Read “Hot, Flat, and Crowded”
It has been some time since I have done a book review. With moving and packing, traveling and studying, book reading has taken a back seat. This weekend I finished this title by Thomas Friedman. When I saw this book on the rack I was excited because I enjoyed his previous book “The World is Flat” immensely. This book was not as good as the previous one, but that could have been the environment in which I read it. I was in Canada at my parent’s lake house. This was read on planes, trains, and automobiles. Well, just planes really. The book provides a eye opening look at the concerns over the planet. He makes a strong case the being green is larger than a cool stance or a movement, but must influence every aspect of life. He argues that the green revolution is the next business boom as well as the best way to pull people out of being poor. He uses example after examples of groups or businesses that went green and produced larger profits and social capital. Friedman probably paints the picture of going green in too rosy of glasses, but he does acknowledge the difficulties in changing American policies on green issues. He also desires the government to exercise greater control over business practices in a new green world. This was a informative book that I enjoyed because of my ignorance on the topic. It was a needed book to expand my outlook on environmental concerns. There must be something done and it must be profitable for the America people to embrace this sweeping change.
Related posts:
- Read “IT”
- Read “Sway”
- Read “Weapons of Chess”
- Read “Encountering Ecclesiastes”
- Read “One Size Doesn’t Fit All”
About The Author
The book talks a lot of the Greenhouse effect. What do you think this?
I agree that it is an up and coming way to earn capital. I also agree that we can’t keep producing, trashing, and producing again. Me? I throw away one bag of trash per week and recycle the rest. I want to vomit when I see bulging curbside trash cans waiting to be picked up each week. On the other hand I think that global warming is just a way for Gore to keep Tipper in a nice new car every few years.
Although I recycle, I’m not very familiar with much of the environmentalist movement. Thanks for the review. It sounds interesting. (Also thanks for your help.)
Here is how it may have affected the church and efforts to evangelize. In his book “unChristian” David Kinnaman says that Christians are largely seen as anti-environmental. He also says that emerging generations have a hard time when the people in the church don’t really seem to care for the environment when they believe God created it. While there are some who make environmentalism personified with religion I believe it would do us (Christians) well to show that we care more about being responsible with our environment. It would also help us convince more people to believe in God.
should Christians consider environmental issues to be spiritual/moral issues?
i take it that many Christians of a conservative-theological stripe have been rather complacent about environmental issues. i think i certainly fit into that category before and haven’t quite rid myself of all the complacency yet. There is a certain “neo-gnosticism” that the church has adopted over the past two hundred years or so. The world is bad. It’s not my home–i’m just passin’ through. Material things are all going to be burned up anyway and our ‘ghosts’ will get let out of their skin-and-bone jail cells and that’s the reall good stuff. so why give a flip about whether parks are dirty or how much natural resources i consume or over consume?
but didn’t God say that creation was good when He made it? and what about resurrection? why redeem our bodies (ah, well, for starters, a lot of Christians have for all practical purposes abandoned this doctrine)? and what about the bizarre passages that seem at face value to say that God is going to redeem even the material creation itself?
well, regardless of the answers to those questions, i still wonder if Christians shouldn’t be more concerned about environmental issues given AT LEAST the principle of stewardship.