Thomas Friedman on Cleantech and the Green Bubble

Thomas Friedman appeared on The Daily Show with John Stewart on November 11th to discuss his new book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America" which follows in the footsteps of his last book "The World is Flat". In the title of his latest book Hot refers to climate change, flat refers to expansion of the middle class, and crowded refers to population expansion (which Friedman describes as a much larger issue than people realize). You can view the complete interview online here or read on for details.

During the interview Friedman described the railroad bubble and the internet bubble which left the United States with infrastructure to build industry out of; where companies like Google and Microsoft now flourish. He attacked the real estate and finance bubble saying that it only leaves us with half built condos and dead derivative contracts that nobody understands. While both of the two former bubbles (railroads and internet) did burst, losing a lot of people a lot of money, they also left infrastructure which creates jobs and adds value to society, something that the financing bubble did not.

Friedman is excited about the cleantech bubble and the innovations that can come out of it but is concerned that without government incentives it will take a lot longer than former bubbles to emerge and create those benefits. He jokingly referenced the old saying by Henry Ford "if horses could vote we wouldn't have cars" referring to the voice that dirty alternative energy sources currently have in Washington. In order for green energy to take off and expand, the playing field has to take into account "gray costs" of traditional energy solutions, ie. pollution, political unrest, and diminished health. This could be achieved through a carbon tax and cap and trade. These systems create a marketplace for pollution that allows dirty companies to buy excess carbon emission "credits" from greener companies in turn giving them the opportunity to continue on dirty or take the financial incentive to innovate and go green over time.

National security was also a major focus in Friedman's argument, he believes that the nation that controls Energy Technology (ET) will have the most job security, national security, competitive industries, and global respect. ET is the next big thing to Friedman and without the United States taking a leading international role he believes that our standard of living will continuously slide down. While the current Bush administration has attempted to address the US "addiction to oil" in their own ways, the solution has been to throw money at the problem without stressing conservation or government cultivation; that is, with the exception of the recent extension on the Federal Solar Tax Credit. Other attempts at energy innovation have ended up more as agricultural subsidies, adding ethanol to gasoline for example. Thomas Friedman likened this type of behavior to a quote by the famous conservationist and automobile innovator Amory Lovins: "doing something very well, that you really shouldn't be doing at all".

Friedman believes that what we need is a market signal that will get hundreds of people interested and engaged with solving the problem. This interest has certainly been spurred by leaders such as Al Gore who produced the movie An Inconvenient Truth that has inspired hundreds of thousands of people to make small changes in their lives to live more sustainably.