The most emailed story at The New York Times today, Thomas Freidman's column, "The Inflection Is Near?" is as astoundingly shallow piece of writing masquerading as deep thought. You can see why people who think they are smart love Friedman and why people who really are smart love to chide him."What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession?" Freidman asks. "What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: 'No more.'"
Gee, what if? The sky would fall? Civilization would collapse? The American Heartland would be overrun by radioactive zombies? At the very least, people might stop reading columnists who pose hypothetical questions about the Armageddon.
The thrust of the piece is, basically, that humans must change their profligate ways, or else. Or else what? Friedman quotes Paul Gilding, an "Australian environmental business expert" who says we have entered "The Great Disruption." That, Friedman says, is when "both Mother Nature and Father Greed have hit the wall at once."
What does that mean? No one says, exactly. But it sure sounds bad, doesn't it? Generally tghe idea is that we are running out of food, water, air and land. Other than that, however, things are going great.
This an almost perfect Friedman column, really. He offers scary statistics on stuff like deforestation and over-fished fisheries, makes sweeping pronouncements about the need for vast and immediate change, yet offers nothing in the way of specifics.
Wait. We take that back. He does say that "economies need to transition to the concept of net-zero." Meaning, basically, buildings should be designed to generate as much energy as they use. A fine idea, but not exactly a remaking of Western Civilization.
The underlying idea here is what's disturbing. Of course, humanity needs to change. We always have and will. But Friedman isn't content to argue that we must change for the sake of "future generations," itself a dubious idea, being based on something that's impossible to predict. Rather, he says, we must change because our abundance somehow angers the planet. Cryptically warning that "Mother Nature doesn't do bailouts," Friedman twice describes Mother Nature as having "hit a wall." This, apparently, means Mother Nature is mad at human beings and has decided to punish us for our sins in some vague, but terrible way. Funny. You would think that Mother Nature might have better things to do than worry about humans and our troubles, and could care less if the planet is filled with people or cockroaches. Not so.
Hey, we are all for new ways of doing things. We want a cleaner planet, too. What's annoying here isn't the call for change, but the pseudo-religious justification used for it. Friedman is purporting to speak for the planet itself, and in doing so ascribes a moral significance to consumption that he deems wasteful. In this world, carbon emissions are not just a problem. They're practically a sin. That kind of thing always makes us shudder.
But don't worry. Friedman has all the tools of grace. "Let’s grow by creating flows rather than plundering more stocks."
Oh. Okay. No problem, dude. We'll get right on that.
