http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/15/magazine/15green.t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin). More Green leadership by U.S leaders would be welcome but he is not clear about the causality of how such a policy shift would have large effects on our international relations.
"Well, I want to rename “green.” I want to rename it geostrategic, geoeconomic, capitalistic and patriotic. I want to do that because I think that living, working, designing, manufacturing and projecting America in a green way can be the basis of a new unifying political movement for the 21st century. A redefined, broader and more muscular green ideology is not meant to trump the traditional Republican and Democratic agendas but rather to bridge them when it comes to addressing the three major issues facing every American today: jobs, temperature and terrorism.
How do our kids compete in a flatter world? How do they thrive in a warmer world? How do they survive in a more dangerous world? Those are, in a nutshell, the big questions facing America at the dawn of the 21st century. But these problems are so large in scale that they can only be effectively addressed by an America with 50 green states — not an America divided between red and blue states.
Because a new green ideology, properly defined, has the power to mobilize liberals and conservatives, evangelicals and atheists, big business and environmentalists around an agenda that can both pull us together and propel us forward. That’s why I say: We don’t just need the first black president. We need the first green president. We don’t just need the first woman president. We need the first environmental president. We don’t just need a president who has been toughened by years as a prisoner of war but a president who is tough enough to level with the American people about the profound economic, geopolitical and climate threats posed by our addiction to oil — and to offer a real plan to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels."
I agree with him that the President could do much more to design incentives
to increase energy efficiency to help mitigate greenhouse gas production.
I wonder how many new jobs would be created if a President made "green" the focus of
his/her administration?
I wonder what would happen to other possible priorities such as the war on chronic disease and the war on terror if a President focused solely on being green?
I wonder if government can "pick winners"? A more decentralized approach would
enact carbon taxes and then allow the free market to choose the direction that diffusion and adoption of new products takes
Friedman usually works on international affairs but recently he has taken up environmental issues. I'd like to ask him the following; "if the u.S went green and relied less on gasoline and produced fewer greenhouse gases how would this affect our foreign policy credibility? Would natiaons be nicer to Israel? Would Europe be happier to work with us? How much happier to work with us? Or would they pick new issues to fight with us over?
Friedman seems to have convinced himself that he has found a "magic bullet". Are there any costs of adopting his dream?
Tomorrow will be an eventful day for my family. We have made a decision about where we want to work from now on. It was a difficult decision but we won't regret our choice.