I’ve been reading Thomas Friedman’s Hot, Flat, and Crowded today. He wrote The World is Flat as well. I read it, or at least parts of it, a year or two ago and was appropriately disturbed by it. I’m even more disturbed by Hot, Flat, and Crowded. The figures he gets into about over-population alone are enough to bring on massive panic attacks. Scary stuff. Really. And scarier still to think he’s probably right. The world is too crowded to sustain itself much longer at the lifestyle to which the middle classes of industrialized societies are accustomed.
That said, I’ll talk more about the book when I’ve finished it. For now I’ll say I wish I could be a person of extreme measures. I wish I could read something like this and decide with absolute resolve to turn off my air conditioner for the whole summer and not drive to town more than once a month.
It’s not going to happen. I turned my thermostat up by a couple of degrees during one of Friedman’s more dire predictions, and I thought I was going to die. It isn’t even really summer yet, so I’d say if this was a test I’ve failed.
I planted a garden after I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. I know I’ll have to do something equally radical in response to Friedman. I’ll let you know what when I decide. For now I have to go turn off my cable box. I should have never left it on after I turned off the TV.
