Tom is the man

To whip myself back into the blogosphere, my favorite journalist has given me some much needed food for thought. Yep - Tom Friedman is back - and better than ever! ok ok, so he never really left - but I haven't had access to his colunm in the NYTimes - so, to me he was gone. ANYHOO - I was in the lobby of One Oxford, and was looking for The Nation - trying to get at ANOTHER FANTASMIC article (more later on that).

So Tom's article - The First Law of Petropolitics (Foreign Policy, May/June 2006) - presents a great argument for why it is so imporant to find an alternative fuel solution, and in fact - I think that this article gives Al Gore a fantastic platform if he were to choose to run for President in '08. Tom posits that the price of oil and the "pace of freedom" are at inversely proportionate - they move in opposite directions. According to the First Law of Petropolitics,

"the higher the average global crude oil price rises, the more free speech,
free press and fair elections, an independent judiciary, the rule of law and independent political parties are eroded.... Conversely... the lower the price of oil, the more petrolist countries are forced to move toward a political system and society that is more transparent, more sensitive to opposition voices, and more focused on building the legal and educational structures that will maximize people's ability ... to compete, start new companies and attract investment from abroad."

It's such a simple concept, but yet - it is deeply profound. At least to me - I was reading this article on the bus, and must have said - "hm" and "uhuh" out loud at least 5 times. Reading the article over, I had to think of Al Gore. He has come so far in the last 6 years, and even though he says he doesn't want to run - I think it might be a good idea. And I also think that Tom Friedman should be his running mate. In '04 I advocated the Friedman-Dowd ticket, but I think Gore-Friendman is much stronger - combining the political theories that Tom comes up with, and Al's environmental agenda - I can honestly say that I would vote for it. At that point, we just need Kofi Annan to be Secretary of State, except of course he's not a U.S. citizen. At least I don't think he is!

I've never been much of a tree hugger, but I do believe that we need to step up and take care of what we have been given. You know the old saying, you don't know how good you have it until you don't have it anymore. I think we're gambling on the environment ... we're betting on mother nature, and its just the stupidest thing to do. Oil is going to run out (yes Dubya, it is), glaciers are going to continue to melt because of global warming, weather patterns are going to change ... and its all gonna go down.

I think we should all start praying right now, coz I can't see any of the current world "leaders" doing anything about it. Another plug for the Gore-Friedman ticket.