Thomas Friedman 11: Why Market Pricing is Key to Energy Technology Revolution?

http://www.eco-rescue.info http://www.eco-rescue.com The only way to a sustainable ecosystem for innovation: having a price signal for carbon. Pricing is what drives us down the innovation cost curve. These are excerpts from Thomas Friedman, the multi-Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist and author (Hot, Flat & Crowded), while speaking at Governor Schwarzeneggers Global Climate Summit 2 in Los Angeles, October 2, 2009. See book review & verbatim of excerpt below. Book Review From Barnes & Noble In his latest best-seller Hot, Flat & Crowded - Thomas Friedman, the influential New York Times Op-Ed columnist, presses his case that Green is the new Red, White, and Blue. Friedman argues that environmentalism isn't just a survival imperative; it's the best way to make America richer, more productive, and, not least, more secure. Spanning the globe, he presents case study after case study that shows that Green-oriented practices and technologies are the key to revitalizing our country and stabilizing an increasingly energy-starved world. Publishers Weekly Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman (The World Is Flat) covers familiar territory (the need for alternate energy, conservation measures, recycling, energy efficiency, etc.) as a build-up to his main thesis: the U.S. market is the "most effective and prolific system for transformational innovation.... There is only one thing bigger than Mother Nature and that is Father Profit." While he remains ostensibly a proponent of the free market, he does not flinch from using the government to create conditions favorable to investment, such as setting a "floor price for crude oil or gasoline," and imposing a new gasoline tax ($5-$10 per gallon) in order to make investment in green technologies attractive to venture capitalists: "America needs an energy technology bubble just like the information technology bubble." To make such draconian measures palatable, Friedman poses a national competition to "outgreen" China, modeled on Kennedy's proposal to beat the Soviets to the moon, a race that required a country-wide mobilization comparable to the WWII war effort. Recognizing the looming threat of "petrodicatorship" and U.S. dependence on imported oil, this warning salvo presents a stirring and far-darker vision than Friedman's earlier books. VERBATIM: Friends, if you take nothing else away from this talk, please take this because we have to look this straight in the eye, no BS. The only way you will have a sustainable ecosystem for innovation, the one thing it must have, is a fixed, long-term, durable price signal for carbon. If you do not have that, if you do not have that, if you do not have that, you will not get innovation at scale. What you will have is hobbies. I like hobbies. I used to build the model airplanes as a kid. I do not try to change the climate as a hobby. Okay? Why does price matter so much on this issue? And we cannot win this, we have to look it straight in the eye. It is the key to America launching this ecosystem of innovation. It matters and this is the critical difference between ET, energy technology, and I T. Always remember IT gave you a whole new set of functions. IT gave you the Internet. IT gave you e-mail. That is what the IT revolution did. The E.Trevolution, the energy technology revolution, at the end of the day, will just give you the same ability, the same light, the same heat and the same cooling. And therefore unless you have a price that makes people switch, they will not switch. I live in Montgomery County, Maryland. When gasoline was 4.5 dollars a gallon, you could not find any Toyota hybrid prius in Montgomery County Maryland. The waiting list was too long. When gas is two dollars a gallon, you cannot sell a Toyota hybrid prius in Montgomery county Maryland because nobody is interested. Price matters. Price is what drives us down the innovation cost curve.