Thomas Friedmen to Donald Trump: Don't F*ck Up The Climate Any More That It Is F*cked Up

Friedman's Plea. There is a lot to like in Friedman's piece, but accuracy counts.

Let us add up Friedman's good points:

Friedman nails the facts on human climate refugees. Already people are emigrating toward the poles.

He also gets the average price per KwH correct, but the costs are lowering every day of every week. Technology and economies of scale are the big drivers here.

Friedman also gets other bits and bobs correct, and of course his big pitch could be cast in truer terms, but that would frighten people, and people in the US are already plenty frightened. The 750 word Op-Ed cannot give one a nuts and bolts understanding of any issue. Friedman gets extra points for adding this bit into the piece:

And as the climate physicist Joe Romm put it to me, do you really want to risk “going down in history as the man who killed the world’s last, best chance to avoid catastrophic warming”?

Well played!

The inaccuracies are some of omission, and some of commission.

1) Miami FL's current flooding issues. Miami has spent $400 million to raise areas of the city and to install electric pumps to put seawater back into the sea. This is an ongoing project, yet Friedman makes no mention of this effort.(src: Miami Mayor Tomás Pedro Regalado)Backup Src. Error of omission, or lack of all salient data.

2) India's investment in clean energy. India has invested a lot in clean energy, but has 300 million citizens without electric power, while sitting on massive coal reserves. India is going to use lots of that coal before India makes big moves toward renewables. Error of commission. Source.

Friedman is a neoliberal, hence most all of his stuff is couched in neoliberal terms. Even something so far above any theory of economic policy as the planetary future has to meet certain standards of economic viability.

Friedman is boring. On to better things in a bit.