I've been reading Thomas L. Friedman book
"Hot, Flat, & Crowded, why the world needs a green revolution - and how we can renew our global future".
Hot because of climate change, flat because of IT (Information Technologies, internet and cell-phones) and globalization, and crowded because the population is expected to continue growing.
According to Friedman we cannot continue the business as usual path. We need a green revolution and we need to focus on ET - Energy technology -, based on renewable energy production and energy efficiency. This is the beginning of new era - the Energy Climate Era (E.C.E).
In 20 E.C.E, Friedman describes a world where everyone has a SBB (smart black box), which is a personal energy dashboard.
The SBB's touch screen can tell you exactly how much energy any of the devices you own is consuming at any moment.
All your appliances can take instructions via SBB as to when they should operate and at what level of power, and tell your utility company when they want to purchase and sell electricity. Because in 20 E.C.E. people are both electricity consumers and producers. Cars are now RESU - Rolling Energy storage units.
The focus in the beginning of the E.C.E should be not only on innovation on the energy supply side, but also on the demand side through energy efficiency.
A study by McKinsey Global Institute from 2008 concluded that the world could cut projected global energy demand growth between now and 2020 by at least half by capturing opportunities to increase energy productivity - the level of output we achieve from the energy we consume. So much of this involves just being smarter about how we design buildings, packages, vehicles, refrigerators, air conditioners, and lighting systems and constantly insisting on higher and higher standards of efficiency from each of them - so we get the same comfort, mobility, and illumination from fewer resources.
To be a part of this green revolution there are two actions individuals should do:
1. Pay attention and personally lead as environmentally sustainable life as you can: make sure your environmental awareness and behavior is always a work in progress.
2. Influence your leaders in participating in international and national commitments, by institutionalizing them in laws, regulations and treaties. These rules and regulations establish price signals, influence markets, create incentives and regulated the performance of machines, vehicles and devices.
Although his book is focused on the leading role that U.S.A should have in the E.C.E, Friedman also dedicates his attention to China and to Petrodictatorships (mainly OPEC countries), trying to establish a relationship between the price of oil and freedom - in oil-rich petrolist states, the price of oil and the pace of freedom tend to move in opposite directions. I find this a bit farfetched, because I've always heard that we would need high oil prices and carbon taxes to change the current energy paradigm. But Friedman states that the lower the price of crude oil falls, the more petrolist leaders are sensitive to what outsiders think of them and when money can be extracted from the ground, people simply don't develop the DNA of innovation and entrepreneurship. For Friedman, the U.S.A is a key player in sponsoring petrodictatorships.
More information about the book:
Wikipedia,
New York Times Review,
Weakonomics Review
