A Critique of “205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth” by Thomas Friedman
A Critique of “205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth” by Thomas Friedman
Foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, is a man who wants to try to change the world by trying to convince people to go green. But, he is convinced that going green is not as easy as everyone makes it sound. His article “205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth,” first published in 2007, presents several arguments attempting to convince people that while going green is difficult, it is possible.
The author first discusses how we, as Americans, are not as green as we seem to be at first glance. He notes that we seem to only follow the “easy way to go green” and do not do nearly as much as we could for our planet. Furthermore he states that there are no “easy” ways to go green and that this word should never even be associated with the topic. Friedman points out that executives of large fuel companies are the only people who talk truthfully about the situation and that they take a guilty pleasure in knowing there is nothing we can really do about it. From what the CEO of electric company Chevron, David O’Reilly says, it could take decades for any change to occur, and at that time there will be even more people than what we are trying to meet the energy demands for now. Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala, two professors at Princeton, are attempting to design scalable solutions to fix these problems. These two developed a pie chart, in which if eight of fifteen parts were completed, we would be on the right track for reducing our carbon emissions. Unfortunately, completing just one piece of the pie may be impossible with the way things seem to be going. Another individual, Nate Lewis a chemist at California Institute of Technology, claims that if we started trying to fix this problem right now, we would have to make as much clean energy as the energy we are currently consuming. With all of this being said even taking the first step towards a green revolution seems nearly impossible.
Foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times, Thomas Friedman, is a man who wants to try to change the world by trying to convince people to go green. But, he is convinced that going green is not as easy as everyone makes it sound. His article “205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth,” first published in 2007, presents several arguments attempting to convince people that while going green is difficult, it is possible.
The author first discusses how we, as Americans, are not as green as we seem to be at first glance. He notes that we seem to only follow the “easy way to go green” and do not do nearly as much as we could for our planet. Furthermore he states that there are no “easy” ways to go green and that this word should never even be associated with the topic. Friedman points out that executives of large fuel companies are the only people who talk truthfully about the situation and that they take a guilty pleasure in knowing there is nothing we can really do about it. From what the CEO of electric company Chevron, David O’Reilly says, it could take decades for any change to occur, and at that time there will be even more people than what we are trying to meet the energy demands for now. Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala, two professors at Princeton, are attempting to design scalable solutions to fix these problems. These two developed a pie chart, in which if eight of fifteen parts were completed, we would be on the right track for reducing our carbon emissions. Unfortunately, completing just one piece of the pie may be impossible with the way things seem to be going. Another individual, Nate Lewis a chemist at California Institute of Technology, claims that if we started trying to fix this problem right now, we would have to make as much clean energy as the energy we are currently consuming. With all of this being said even taking the first step towards a green revolution seems nearly impossible.
Cited: Friedman, Thomas L. “205 Easy Ways to Save the Earth.” Writing and Reading Across the Curriculum. Ed. Laurence Behrens and Leonard J. Rosen. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 289-99. Print.