SocraticGadfly: Tom Friedman clueless on Iraq and now on environmentalism?

May 29, 2007

Tom Friedman clueless on Iraq and now on environmentalism?

My Sierra Club insider e-mail today invited me to listen to Tom Friedman on Sierra Club radio.

Why, you might ask? According to the Sierra fluff:
To hear his inspiring perspective on what it will take to get China and the developing world to be part of the solution, how the market alone can’t solve our energy problems, and why he dreams that even President Bush might someday put energy-efficient light bulbs in the White House.

First, why doesn’t he ask Bush to replace Carter’s solar panels, especially with improvements in solar technology?

Second, he’ll probably extol the virtues of globalization, including the export of American pollution to China on things like coke-making. (NPR had an excellent piece on this last week; we import about half our coke from places like China; in other words, American companies outsource pollution as well as jobs.)

Third, given how wrong he has gotten Iraq, and his dubious track record on other globalization issues, why should I expect him to be any wiser now?

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