The first part of the book is basically a 50 page summary of The World is Flat, with increased attention paid to the growing population and how the two effect weather. For an even more concise summary of how the world is flat read Friedman’s recent op-ed in the New York Times.  We are all interconnected.  A mortgage crisis in the US hurts Icelandic banks which hurts English police forces.

The second part of the book focuses on how the earth’s limited resources will not be able to handle the projected increases in consumption rates and population.   Friedman quotes from James Gustave Speth’s book The Bridge at the Edge of the World to highlight the ever expanding world economy.  Speth said “It took all of human history to build the seven-trillion-dollar world economy of 1950: today economic activity grows by that amount every decade.”  It’s not just about money.  The world is projected to grow from three billion people in 1955 to nine billion people in 2050.   More important than the sheer number of people is the fact that a flat world is rapidly increasing the consumption rates of millions of people.  Whereas one billion people live an American sytle lifestyle now in terms of energy consumption, by 2050 the number is expected to more than double.  The earth can not sustain three billion SUV owning, ipod listening, McMansion owning people.  Friedman did not overlook the fairness factor and relayed a metaphor told to him by an Egyptian cabinet minister: the minister said, “It is like the developed world ate all the hors d’oeuvres, all the entrees, and all the desserts and then invited the developing world for a little coffee and asked us to split the whole bill.”  While acknowledging that Americans are in no place to lecture, we are in a position to invent and innovate and to set a better example.  Friedman has a great belief in the ability of Americans to innovate to solve large problems: though we are not in a position to lecture, we now know better and are primed to set a new example, “to use our resources and know-how to invent the renewable, clean power sources and energy efficiency systems that can make growth greener”.

In a chapter on “petropolitics” Friedman convincingly argues that the pace of freedom in natural resource rich nations is inversely related to the price of oil (prime examples: Iran, Russia, Venezuala and Nigeria) and that our energy purchases are funding both sides of the “war on terror”.  Our purchases enrich conservative, Islamic governments that sponsor mosques, schools and charities that in turn sponsor anti-American terrorist groups.  The addiction also persuades our government to turn a blind eye to countries that oppress women and restrict freedom or other governments, like China, to build partnerships with murderous dictatorships such as its relationship with Sudan.

It is also in the second section that Friedman discusses how weather is becoming more extreme and biodiversity is being threatened due to preventable causes like the use of dirty fuels and deforestation. While espousing the value of beauty and nature, Friedman is sure to point out that people and industries will suffer without major changes in our energy systems and how we live.  Without the right controls and incentives we will continue to destroy the environment.  Two prime examples are the subsidization of corn in the US and the deforestation of Asia to create net loss alternative energy sources.

The third part of the book, “How We Move Forward” is my favorite.  While not understating the difficulty of the challenge, Friedman presents what a day 20 years into the Energy Climate Era might look like.  All devices, from your dishwasher, thermostat and washer and dryer are plugged into the grid and can be centrally managed.  Cars can sell excess capacity back into the grid when parked in particular garages.  Rates for energy fluctuate based on demand so consumption-intensive activities are scheduled during non-peak times.  It’s all very futuristic, but does not seem unattainable.

In his latest op-ed in the New York Times Friedman presents several of the same arguments that are in the book.   Require every utility to produce 20 percent of its power from renewable, clean sources.  Institute a system that rewards utilities for how much electricity or gas they get their customers to save rather than consume.  Taxes, and tax credits for forward-thinking individuals and organizations, are also important and discussed at length.  The goal of requiring utilities to produce power from renewable sources would spur growth in that sector domestically while decreasing the continued dirtying of our environment.  Many states have adopted similar measures but that is not good enough.  Rewarding utilities with monopolies and regulating rates may have been necessary to ensure that rural areas were brought online, but now it is time to completely change the energy infrastructure.

There are two final sections–one on China, one on America–that specifically discuss the challenges and opportunities each country faces in the hot, flat, and crowded world.  These sections were more focused on the political environment.

What I like most about Friedman is his ability to see the whole picture, to see a bevy of huge problems (climate change, the rise of dictators, weakening dollar) and to find opportunity in the problems and to be eternally, practically optimistic.  Hot, Flat, and Crowded is disturbing, hopeful, educational and very entertaining.

I finished reading Timothy Keller’s book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism over a month ago but have put off posting my thoughts on it because I did not think I could articulate them in a coherent post. (this disjointed post confirms my worry).

A day after I finished the book on a flight home from Chicago I coincidentally listened to an NPR Fresh Air podcast which analyzed the arguably dichotomous relationship between science and religion. Within this framework evolutionary biologist and author of The God Delusion Richard Dawkins presented an argument for atheism while geneticist-physicist Francis Collins, leader of the Human Genome Project (HGP) and evangelical Christian, presented a scientist’s case for God. Listening to the brilliant scientists talk about God and Christianity in particular gave me the opportunity to reconsider, or reexamine what I had just read. It was serendipitous timing for sure.

While reading Keller’s book I often thought about a powerful scene from ER that I strongly identify with that beautifully illustrates a reason for the Christian God. The pervasive relativistic, post-modern ideals of modern western culture can be so convenient. As the video clip illustrates, the ideals are impractical in real-life situations: we need more. In fact it was only after a friend posted the video on facebook that I was moved to write this post.

All that to say that these media shaped the framework from which I processed Keller’s book. As someone who has gone through Keller’s Galatians study multiple times and listened to many Keller sermons, I was familiar with the themes of his rhetoric and his style. Disbelief is a belief in and of itself. If you say there is no truth, your truth is that there is no truth. Though I see value in such arguments, because I have read and heard them before and would not self-identify as a skeptic they started to tire me. I was truly impressed with the seamless integration of personal stories taken from Keller’s churches and family life with academic, literary and scientific giants such as Dawkins, CS Lewis, Leo Tolstoy, Albert Camus and others. Keller’s ability to synthesize the vast, disparate sources of information and present a cogent, salient argument for Christianity is a testament to his scholarship and faith.

The book is broken into two sections: The Leap of Doubt and The Reasons for Faith. The Leap of Doubt addresses common questions of, and attacks on Christianity such as: How Could a Good God Allow Suffering? (Chapter 2); How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell? (Chapter 5); Science Has Disproved Christianity (Chapter 6); and You Can’t Take the Bible Literally (Chapter 7). The Reasons for Faith systematically presents reasons why you should put your trust in Jesus Christ. If I read this book every six months for the next 20 years I think I would pick a different part as my favorite each time depending on where I am in my story. The first time through, without a doubt, the last chapter “The Dance of God” was my favorite. Here are two excerpts that resonated with me in particular:

God did not create us to get the cosmic, infinite joy of mutual love and glorification, but to share it. We were made to join in the dance. If we will center our lives on him, serving him not out of self-interest, but just for the sake of who he is, for the sake of his beauty and glory, we will enter the dance and share in the joy and love he lives in. We were designed, then, not just for belief in God in some general way, nor for a vague kind of inspiration or spirituality. We were made to center our lives upon him, to make the purpose and passion of our lives knowing, serving, delighting, and resembling him. This growth in happiness will go on eternally, increasing unimaginably (1 Corinthians 2:7-10).

…

If the beauty of what Jesus did moves you, that is the first step toward getting out of your own self-centeredness and fear into a trust relationship with him. When Jesus died for you he was, as it were, inviting you into the dance. He invites you to begin centering everything in your life on him, even as he has given himself for you.

If you respond to him, all your relationships will begin to heal… sin is centering your identity on anything but God. We give ourselves only to relationships and pursuits that build us up and bolster our efforts at self-justification and self-creation. But this also leads us to disdain and look down on those who do not have the same accomplishments as identity-markers.

However, when we discern Jesus moving toward us and encircling us with an infinite, self-giving love, we are invited to put our lives on a whole new foundation. We can make him the new center of our lives and stop trying to be our own Savior and Lord. We can accept both his challenge to recognize ourselves as sinners in need of his salvation, and his renewing love as the new basis of our identity. Then we don’t need to prove ourselves to others. We won’t need to use others to bolster our fragile sense of pride and self-worth. And we will be enabled to move out toward others as Jesus has moved toward us.

It is with great skill and compassion that Keller’s book elicits competing feelings: these passages sting and renew; they lovingly destroy and brazenly motivate; they expose my shame and embolden my hope.