Hey guys,
I thought I'd post the blog question here so that we could all reply to it. I think that might be easier:
Thomas Friedman has an article in today's New York Times that I'd like you to read. In it, he argues that the US is in danger of being left in the dust by China when it comes to the production of clean energy technologies and "green jobs."
What do you make of the article? Does talking about action on climate change as a race between the US and other countries make sense to you? Do you buy the implicit argument that climate change is best addressed through technological innovation and a refocusing of the economy's priorities on "green" manufacturing?
Looking forward to reading your responses. 388.001, your posts are due by 5pm on Sunday 26th; 388.002, your posts, please, by 5pm on Wednesday 22nd.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhile I like the information Thomas Friedman presents in this article, I found his conclusions overly simplistic and unhelpful given the negative tone. This seasoned journalist/author may be one of the most well-respected essayists out there. It is no coincidence that his works have popped up on the reading lists for my development, economics, world politics, and environmental classes. To oversimplify his (or any other op-ed columnist's) essays, there are facts and there are conclusions. Both are essential and self-evident parts of the article at hand. In looking up exactly what an "Op-ed" columnist is, I discovered that Herbert Bayard Swope, creator of the op-ed in 1921, said on the subject "and thereon I decided to print opinions, ignoring facts" (Swope xxxvii). I don't think this is really the case with Friedman, whose articles are very much based in fact. However, when one goes from a normal, fact presenting news report to an op-ed column, I feel that some of the facts are traded off for opinion. I know that I personally choose to emphasize certain facts when I am trying to convince someone else of my opinion.
ReplyDeleteSo what did Friedman trade off in his September 18th NYTimes article? Maybe the IPAT equation can help. While Friedman is talking about politics between the US and China, the way he measures political success in this case is through technological production and innovation. The IPAT equation (along with environmentalists who prefer other models) tells us that there's more to environmental action than improving technology. Friedman doesn't once mention GDP or population in his article. While he does not claim to be solving the environmental problems between the U.S. and China in this article, he is writing the piece from an environmental stance. Though China has superior technology, the improvement in that sector might just be keeping up with its growing population. At the same time, as China continues to rapidly develop, its population consumes more and more with the growth in GDP. In using the IPAT equation as a model, Friedman is only addressing one third of what China is doing regarding the environment.
Personally I did not like the theme of competition presented in "Aren't We Clever?" Since the earth is shared by everyone on this planet, shouldn't environmentalism be about cooperation instead of competition? It took away from the facts he presented, which, after being removed from the opinion conext, were very interesting. The fact that a good number of China's leaders are scientists and engineers says something really impressive and progressive about China's current system (though I do wish I were a political sciences major just for a minute so I could evaluate how that also may hurt China). But that fact is presented in a negative way—the U.S. is not as good as China here. Instead I would have preferred to hear how the U.S. can learn from China's example. I will admit I succumbed to Friedman's negative tone when he said "China's leaders would never go a year (like we will) without energy legislation mandating new ways to do more with less." That's downright frustrating, not because China is beating us but because I know there is little we can do to change our slow process. Sigh.
But I did enjoy reading the article, especially the little facts and names he gave to the concepts, such as "Joke" vs "Jobs" and "radical innovation" vs "tweak-ovation." These are fun ways to think of the differences among U.S. and Chinese environmental technology situations. With China's rapid development, there is a mentality of competition within the U.S. (and in China). This is hard to shake when our current culture is based so fundamentally on the economy. As an author who cares about the environment, I think Friedman wrote this piece on competition with China to appeal to a crowd who might not otherwise be interested in helping the environment.
While I appreciate how Friedman stressed taking action on the environmental front in his article, there are some major points of contention I would like to address. First, he is playing off of this absurd notion of a superpower race by suggesting that we should join the green industry wave in order to compete with China. By pointing out that companies like MBA Polymers are employing the majority of its people overseas, Friedman is conjuring up serious competitive sentiments. Because unemployment is so prevalent within our country currently, we hear facts like this and get frustrated knowing those jobs could be on American soil. Eventually, facts like this will (Friedman hopes) create incentives that will throw us into a race with countries like China for economic dominance. Friedman’s take on this suggests we should carve out a piece of the green industry for ourselves because it is where all of the money will be in the future, which is a cold approach to the environment. We should want to help protect our environment for its sake alone, rather than be driven to take action because we can capitalize on it. While Friedman is merely attempting to appeal to all with this approach of weaving together the economy and the environment, he is exacerbating an already dangerous problem existing today. People are driven by these temptations of growth and financial gain, which is why he suggests the US take a serious interest in the green industry. Yet this suggests that the industry is based on human economic interest only. Thus, if something new emerges which will yield more economic gain, the green industry may fall victim to these economic impulse of ours. Given this, Friedman’s focus on taking part in the green industry is detrimental because of its purely economic approach. This, of course, isn’t to say that developing a stronger industry focused on clean energy technologies and such is a bad thing. Rather, I think it is important to look at our inclusion into this industry as something imperative for helping our environment, rather than our wallets.
ReplyDeleteSecond, through this article he suggests that green technology will save us all, and its just a matter of outdoing China. Yet this is an overly optimistic approach to the environmental issues we now face. For one, he does not take into consideration population, which Laura always touches on. While green technology may be producing positive results now, it may not be as beneficial in the long run. This is particularly true if we continue to consume and reproduce at our current levels, which would render this technology pointless. Ultimately, by emphasizing technology so much, Friedman (and other cornucopians and market liberals) is leaving out the fact that technology alone will not bring our planet back to its original state. This is impossible, though we can take measures to slow the degradation. These measures will include taking action on all fronts, not merely the technological front. Believing (green) technology will be our savior is to remain married to the same problem that got us to where we currently reside: growth. So instead of focusing on the same way of living which produced our damaged state, perhaps it is better to get creative, as McKibben suggests, and reassess how we should transform and change.