Hot, Flat and Crowded is, on the surface, a book about sustainability. It is about the truth of climate change. It is about how past habits have created problems and what could happen if future habits aren't adjusted.
The word 'hot' in the title equals climate change and global warming. 'Flat' equals globalization (how the Internet and similar technologies have brought us all together) and 'crowded' is the growing middle class. These three trends have brought about five changes, according to Friedman. These changes are: energy supply and demand, petrodicatorship, climate change, energy poverty, and biodiversity loss.
Living a Wasteful Life
Americans are, and have been, greedy when it comes to energy supply and demand. The US uses more than its fair share of energy. And now, developing countries, like China and India, are consuming at similar levels. The damage that has already happened can’t be undone. Only so much of the waste in water and air can be cleaned. Natural resources are being used up at increasing rates, and the Earth cannot sustain humanity for much longer if this path is continued.
The current lifestyle is wasteful. First world countries, like America and England, have poured money into oil, which in turn supports the dictators of the Middle East. Demand for oil has been exceeding supply, so prices have been rising. The high prices made the oil tycoons (the petrodictators) rich. This money is a huge influence on politics in these countries, which make them more anti-American and less democratic. It funds terrorists, like those that perpetrated 9/11. Friedman’s First Law of Petropolitics is this: as oil prices go up, freedom goes down.
Friedman moves from petropolitics to climate change. He lists all the evidence that has proven this phenomenon, but he also states that it isn't known when the catalyst will actually hit. Scientists predict that the ice caps are going to melt, ocean levels will rise, and species will go extinct, but do not know when.
Climate Change
A factor of climate change is biodiversity loss, which is when species go extinct. The average lifespan of a species is about 1 million years, but now species are dying off at an alarming rate. The tropics are being cut down at an acre a second. Half the wetlands and a third of the mangrove forests of the world have been destroyed. It has been estimated that 90 percent of the large predator fish are extinct. Friedman calls global warming “global weirding”, since it is much more than warming. Temperatures not only rise, but weather patterns change.
Friedman talks about energy poverty. 1.6 billion people on this planet are without electricity. Without this energy, these people are completely cut off from the rest of the world. They cannot access education, they cannot get well-paying jobs. This just makes the world’s poorest people poorer.
Friedman proposes a Code Green plan to replace the “Dirty Fuels” system that’s currently in place. The key components of his plan are: clean electrons, energy efficiency and conservation. The first component, clean electrons, is about finding new, cleaner ways of producing energy. The second component is about limiting the current demand of energy, since it will still be many years before clean energy is here. The third is about being responsible with what resources are available.
Going Green
Part three explains what has to be done to “move forward”. Friedman talks about how people across the globe are jumping on the green “bandwagon”, when in fact, it just looks like they are. Being green is more than turning off lights when leaving the room and taking shorter showers. The magazine articles that list “10 Easy Ways to Be Green” are wrong. It’s not easy. It would take complete reprogramming of the current lifestyle to be fully sustainable.
The next few chapters describe America's current energy grid (which is big, messy and “dumb”) and presents a scenario, about twenty years in the future, when Americans use smart energy. Appliances would be smart: they only use the energy they need. Cars would be smart: they recharge their batteries from the sun. Everything is connected, everything works together to save energy and money.
Friedman also mentions that the playing field of energy development needs to be levelled. It is being monopolized by the gas, oil and coal companies. A price signal is needed, where oil will remain at $100 a barrel (taxed or not) or gasoline will always be $4 a gallon (again, taxed or not.) This will reduce demand, which will drive prices down and, in turn, cause more incentive for clean energy to be developed.
Current standards and regulations are not cutting it. Tighter restrictions, smarter energy, better cars and smarter utilities are needed. Better preservation systems and conservation programs need to be put in place. More, and better, governmental policies and education are requirements for moving forward.
The last two sections of the book compare China and America. China has been growing as an industrial leader for the last few decades. Their pollution and waste output is slowly reaching American levels, which will make the future quite bleak if they continue to grow at this pace without changing to cleaner energy. Their government is taking small steps towards sustainability, but it is not easy, or enough.
America needs to take the lead in the green effort, because other countries, like China, will have no other choice but to follow. America has been way too slow on this. There is too much red tape, and too much lag in the government. If America can lead the public to a greener lifestyle, they can begin the movement towards a greener world.
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