Tom Friedman Takes Your Questions (Webisode 103)

Comment by Fuzz Hogan on January 28, 2010 at 10:26am

That was cool to see Friedman answer my question. He seems to have gone a little further in his next column, offering great examples of science education. As he put it in the PF interview, we teach auto mechanics in career-tech ed, so we can teach green tech just as well. Here's the column: http://bit.ly/6uiMOd

Comment by jstack6 on January 29, 2010 at 1:40pm

policy is key but people have to just do the right thing. Don't wait for government or incentives. It always pays to do the right thing.
I put in GRID tied solar before incentives and net-metering. It still paid off in 7 years. I then worked to get incentives, net-metering and am working on feed in tarriff.
I have a plugin prius w 10 Kw lithium battery pack and can go 30-40 miles all electric with the push of a button. As gas goes high again it will pay off very fast. I bicycle most days becuase it's good for me and the planet.

Comment by Bill Zaffer on January 29, 2010 at 7:08pm

I think I am going to talk to our high school in Elyria, Ohio to get kids to learn these ideas in new green shops.

Comment by Cliff Travis on January 29, 2010 at 7:45pm

Frank - Great job on getting a seasoned author in there. I was dissapointed, however, that the interview didn't run for at least 10-minutes. What was the rush? He could easily have answered half to all of the 16 questions posted without much more than about 20-minutes. Not to give you hard time, but once you've got someone like this as a captive audience, make the most of it. :-)

Comment by Robert Steinhaus on January 29, 2010 at 11:07pm

Tilting the energy playing field by placing carbon taxes on all energy has consequences that Tom Friedman may not have completely thought through. Pricing up the cost of energy will have inflationary impacts on almost every product made or delivered to market with energy including food. By choosing to price up all energy to make a few highly subsidized but as yet underperforming wind and solar segments choosable will tend reduce the level of economic activity (everything will cost more - there is less money available to spread around and make other non-energy purchases – less confident consumers curtail spending and concentrate on essentials while paying down debt). If you tilt the playing field with carbon taxes making all energy more expensive the economic pie will shrink and less money will be available to pursue many worthwhile goals like wider access to quality education or wider access to all to quality medical care.

Tilting the energy playing field with large new carbon taxes is not a path to American prosperity. Prosperity comes from driving down the cost of energy to a cost below your industrial competition while expanding the number of people that have access to cheap and abundant energy and then using less costly energy to build world class products for export that people around the world want to buy.

Comment by Bill Zaffer on January 30, 2010 at 1:09am

You forget the cost of going to war which increase our deficit and money for education and with every product being made in China and elsewhere the same economic viewpoints do not hold water. All we do is borrow more and more from China which is not reaching a tipping point. Maybe he may not totally wrong but I say compromise, have some offshore drilling and make them pay taxes since for far to long they have been subsidized. This time give tax incentives which can have social change and more for clean energy. I would also have the courage to talk about over population that is growing exponentially. We had 29 million more people added to our country by births and not net gain in employment from 2000 to 2008. We cannot keep up with this increase and at the same time have urban sprawl which uses up taxes for infrastructure for schools, fire departments etc. Urban sprawl and also is very energy wasteful and intensive with our lifestyles now. Will either party have talk honest debate. No, as usual since only care about their party power in Congress. I make a difference by living green and save money but am aware most people are just foolish consumers and slaves chasing less of the pie with the rich getting richer with 20% owning a larger amount of the wealth. We have become a winner take all society and their money influence has the day.

Comment by Susanna, PF Web Maven on January 30, 2010 at 9:34am

Cliff--Dont worry. More of this interview will be posted next week.

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