You gotta hand it to Tom Friedman. He’s not the first guy to spot a trend or big idea, but he has a great way of popularizing them. He’s great at squeezing down big ideas into slogans. Or forcing simple parallels that make you think. “If this, then that.”
Anyhow, he did it again this week with a terrific cover story in the New York Times Magazine. He lays out a big idea about how the United States can completely rework geopolitics and regain global leadership by truly taking on climate change, or, in his words, going “geo-green.” By taking the lead in alternative energy and a comprehensive environmentalism, the United States could help solve three of the biggest challenges of the early 21st century.
1/ Solve global warming, which does have the potential to remake the world – and not for the better.
2/ Solve the quandary of globalization and the new global economy. The United States could spawn the next generation high end technologies that could serve the needs of the world – and would not be easily replicated by low end labor. We could have a thriving next generation economy that could include all Americans.
3/ Solve our era’s security challenge of global terrorism, sustained by a militant radical Islam that is fueled by the oil regimes of the middle east. We cut our dependence, and ultimately the world’s dependence, on that resource and that region, and we undercut our biggest threat.
I could not agree more with his framework. This is a massive opportunity for the progressive movement and Democratic politics in general. The conservatives have completely failed on all these fronts – starting with their obstinate denial of climate change long after all evidence showed denial to be a sham.
Progressives have always taken the lead on environmental matters, and now they can extend that core competency into the reworking of the global economy, and a convincing strategy to truly make the world more safe.
Bravo to Friedman, who has done much to move this meme into the mainstream. Inevitably this piece will be his next book, and judging by the success of his other books, it will be a bestseller for a long while.
Peter Leyden