This clip comes from a particularly great Real Time episode with a panel including Thomas L. Friedman and Marcy Kaptur and guests Richard Dawkins and Lisa Jackson. I am posting it for three reasons. 1) It brought to my attention the traces of pharmaceuticals that are showing up in our water system - which raises questions about how equipped our current filtration system is (something that has not yet been discussed here on JustSaying). 2) It boggles my mind how dismissive Lisa Jackson, EPA Administrator, was about the environmental impact of the meat industry. And 3) It reinforces the importance of my decision to add Bill Maher to my "dream dinner party" guest list.
Showing posts with label Thomas L Friedman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas L Friedman. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Reading the morning news...
Whenever I recommend Thomas L. Friedman's The Lexus and The Olive Tree, I struggle to articulate his take on globalization - perhaps because it takes reading the whole book to gain that greater understanding I so wish I could hand to people. Thankfully, my man wrote another typically insightful Op-Ed for today's NY Times. From Jao Flats, Botswana, Friedman connects the dots with 54 year old director of sustainability for Wilderness Safaris, Map Ives:
We’re trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems — climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet — separately. The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks; climate folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors.
They all need to go on safari together.
“We need to stop thinking about these issues in isolation — each with its own champion, constituency and agenda — and deal with them in an integrated way, the way they actually occur on the ground,” argued Glenn Prickett, senior vice president with Conservation International. “We tend to think about climate change as just an energy issue, but it’s also about land use: one-third of greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation and agriculture. So we need to preserve forests and other ecosystems to solve climate change, not only to save species.”
But we also need to double food production to feed a growing population. “So we’ll need to do that without clearing more forests and draining more wetlands, which means farmers will need new technologies and practices to grow more food on the same land they use today — with less water,” he added. “Healthy forests, wetlands and grasslands not only preserve biodiversity and store carbon, they also help buffer the impacts of climate change. So our success in tackling climate change, poverty, food security and biodiversity loss will depend on finding integrated solutions from the land.”
This passage does not include Ives most fascinating - and so widely overlooked - observations on nature so find the entire op-ed here.
We’re trying to deal with a whole array of integrated problems — climate change, energy, biodiversity loss, poverty alleviation and the need to grow enough food to feed the planet — separately. The poverty fighters resent the climate-change folks; climate folks hold summits without reference to biodiversity; the food advocates resist the biodiversity protectors.
They all need to go on safari together.
“We need to stop thinking about these issues in isolation — each with its own champion, constituency and agenda — and deal with them in an integrated way, the way they actually occur on the ground,” argued Glenn Prickett, senior vice president with Conservation International. “We tend to think about climate change as just an energy issue, but it’s also about land use: one-third of greenhouse gas emissions come from tropical deforestation and agriculture. So we need to preserve forests and other ecosystems to solve climate change, not only to save species.”
But we also need to double food production to feed a growing population. “So we’ll need to do that without clearing more forests and draining more wetlands, which means farmers will need new technologies and practices to grow more food on the same land they use today — with less water,” he added. “Healthy forests, wetlands and grasslands not only preserve biodiversity and store carbon, they also help buffer the impacts of climate change. So our success in tackling climate change, poverty, food security and biodiversity loss will depend on finding integrated solutions from the land.”
This passage does not include Ives most fascinating - and so widely overlooked - observations on nature so find the entire op-ed here.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Costa Rica
As always, Thomas L. Friedman's recent column left me feeling informed and hopeful. (No) Drill, Baby, Drill highlights Costa Rica's efforts and policies to protect biodiversity by placing one minister in charge of energy, environment, water, mines, and natural resources and by implementing the "payment for environmental services" strategy. Did I mention the nation banned oil drilling and get 95% of their energy from renewables (hydro-electric, wind and geo-thermal)?
Pretty cool, if you ask me.
Pretty cool, if you ask me.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Climate Debate
It will not surprise you that my beliefs echo Mr. Thomas L. Friedman's in that I think Al Gore underestimated climate change in An Inconvenient Truth. Nevertheless, this recent NY Times article is an interesting read regarding the science, politics, and press about/around/behind global warming.
**update**
DotEarth responds
**update**
DotEarth responds
Monday, February 16, 2009
Latest Thomas L. Friedman...
Yes, They Could. So They Did. is a piece about Friedman's recent encounter and adventure with young climate leaders in India, Caroline Howe and Alexis Ringwald. Inspirational read.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Thomas Friedman on The Daily Show
C-c-c-c-c-c-c-conservation!
Last night, Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat and most recently Hot, Flat and Crowded, talked to Jon Stewart about the future of energy. He addresses an important question when discussing how government funding of a large number of jobs could lead us to the green Microsoft or green Google. Jon Stewart asks: Microsoft wasn't government funded? Why aren't there people 'working in their garage' to find some solutions now? To which Friedman replies that the cheaper and more convenient alternative is too vast for a new, green idea to really catch on - that the playing field needs to be leveled. Obviously he can explain it best. Check it out:
Last night, Thomas L. Friedman, author of The World is Flat and most recently Hot, Flat and Crowded, talked to Jon Stewart about the future of energy. He addresses an important question when discussing how government funding of a large number of jobs could lead us to the green Microsoft or green Google. Jon Stewart asks: Microsoft wasn't government funded? Why aren't there people 'working in their garage' to find some solutions now? To which Friedman replies that the cheaper and more convenient alternative is too vast for a new, green idea to really catch on - that the playing field needs to be leveled. Obviously he can explain it best. Check it out:
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Will the world be flat, crowded, and hot?
Lots of buzz about The World is Flat author Thomas L. Friedman's new book, Hot, Flat and Crowded. And apparently lots of buzzwords within its text. I'm hoping to pick it up soon but for the time being, here are some reviews:
The director of the energy and sustainable development program at Stanford University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, David G. Victor, calls the book a call to arms for an American-led green revolution in his recent NY Times article. It's hard to tell if that is his endorsement or criticism. From the article:
Mr. Friedman’s strength is his diagnosis of our energy and environmental nightmares. But blind spots appear when he turns to remedies. One is renewable power. Like most observers, Mr. Friedman assumes that the road out of today’s mess is studded with wind turbines and solar plants. Maybe that’s true, but maybe not. Such renewable resources account for only a tiny fraction of current power supply, and when the titans of today’s energy industry think about cutting carbon dioxide, they are more likely to imagine building carbon-free nuclear power plants or advanced coal plants that safely bury their pollution underground.
Victor's mention of carbon-free nuclear power plants has sparked my interest for the book he himself is writing on these subjects at hand. My father did a series of lectures across the country back in the 70s about nuclear energy that I'd hoped to retrieve the transcripts of but, unfortunately, I get the sense he's not too interested in jumping into eco-politics these days.
Gregg Easterbrook is less impressed with the book and takes a poke at Friedman's doomsday attitude in his review for Slate. But critics are by nature critical, right?
So thanks to the NY Times, you can read the first chapter of Hot, Flat, and Crowded here
The director of the energy and sustainable development program at Stanford University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, David G. Victor, calls the book a call to arms for an American-led green revolution in his recent NY Times article. It's hard to tell if that is his endorsement or criticism. From the article:
Mr. Friedman’s strength is his diagnosis of our energy and environmental nightmares. But blind spots appear when he turns to remedies. One is renewable power. Like most observers, Mr. Friedman assumes that the road out of today’s mess is studded with wind turbines and solar plants. Maybe that’s true, but maybe not. Such renewable resources account for only a tiny fraction of current power supply, and when the titans of today’s energy industry think about cutting carbon dioxide, they are more likely to imagine building carbon-free nuclear power plants or advanced coal plants that safely bury their pollution underground.
Victor's mention of carbon-free nuclear power plants has sparked my interest for the book he himself is writing on these subjects at hand. My father did a series of lectures across the country back in the 70s about nuclear energy that I'd hoped to retrieve the transcripts of but, unfortunately, I get the sense he's not too interested in jumping into eco-politics these days.
Gregg Easterbrook is less impressed with the book and takes a poke at Friedman's doomsday attitude in his review for Slate. But critics are by nature critical, right?
So thanks to the NY Times, you can read the first chapter of Hot, Flat, and Crowded here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)