Hot, Flat and Crowded

I stopped reading Tom Friedman closely when he started being such a fucking tool about Iraq. Not because I can't tolerate people with whom I don't agree, but really for the sake of my own blood pressure. The way he kept bending over backwards to frame the war as a potential happy accident was just intellectually dishonest.

But I don't discount the man completely. Friedman's been writing about the environment as a political and economic force for quite some time. And he's been doing it with that same sunny optimism that make me want to bruise his fat neck when it comes to Iraq. Friedman's hefty helpings of American Can-doitude make more sense when he's talking about the environment. There's room for earnestness and wonder in this topic. There are no industrial revolution "Curveball" characters leading us to believe that coal and oil are good ideas in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Global warming is a genuine mistake that we can genuinely fix.

His new book may have a flat-footed title, but it looks like it's going to be good. If you occasionally worry that we are all going to a new hell on earth that we are baking special for ourselves and that will be ready much sooner than we think, then video excerpts of Friedman at the Aspen Ideas Festival are certainly worth your time.