Is Thomas Friedman Getting Smarter?

Of course not.

Though Thomas Friedman is widely and appropriately known as a self-important bag of douche, this still took me by surprise.

I picked up a Time magazine in my doctor's office the other day and came across this interview with Friedman in which he discusses his latest book, "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," and I was astounded by the first thing out of his mouth. He was prompted to write this book, he said, because he "spent two years doing documentaries for the Discovery Channel on energy and the environment, and it was really after that I realized something big had happened. The "flat" in Hot, Flat, and Crowded is my shorthand for the rise of middle classes all over the world. If this many people are able to live like Americans, the energy and environment implications will be explosive."

Really Thomas? You just got this? It just occurred to you that if the billions of people who aspire to live as Americans were to succeed that this could be a catastrophe? Aside from the fact that such a thing perhaps should have dawned on a Pulitzer Prize winning intellect a little sooner, it's not as though this notion hasn't been explored recently by others.

The solution to this, according to the interview, will be innovation. Somehow, apparently, there will be sufficient innovation worldwide to allow the rest of the world to match America's consumption without destroying the planet. It would be nice if this proves to be true, as it would be nice if I were to get home tonight and find Salma Hayak on my porch waiting to go dancing with me. I'm not counting on that, though, and I think it would be prudent of Friedman to maybe come up with a plan B, one that has everybody using fewer resources and scaling back expectations of how life can be lived. I'm not counting on that happening, either, though. I think if I were to suggest such a thing to Friedman, he would respond that I should Suck. On. This.