Hot Flat And Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution and How It Can Renew America

Thomas L. Friedman''s phenomenal number-one bestseller "The World Is Flat "has helped millions of readers to see the world in a new way. In his brilliant, essential new book, Friedman takes a fresh and provocative look at two of the biggest challenges we face today: America''s surprising loss of focus and national purpose since 9/11; and the global environmental crisis, which is affecting everything from food to fuel to forests. In this groundbreaking account of where we stand now, he shows us how the solutions to these two big problems are linked--how we can restore the world and revive America at the same time.

Friedman explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations, and the astonishing expansion of the world''s middle class through globalization have produced a planet that is "hot, flat, and crowded." Already the earth is being affected in ways that threaten to make it dangerously unstable. In just a few years, it will be too late to fix things--unless the United States steps up now and takes the lead in a worldwide effort to replace our wasteful, inefficient energy practices with a strategy for clean energy, energy efficiency, and conservation that Friedman calls Code Green.

This is a great challenge, Friedman explains, but also a great opportunity, and one that America cannot afford to miss. Not only is American leadership the key to the healing of the earth; it is also our best strategy for the renewal of America.

In vivid, entertaining chapters, Friedman makes it clear that the green revolution we need is like no revolution the world has seen. It will be the biggest innovation project in American history; it will be hard, not easy; and it will change everythingfrom what you put into your car to what you see on your electric bill. But the payoff for America will be more than just cleaner air. It will inspire Americans to something we haven''t seen in a long time--nation-building in America--by summoning the intelligence, creativity, boldness, and concern for the common good that are our nation''s greatest natural resources.

"Hot, Flat, and Crowded" is classic Thomas L. Friedman: fearless, incisive, forward-looking, and rich in surprising common sense about the challenge--and the promise--of the future.

Thomas L. Friedman was born in 1953 in Minneapolis, Minn., but distinguished himself as a journalist far away from his home. His reporting on the war in Lebanon won Friedman the George Polk Award, the Pulitzer Prize, and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. He won a second Pulitzer for his work in Israel. Friedman graduated from Brandeis University and obtained a graduate degree from St. Antony's College. He began his career as a correspondent for United Press International, and later served as bureau chief for the New York Times in Beirut and Jerusalem. He wrote about his experiences as a Jewish-American reporter in the middle east in From Beirut to Jerusalem, which won the National Book Award in 1989. Friedman is also the author of the text for a photo collection called War Torn, and a contributor to the New York Times magazine.