Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Hot, Flat, and Crowded

2008 hardcover version cover
Author	Thomas Friedman
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	Global warming, clean energy
Genre	Non-fiction
Publisher	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date	September 8, 2008
Media type	Print, e-book
Pages	448 pp.
ISBN	978-0312428921
Preceded by	The World Is Flat
Followed by	That Used To Be Us

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America is a book by New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist Thomas Friedman, proposing that the solutions to global warming and the best method to regain the United States' economic and political stature in the world is to embrace the clean energy and green technology industries. The title derives from the convergence of Hot (global warming), Flat (globalization, as discussed in Friedman's book The World Is Flat) and Crowded (population growth).

The book was released on September 8, 2008 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux.^[1] The audiobook was released simultaneously by Macmillan Audio. The cover art is taken from Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights.

Release 2.0 Updated and Expanded was published in November 2009.

Summary

In the book, Friedman addresses America’s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11 and the global environmental crisis. He advocates that global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the expansion of the global middle class is leading to a convergence of hot, flat, and crowded. The solution to the environmental threat and the best way for America to renew its purpose is linked: take the lead in a worldwide effort to replace wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation. This means that the big economic opportunities have shifted from IT (Information Technology) in recent decades to ET (renewable Environmental Technologies).^[2] Friedman frequently uses 2050 as a marker for when it will be too late for our world to reverse the harmful effects of climate change.

Friedman writes that the needed green revolution of the title would be more ambitious than any project so far undertaken: It will be the biggest innovation project in American history; and it will change everything from transportation to the utilities industry. This project is described in terms of nation-building.

The book alleges we've gone from the "Cold War Era" to the "Energy-Climate Era", marked by five major problems: growing demand for scarcer supplies, massive transfer of wealth to petrodictators, disruptive climate change, poor have-nots falling behind, and an accelerating loss of biodiversity. A green strategy is not simply about generating electric power, it is a new way of generating national power.^[2]

Many of the primary points of the book were built out of his New York Times Magazine essay "The Power of Green"^[3] and the "Foreign Policy" article "The First Law of Petropolitics."^[4]

Chapter 18 Project

Hot, Flat, and Crowded contains 17 chapters; Friedman has asked readers to submit ideas for the expanded edition's 18th chapter. He will use these ideas in a forthcoming expanded hardcover edition or the paperback edition. Users can submit their ideas and vote on others' ideas online.^[5]

Editions

• 1st edition, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, ISBN 978-0-374-16685-4
• Unabridged Audio book, Macmillan Audio, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4272-0458-5
• Abridged Audio book, Macmillan Audio, 2008, ISBN 978-1-4272-0460-8
• Release 2.0 Updated and Expanded November 2009.

See also

• Collapse
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Merchants of Doubt
• Requiem for a Species
• Storms of my Grandchildren
• Why We Disagree About Climate Change

References

External links

• Official website
• Excerpt
• Thomas L. Friedman's Author Page at FSG
• An Encyclopedia of terms and issues related to the book

Talks and Interviews

Radio

• NPR Interview on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross, Sept. 8, 2008

Video

• "Hot, Flat, and Crowded", animated video for FSG
• "Meet the Press", video interview with Tom Brokaw, Sept. 7, 2008
• "Good Morning America", video interview with Diane Sawyer, Sept. 8, 2008
• "Charlie Rose", video interview with Charlie Rose, Sept. 9, 2008
• "Late Show" with David Letterman video interview, Sept. 9, 2008
• Fareed Zakaria GPS Part 1 on CNN, Sept. 14, 2008
• Fareed Zakaria GPS Part 2 on CNN, Sept. 14, 2008
• MSNBC's Morning Joe Sept. 15, 2008
• BBC World News America with Matt Frei, Sept. 23, 2008
• Good Morning America with Robin Roberts, Sept. 24, 2008
• ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos Roundtable Discussion, Oct. 20, 2008
• "Good Morning America" video interview with Robin Roberts, Nov. 6, 2008
• Video and Powerpoint Presentation with Panopto recorded with Politics & Prose bookstore, Washington D.C.

Interviews

• One-on-One with Fareed Zakaria, Sept. 7, 2008
• Interview and Podcast with Momentum Magazine, Sept.-Dec. Issue, 2008

Reviews

• "In Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Thomas Friedman Calls for a Green Energy Revolution", Garrett M. Graff, Wired Magazine, August 18, 2008
• "It's Time To Turn Down the Heat", Gregg Easterbrook, Slate (magazine), September 8, 2008
• "Green Fantasia", Bill McKibben, The New York Review of Books, November 6, 2008
• "Flat N All That", Matt Taibbi, New York Press, January 14, 2009