Hot Flat and Crowded
http://www.todaysten.com/2008/12/book-summary-of-hot-flat-and-crowded.htmlChapter 1: Where Birds don't Fly
TF point is the US reaction to 9-11 has created isolation which is hurting us. The
freeflow of business, tourism, ideas is reduced in terms of our interactions while overseas and foreigners in the us. Esp. in the Arab world which is distancing from our friends.
The problem is the world is getting Hot, Flat and Crowded.
Hot= Global Warming
Flat=The Growing Middle Class
Crowded= Rapid population growth
The books theme
In particular, the convergence of hot, flat, and crowded is tightening energy supplies, intensifying the extinction of plants and animals, deepening energy poverty, strengthening
petrodictatorship, and accelerating climate change
Three trends
9-11 fence building
Dumb as we wanna be policies- red vs blue fighting,
subprime lending
Nation building at home - grass route energy
Washington Environmentalism was a bipartisan issue.
Reagan reduced budget of National Solar Energy Lab now
NREL .
Todays average car mileage is equal to ten years ago per the
Pew Foundation.
In 2020, the
CAFE is moving us to 35 mpg which is where Japan is today.
Amory
Lovins of
Rocky Mountain Institute says when Regan rolled back CAFE
it was like
undiscovering the
Artic Reserve.
If the auto industry did not lobby for low taxes on gas there would not be a demand for
SUV's.
What is good for GM is not necessarily good for the US. Denmark decided to do taxes and Premium gas is 9 bucks a gallon. Since 81 the economy has grown to 1981 has grown 70 percent and energy usage has remained the same.
Solar and wind is 16% of the energy of Denmark.
1/3 of the wind turbines come from Denmark.
Danisco and
Novozymes both come from Denmark. In 77 , Denmark gets 99 percent of their energy from the middle east but now gets none.
Today's China is building infrastructure more modern than the US asked quoted by
Zakaria .
The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to be
Valery
Imagine how many people would enlist at Nation Building at home.
We need to continually rebuild ourselves by
David Rothkopf .
Green is not simply a new form of generating electrical power. it is a new form of generating national power--period.
The America we would like to see..(gives a bunch of examples)
Chapter 2: Today's Date E.C.E 1 Today's weather Hot, Flat and Crowded
Flat as defined by his World is Flat:Technical Revolution is leveling the global economic playing field and enabling more people to compete, connect and
colaborate having a huge impact on economics,politics ,
milatary, and social affairs.
2 other factors global warming and soaring population growth
five key problems: (that the book describes)
1)the growing demand for ever scarcer energy supplies and natural resources
2) a massive transfer of wealth to oil-rich countries and their
petrodictators3) disruptive climate change
4) energy poverty, which is sharply dividing the world into electricity haves and electricity have-
nots5) rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss, as plants and animals go extinct at record rates
If we are going to solve these problems we need
New tools
New infrastructure
new ways of thinking
new ways of
collaborating with others
This is stuff which great new industries, scientific breakthroughs and propelling some nations ahead.
2.6 billion in the world in 53 and in 2053 world pop estimated 9.2 billion (5.4 billion now). 2.3 million people annually move from
unundeveloped to developed countries.
In 1800, London was the largest city with a million
in 1960 ,111 cities with one million
1995 380 cities
now over 300
Megacities 10 million
5 in 75
14 in 95
26 in 2015
This has also made the world flatter
Technology--
desktop publishing, broadcasting
-the
internet-
software and transmission - the
workflow revolution
Geopolitical- Collapse of Communism and the Berlin
wallcreates a global marketplace
The end of Communism lifted 200million people out of abject poverty in the 80's and 90's in China and India alone. according to the IMF
in the next 12 years, we expect another billion people. if we gave them each a 60 watt
lightbulb we would need 20 50
mgwat coal plants. (pointed out by Dave
douglas of Sun)
http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/01/dave_douglas_vi.phpAn energy chemist California Institute of Technology, Nate Lewis, analogy “
Imagine you are driving in your car and every mile you drive you throw a pound of trash out your window. And everyone else on the freeway in their cars and trucks is doing the exact same thing, and people driving Hummers are throwing two bags out at a time – one out the driver-side window and one out the passenger-side window.
We are throwing out is a pound of CO2 – that’s what goes into the atmosphere, on average, every mile we drive.”
Deforestation in places like Brazil and Indonesia are responsible for the 20 % of the c02 more that all the transportation combined.
Methane- released from rice farming, oil drilling, coal mining, animal defecation, cow belching. 21 times stronger than c02 in
ghg. average cow 600 liters a day. 1.3 billion cows is the world pop.
Fuels from Heaven vs Fuels from Hell
Andy
Karsner- DOE- We built the greatest
ineffecient environment with the greatest
efficentcy known to mankind.
energy chemist California Institute of Technology, Nate Lewis analogy “Imagine you are driving in your car and every mile you drive you throw a pound of trash out your window. And everyone else on the freeway in their cars and trucks is doing the exact same thing, and people driving Hummers are throwing two bags out at a time – one out the driver-side window and one out the passenger-side window. we are throwing out is a pound of CO2 – that’s what goes into the atmosphere, on average, every mile we drive.”
deforesting of places like Indonesia and Brazil creates more co2 than all the transportation -20% of all global emissions.
Methane CH4 is a bad
ghg from rice farming, oil drilling, coal mining, animal defecation, waste sites and cattle belching.
There are 1.3 billion cows in the world. Methane from livestock is a major ghg source.Pew Center studies
GHG.
Electric Power Research Institute studies.
Peter Verleger Energy Economist notes global energy consumption grew 5% from 51 to 70. China and India growing like post WWII. Royal Dutch Shell thinks that all energy consumption will double by 2050.
Energy Policy Research Foundation says the shock absorbers of excess capacity are gone. Oil grew by 3 million barrels a day (1 million in China alone) in 2004. Some problems in meeting this are broad shortage of equipment and Countries tried to remove foreign companies now
2.4 billion people living on 2 dollars a day.
Natural Resources and infrastructure is backed up. aluminum smelters. 3 year waiting list.
goal is to grow GDP with less energy.
Food pressures . 1) more food to fuel and 2) higher fertilizer reduces acreage grown
India, China and Middle East subsidizes their own oil purchases raised rates. 2007, Indonesia spent 30% of their budget on energy subsidies and 6 % on education
oil $ transfers are funding
petrodictatorsC02 stays in the atmosphere several thousand years. if there is no action by 2012 it is too late.
Sigma XiEnergy poverty = Business poverty =educational poverty
Biodiversity Loss = 1 acre a second. 90 % of large predator fish are gone.20 % of corals are gone with another 20 threatened. half of wetlands and a third of mangroves are gone.
bajaii is extinct or close to
extinction in China Agenda for a
sustainable america for human beings to reach their potential they need to
1) maintain quality of life
2) forestall another depression
3) prevent a world war
(economic development, human rights, and peace and security)
Bill Collins says "we are experimenting on the only home we have'
Part 2: How we got here
Chapter 3 Our Carbon Copies ; or too many Americans energy supply and demand.
AffleunzaDohar Quatar and
Dalain (Chinese silicon valley) are places that are growing at a wild pace
noticable in only two years. They will quickly eat any energy savings made by others.....
Dalian is one of 49
chinese cities with over a million people.
Today 1 billion are living an American life style by 2050 3 billion.
Europe and Japan show it is possible to live a middle class lifestyle with much less consumption.
it took all of human history in 1950 to reach a 12 trillion dollar economy (now we grow by that every decade)
James Gustave Speth at current rates of growth the worlds economy will double in 14 years.
Tom Burke of
E3G speaks of
americums = units of people making 15k plus a year and consumerist.
ld.
Tom Burke is a great energy innovator from Britain. He invented a unit of measure. He calls it the "
Americum." And an
Americum is any 300 million people in the world living like Americans. Well, when I was born in the 50s, there was only two and a half
Americums in the world. There was America, Europe and Japan. Today there are nine. There's one in America, there's one in western Europe, there's one in eastern Europe and Russia, one in India, giving birth to another, one in China giving birth to another, one in Japan, east Asia, one in South America. We've gone, Bruce, from a world of two and a half
Americums, 300 million people living like Americans, to a world of nine.-
TFJeff
Wacker EDS Futurist -
Articles France with a 35 hour workweek can not compete with India
China 35 hour workday.
Elizabeth C Economy writes on China in the
Foreign Affairs about rapid
chinese growth.
China's middle class growing scores of airports 40 in the next several years.
ghg of planes can grow five fold.
Moscow grew from no cars to
massive traffic jams Salil Tripathi speaks on
India's Growth in 2005 India grew the size of
Portugals economy. Delhi has 16 million people with .5 million new
immigrants every year. Energy is heavily subsidized.
0
ver 200 million raised out of poverty in India and China in the last 30 years.
China Shakes the World book tells of
disappearing manholes around the world
Jared Diamond
Consumption Factor . Each American consumes 32 X what a Kenyan does.
Larry Brillant at Google.org
Can the World afford a middle class foreign affair article while there will be 1 billion new people in the next 12 years the middle class may add 1.8 billion new people
Food, Water and Floor Space all under stress per
Mckinsey global institute a think tankIraq doesn't think of conversation or
pollution. All economic spurts were cause by unexploited common resources.
Carl Pope Sierra Club .
We can substitute knowledge for raw materials and the need to accelerate knowledge.
Thinking Cradle to Cradle -
Interacademy council on energyChina and India citizens uses 9-30 times less energy than an American.
Four - fill her up with Dictators -
petropoliticsFirst Law of Petropolitics We are funding both sides of the Iraq war.
As oil goes up democracies decreases in oil rich countries.
Looming Tower is a book on Al-
Quada1.5 Billion Muslims in the world. 2/3 of the population in the Muslim world is under 25, 1in 4 in unemployed,
Egyptians are beholden to
fundamentalism from
Saudi Arabia.Our allies Saudia a and Libya were sources of 60% of foreign fighters in Iraq,
institute for the analysis of global security Jim Woolsey former CIA head oil independence = us security Bahrain the first oil state to start running out of oil has become more independent. Lebanon the only democracy has no oil.
Dutch Disease or the Resource Curse Does Oil hinder Democracy There is the taxation effect -no taxation=no representation'
Spending effect -more oil = more patronage spending
More oil = greater repression
limits occupational specialization, higher education, urbanization
reduce power base of non oil institutions
Also keeps Woman rights down
Oil kept Mubarak in power
There is not a single world class university or scientific research institute in the entire Arab world.
Reduced entreprenuership.
Larry Diamond's Democratic RecessionOil and the new Economic order With 200 dollar barrel of Oil, Bank of America could be bought by OPEC by 1 months oil revenue, GM in 2 days , Apple in a week.
Need for reform in the Arab-Muslim world is great.
It was 70 dollar oil followed by 10 dollar oil that killed the Soviet Union.
Collapse of an Empire: lessons for modern Russia" You cannot be either an effective foreign-policy realist or an effective democracy-promoting idealist without also being an effective energy environmentalist" TF
