November 19th, 2009 | 9:39 am

Quote of the Day

Thomas Friedman

Thomas Friedman

“I think climate change is real. You don’t? That’s your business. But there are two other huge trends barreling down on us with energy implications that you simply can’t deny. And the way to renew America is for us to take the lead and invent the technologies to address these problems.

The first is that the world is getting crowded. According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion … passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.”

The energy, climate, water and pollution implications of adding another 2.5 billion mouths to feed, clothe, house and transport will be staggering….

Now, add one more thing. The world keeps getting flatter — more and more people can now see how we live, aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live. So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050, but many more will live like “Americans” — with American-size homes, American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs….

So either the opponents of a serious energy/climate bill with a price on carbon don’t care about our being addicted to oil and dependent on petro-dictators forever or they really believe that we will not be adding 2.5 billion more people who want to live like us, so the price of oil won’t go up very far…

Green hawks believe otherwise. We believe that in a world getting warmer and more crowded with more “Americans,” the next great global industry is going to be E.T., or energy technology based on clean power and energy efficiency. It has to be.”

  • http://simonfiliatrault.blogspot.com/ Simon Filiatrault

    Some comments:
    – Quote
    “I think climate change is real. You don’t? That’s your business.
    – End Quote

    People who do not believe in the reality of climate changes need to get their facts straighten out. We have had ice ages and now luckily for us we live in a descent warm period.

    I think that the debate is more on the anthropogenic CO2 vs. temperature, since in the past 10 years the globe did not see any warming and CO2 as been going up, and since the anthropogenic signature of CO2 vs. the green house effect is only 0,117%. So no wonder many are questioning the blind faith of CO2 from humans are going to destroy our planet earth.
    Using the climate change excuse to push the use of nuclear is in my opinion, very dangerous. There are more down to earth, common sense reasons to do so.

    One is the fact that using lower density energies do not make sense for the physical economy. I am not talking about Wall Street economy here. Second, we will not have fossil fuels forever. Third, if you want to give 10 billion people, the energy that the average North Americans are using, then using anything else than nuclear is suicidal.

    – Quote:
    So either the opponents of a serious energy/climate bill with a price on carbon don’t care about our being addicted to oil and dependent on petro-dictators forever or they really believe that we will not be adding 2.5 billion more people who want to live like us, so the price of oil won’t go up very far…
    – End quote.

    This quote is so wrong. Do we really need a crazy complex energy/climate bill to make us (humans on the planet) realize some common sense concept of energy density and physical economy.
    As an adult with kids, I don’t need to be told be some group (running those bills, ie: Dad) that I should stop polluting and start using cleaner, more reliable/denser sources of energy. I can think for myself and educate my kids to think for themselves and participate in a new generation that would not need to be told… “Don’t do that, it is not good for you.”

    I think the problem is education. We are so dumb down as a population that we cannot even use a 5$ pocket calculator to figure out ourselves that anything else than nuclear will not work.

    So good luck to all of us… And please, teach common sense, backed by good science to all.

    Simon