six months for now? Should Tom Friedman ever be enabled to live down his rampant cheerleading for unchecked globalization? The answer, to be clear, to these and other questions is “NO!!”

Yet, when it comes to the questions of energy, Global Warming, and the stresses that humanity is placing on the livability of our planet, Friedman is seemingly ever more on target with every passing day.

His book from last fall, Hot, Flat and Crowded, is not “new” to any of those working the energy / environmental fields and reads too much like a long travelogue (how much carbon for all of Tom’s trips), but is a work that would change the nation for the better if required reading for every member of Congress, every editorial board member, every high school student.

Well, today, The New York Times published
The Inflection is Near? A recognition, it seems, of the coalescense of the our three critical problems: economic, energy, and environmental.

Asking the question …

To be honest, what Tom Friedman published today is not new to readers of “environmental” journals and thinkers. There isn’t anything shocking to climate realists. There isn’t anything new there to a few percent of the American public. Friedman, however, placed on the pages of America’s paper of record a question that should be at the core of all our discussions as we strive to figure a path forward toward a prosperous, climate-friendly society.

Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

Have “both” spoken? Are they telling us, from plunging economic prospects globally to disrupted weather (climate) patterns globally, “no more”?

And the intertwined problem …

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …

We can’t do this anymore.

We cannot.

Our problems are so incredibly intertwined. Too many are ready to say ‘we can’t do anything about emissions, after all China’ without considering that such a huge portion of China’s emissions derive from making and shipping the latest piece of useless piece of trash to feed our over-consumption habits.

We buy from China, to help them build more coal plants, for them to lend the dollars to US, to then buy from …

We have no choice, economically, but to readdress that cycle.

We have no choice, environmentally, but to readdress this cycle.

Voices to listen to …

“We created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children,” said Joe Romm, a physicist and climate expert [and former Assistant Secretary of Energy for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy]. “We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks — water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land — and not by generating renewable flows.

“You can get this burst of wealth that we have created from this rapacious behavior. But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate …’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”

Bernie Madoff is far from the only Ponzi scheme of concern. The housing bubble and the entire stock market are far from our only Ponzi schemes.

The entire concept of “externalities”, of treating our environmental space and the hability of the planet for tomorrow as outside consideration, are Ponzi schemes that make Madoff and the housing bubble look like microscopic blips diverting attention from our most critical challenges.

Over a billion people today suffer from water scarcity; deforestation in the tropics destroys an area the size of Greece every year — more than 25 million acres; more than half of the world’s fisheries are over-fished or fished at their limit.

How many times can we hear “an area the size of Greece” or “the size of Delaware” or “the size of X” without actually take action? When there is no longer a Greece, a Delaware, an X left to devastate?

The warnings are there

“Just as a few lonely economists warned us we were living beyond our financial means and overdrawing our financial assets, scientists are warning us that we’re living beyond our ecological means and overdrawing our natural assets,” argues Glenn Prickett, senior vice president at Conservation International. But, he cautioned, as environmentalists have pointed out: “Mother Nature doesn’t do bailouts.”

Only (slight) correction to Prickett: “Scientists have been warning us” and warning us strongly. Sadly, we have been in a Sound Science dominated political environment, with too many Americans (and the Republican Party) abandoning science and reaons with a passion, thus those voices have been overwhelmed and reporting of them muddled and confused. Scientists have been warning us, even if we haven’t been listening.

“We are taking a system operating past its capacity and driving it faster and harder,” Paul Gilding. “No matter how wonderful the system is, the laws of physics and biology still apply.” We must have growth, but we must grow in a different way. For starters, economies need to transition to the concept of net-zero, whereby buildings, cars, factories and homes are designed not only to generate as much energy as they use but to be infinitely recyclable in as many parts as possible. Let’s grow by creating flows rather than plundering more stocks.

Gilding is offering a different path forward. This is a path that might work. A path of turning capitalism in a different direction, from raping the plant to meet created needs, to working with the planetary system to meet real needs.

Gilding says he’s actually an optimist. So am I. People are already using this economic slowdown to retool and reorient economies. Germany, Britain, China and the U.S. have all used stimulus bills to make huge new investments in clean power. South Korea’s new national paradigm for development is called: “Low carbon, green growth.” Who knew? People are realizing we need more than incremental changes — and we’re seeing the first stirrings of growth in smarter, more efficient, more responsible ways.

Yes. We are seeing change. Well, at least, some change. We have a stimulus package that has some great elements, but also provides undifferentiated benefits to car buyers (no matter how inefficient the car) and helps homebuyers (and some refinancings) (no matter how energy hog the home).

And, the question we have before us, another question to ask, is whether Change can happen fast and aggressively enough to slay the 3E demons: economic, energy, environmental challenges.

In the meantime, says Gilding, take notes: “When we look back, 2008 will be a momentous year in human history. Our children and grandchildren will ask us, ‘What was it like? What were you doing when it started to fall apart? What did you think? What did you do?’ ” Often in the middle of something momentous, we can’t see its significance. But for me there is no doubt: 2008 will be the marker — the year when ‘The Great Disruption’ began.

Sigh. I have hope, but doubt, that 2008 will be a “marker”. Will we see a “great disruprtion” that breaks the sad legacies of our past few decades, heading us toward a sensible energy future, a well-regulated global capitalism, and a turning of the tides of Global Warming’s risings seas?

As an aside … several notable features …

As an aside, there are several notable features of this Friedman piece and the NY Times publication of it that jump out to me.

1. How many “serious” Village pieces open with quoting, with praise, the Onion? “Sometimes the satirical newspaper The Onion is so right on, I can’t resist quoting from it.”

2. A week after the publication of a (well-deserved) blistering attack on The New York Times and Times’ reporter Andy Revkin, Friedman cites the author and site, Joe Romm and Climate Progress, as an “indispensable blog”.

3. Okay, caught within the battles and issues that cross the table (The Will Affair), it is nice to see another major newspaper with a climate realist as a regular columnist. (This, sadly, utterly at odds with the regular gruel in my hometown paper, The Washington Post.)

But, to conclude …

Take a deep breath.

Repeat, after me:

Tom Friedman is right.

And, go ahead and share The Inflection is Near? with ten others, preferably ten who need to hear the question