I’ll say. Being in China right now I am more convinced than ever that when historians look back at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, they will say that the most important thing to happen was not the Great Recession, but China’s Green Leap Forward. The Beijing leadership clearly understands that the E.T. — Energy Technology — revolution is both a necessity and an opportunity, and they do not intend to miss it.
We, by contrast, intend to fix Afghanistan. Have a nice day.
Afghanistan is not nearly the problem. Obama should find a way to wrap up the war in 18 months. The problem in this country is that roughly 40% of the population is fighting any kind of innovation....just because. Do you not read what the Taliban R are saying on thread? "There is no global warming." "We will never be able to stop our dependency on oil." "Green energy is a liberal joke." They laugh at Gore every chance they get. Unfortunately for the rest of us, they were oxygen deprived at birth.
China doesn't have that problem. When stupid people make such statements, they are thrown in jail......or send to the farms.
O.K., that was a cheap shot. But here’s one that isn’t: Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel, liked to say that companies come to “strategic inflection points,” where the fundamentals of a business change and they either make the hard decision to invest in a down cycle and take a more promising trajectory or do nothing and wither. The same is true for countries.
The U.S. is at just such a strategic inflection point. We are either going to put in place a price on carbon and the right regulatory incentives to ensure that America is China’s main competitor/partner in the E.T. revolution, or we are going to gradually cede this industry to Beijing and the good jobs and energy security that would go with it.
We aren't going anywhere until the politics in this country improve. People look at me like I am high when I say we are on the road to splitting up....but that's exactly the road we are on. Given the current level of political discourse, I give us 25 years before we split up.
Is President Obama going to finish health care and then put aside the pending energy legislation — and carbon pricing — that Congress has already passed in order to get through the midterms without Republicans screaming “new taxes?” Or is he going to seize this moment before the midterms — possibly his last window to put together a majority in the Senate, including some Republicans, for a price on carbon — and put in place a real U.S. engine for clean energy innovation and energy security?
Its not going to happen. The president is one person. Friedman wants him to do the impossible. The tea baggers, the brownshirts of the GOP, are getting ready to picket the Detroit auto show.....they don't want innovation, they want us back in caves.
I’ve been stunned to learn about the sheer volume of wind, solar, mass transit, nuclear and more efficient coal-burning projects that have sprouted in China in just the last year.
Oh fukk, Friedman.....get over yourself. China is a dictatorship......they operate on whole different level than a democracy. He knows that...he's just fukking with us.
Sorry to be so negative.....but this country needs to get its act together and not in the way of China. |
