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A Chilling View of Warming (Review of Thomas Friedman book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded")
Wall Street Journal ^ | September 13, 2008 | Bjorn Lomborg

Posted on 09/13/2008 10:37:45 AM PDT by reaganaut1

In his latest [book], "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," Thomas L. Friedman makes it clear that he wants to improve conditions for mankind. "I start from the bedrock principle," he writes, "that we as a global society need more and more growth." But because of climate change (hot), ever-more people (crowded) and higher material aspirations of all in a competitive global economy (flat), he believes that the world's growth is leading us toward catastrophe.

Mr. Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times, describes this threat in the grimmest of terms. We should expect disasters "of a biblical scale," humans are an "endangered species" and none of us "are going to make it." Climate change is presented as a "survival issue" that "will undermine the quality of life for every person on this planet and eventually imperil life on earth itself." Our planet is the Titanic that has already hit the iceberg, "but some people just don't want to leave the dance floor."

...

Toward the end of "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," Mr. Friedman wonders why we can't just implement the sort of policies he prefers. "What is our problem? If the right things to do are so obvious to the people who know the most about the energy business, why can't we put them in place?" Maybe the reason is that most people recognize a bad deal when they see one.

He cynically seems to suggest that it would help "if a few more Hurricane Katrinas hit a few more cities." Incredibly, he even flirts with the need for a dictatorship: "If only America could be China for a day," where we could cut through special interests, bureaucratic obstacles and worries of a voter backlash and simply "order top-down, the sweeping changes" needed.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bjornlomborg; bookreview; climatechange; energy; environment; globalwarming; liberalfascism; renewable; thomasfriedman
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Lomborg is too kind to Friedman. The last two paragraphs excerpted give Friedman away -- he and other leftists are frustrated would-be tyrants. I hope they will be foiled again in November. Even if McCain wins, there will be reason to worry, since in between elections McCain seems to be more influenced by the liberal media than the Republican base.

Thomas Friedman is an influential NYT opinion columnist and author of "The World is Flat".

1 posted on 09/13/2008 10:37:46 AM PDT by reaganaut1
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To: reaganaut1
” “If only America could be China for a day,” where we could cut through special interests, bureaucratic obstacles and worries of a voter backlash and simply “order top-down, the sweeping changes” needed.”

The LEFT clamors for Communism pushing their EXACT ideology.

2 posted on 09/13/2008 10:40:47 AM PDT by nmh (Intelligent people recognize Intelligent Design (God).)
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To: reaganaut1
Friedman: Our planet is the Titanic that has already hit the iceberg, "but some people just don't want to leave the dance floor."

You first.

3 posted on 09/13/2008 10:41:48 AM PDT by jtal
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To: reaganaut1

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html

They will keep trying. Soon it will be “The Sun is Disappearing” during the next eclipse.


4 posted on 09/13/2008 10:43:46 AM PDT by jessduntno (Time to move.)
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To: reaganaut1

5 posted on 09/13/2008 10:44:02 AM PDT by Doogle (USAF.68-73..8th TFW Ubon Thailand..never store a threat you should have eliminated))
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To: reaganaut1
"If only America could be China for a day," where we could cut through special interests, bureaucratic obstacles and worries of a voter backlash and simply "order top-down, the sweeping changes" needed.

Who decides who lives and who dies? The editorial board of the New York Times? The faculty of Harvard?

6 posted on 09/13/2008 10:46:24 AM PDT by Oratam
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To: reaganaut1
OK, I will put on my doofus "green" carrot suit and just make a few idle observations.

History, and the importance of humanity in world, began when I was born. Anything that happened before is meaningless; doesn't exist.

OK.
I have this delusion that all my thoughts are new, innovative, profound and critical. The future of the world depends on it (maybe I can make a few bucks selling a book to the neurotic as an added bonus).

So that's what I'll do.
Since I was born, let's limit it just to the latter half of the 20th century*:

How many doom, gloom, apocalyptic books have been written (and conveniently "forgotten?").

Shall we start a list?

* Pay attention, dammit! Forget Malthus!
That never happened.

7 posted on 09/13/2008 10:48:28 AM PDT by Publius6961 (Change is not a plan; Hope is not a strategy.)
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To: jtal

The “Population Bomb” of this decade...still waiting for the starvation around the entire world from that book...


8 posted on 09/13/2008 10:50:46 AM PDT by MNlurker
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To: reaganaut1; According2RecentPollsAirIsGood; TenthAmendmentChampion; calcowgirl; Horusra; ...
 




Beam me to Planet Gore !

9 posted on 09/13/2008 10:50:57 AM PDT by steelyourfaith
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To: reaganaut1
AJNTSA:

“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…”

–Paul Ehrlick, The Population Bomb (1968)

10 posted on 09/13/2008 10:53:25 AM PDT by FredZarguna (Don't tase me, Pa!)
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To: reaganaut1
Speaking generally, the global warmers always focus on the environmental legacy to the future. What they overlook is the cultural, economic, and social legacy we owe to the future. Mankind has spent the past 1000 years (if we start from Magna Carta) throwing off the yoke of tyranny and increasing prosperity for the better. Trashing democracy and the global economy for a theoretical fear is irrational from any point of view.

As it stands today, the proposed cure is worse that the disease. The lack of movement on this issue is an indication that the scientists have not sold their case to the public, only to the elites. Will the elites try take it upon themselves to prevent energy use by the people? Last time I checked man does not have a coat of fur, and needs to cook most food for proper digestion. Al Gore's proposal to cut combustion by 90% in the near future is nothing less than openly recommending the greatest crime against humanity ever contemplated. An authoritarian Gore-type regime would make Hitler and Stalin look like small-time amateurs in terms of producing human calamity.

11 posted on 09/13/2008 10:55:57 AM PDT by Monti Cello
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To: steelyourfaith

Flock of Siegel
Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity answers Grist’s questions

What’s your job title?

I work for the Center for Biological Diversity as director of the Climate, Air, and Energy Program.

What does your organization do?

The Center for Biological Diversity works to protect imperiled plants and animals, the wild places they depend on, and, by extension, our own well-being. We are probably best known for our legal work related to the Endangered Species Act, but we do all sorts of different projects to promote biodiversity conservation.

One example: we offer free endangered species ring tones for your cell phone.


12 posted on 09/13/2008 10:56:49 AM PDT by jessduntno (.)
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To: jessduntno

“One example: we offer free endangered species ring tones for your cell phone.”

You can’t make this stuff up, folks.


13 posted on 09/13/2008 11:01:31 AM PDT by jessduntno (.)
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To: reaganaut1
Let's be clear. Global warming is real and man-made. I take as my starting point the findings of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Let me be clear: Lomborg's a nut, too, just like that shrill and weepy Freidman. Anyone who relies on the UN's IPCC cr*pola ought to be gently helped back to the institution and sedated.

14 posted on 09/13/2008 11:06:17 AM PDT by hsalaw
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To: reaganaut1

Opinion has turned. My five kids no longer believe the Global Warming Lie and, in fact, ridicule the media. Several of my grandkids are even harsher regarding the Big Lie Media.


15 posted on 09/13/2008 11:12:31 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: Oratam
Who decides who lives and who dies? The editorial board of the New York Times? The faculty of Harvard?

In their deep pondering, sooner or later they will ask themselves, "Who has the guns?".

Free Clue:

It's not them.

16 posted on 09/13/2008 11:18:03 AM PDT by Gorzaloon
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To: reaganaut1

“The urge to save humanity is often a false front for the urge to rule”
H.L. Mencken
(Did Mencken know ALGORE?)


17 posted on 09/13/2008 11:24:39 AM PDT by Dick Bachert
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To: reaganaut1
Thomas L. Friedman: "If only America could be China for a day," where we could cut through special interests, bureaucratic obstacles and worries of a voter backlash and simply "order top-down, the sweeping changes" needed.

Entirely predictable, a progressive liberal pining for a totalitarian government with only them in charge.

18 posted on 09/13/2008 11:35:41 AM PDT by RJL
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To: reaganaut1
He cynically seems to suggest that it would help "if a few more Hurricane Katrinas hit a few more cities."

Another moron useful to the simpletons who want to destroy what nations have worked for hundreds of years to achieve.

THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING EXCEPTING IN THE DISTURBED MINDS OF BOZOS SUCH AS AL GOREBAL.

19 posted on 09/13/2008 11:55:17 AM PDT by IbJensen (Ali Bama isn't going to make it!)
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To: reaganaut1
"If only America could be China for a day," where we could cut through special interests, bureaucratic obstacles and worries of a voter backlash and simply "order top-down, the sweeping changes" needed.

It is closer than we think. It was Bill Clinton's aide who coined the phrase "Stroke of the pen, law of the land...pretty cool!"

(And Senator Obama has promised both "change" and to make government "cool again".)

20 posted on 09/13/2008 12:01:57 PM PDT by BenLurkin (What did Obama's Koran instructors teach him about women?)
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