CCF Note: The following is an excerpt from a book review of Thomas L. Friedman's "Hot, Flat, and Crowded."

Friedman embraces worst-case scenarios for climate change, warning not just of global warming but "global weirding." Yet his factual assertions are impossible to weigh, since Hot, Flat, and Crowded contains no footnotes or source notes. Friedman asserts, for instance: "In fact, the American pet food industry spends more each year on R&D than the American utilities industry does." Good luck figuring out the "in fact" part. Supposing this Paul Harvey-like line is true, it is also silly, because utilities do not build power-plant systems—vendors such as General Electric and Combustion Engineering perform the technical R&D.

Friedman devotes several pages to asserting that the strength of Hurricane Katrina was caused by greenhouse gases, a claim that is first sourced to "many climatologists," none of whom he pauses to name; later in the book, his authority is an anchorwoman for the Weather Channel. That global warming causes strong hurricanes, however, is far from a settled scientific view. In May 2008, Science magazine reported that climate models suggest "a modest increase or even a decrease in the frequency and intensity of Atlantic tropical cyclones." (Subscription required for full text.)

Artificial climate change is real; even skeptics now call the danger scientifically proven. But Friedman, Al Gore, James Hansen of NASA, and others present climate change as some kind of super-ultra emergency. Global warming is a problem, one that must be managed via greenhouse-gas restrictions and a weaning away from fossil fuels. But in a world of poverty, disease, dictatorships, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, lack of girls' education, and more than 1 billion people without cleaning drinking water or electricity—climate change barely makes the Problem Top 10. Besides, the solution can't be a panicked pullback from the present economic system, though perhaps that system can be amended over the long term. Economic growth is needed to allow the world to afford environmental protection. At least for the next few decades, headlong resource consumption will be necessary to generate the capital that will pay for a clean-energy infrastructure.

Why does the cocktail-party circuit embrace claims about a pending climate doomsday? Partly owing to our nation's shaky grasp of science—many Americans lack basic understanding of chemicals, biology, and natural systems. Another reason is the belief that only exaggerated cries of crisis engage the public's attention; but this makes greenhouse concern seem like just another wolf cry. (Remember the electric power lines crisis? The beach needles crisis?) There also seems to be some kind of psychological compensation mechanism at work among corporate and Hollywood elites: that it's OK to be a runaway consumer so long as you theatrically denounce consumption.

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