The public is yet to warm up to the Chinese version of The World Is Flat (2.0) here in China since its release in September, but Thomas Friedman, the writer, is in Beijing to share his concerns about the quest for energy and his ideas for a "green" world.

 

He says he will put all those into his new book, which is entitled Green is the New Red, White, Blue.

 

For many years, Americans have associated people who advocate "green" as "tree-hugging, girly men, sissy, unpatriotic," Friedman told a group of journalists yesterday at a workshop organized by Capital Young Journalists' Association in Beijing.

 

What he is going to assert and discuss in his new book is that "Green being green, living green, thinking green, acting green is the most geopolitical, geo-strategic, geo-economic and patriotic thing you can be as an American."

 

"The world has embroiled itself in an energy crisis today that is not our parents', and the way to get us out of that crisis is to go 'green'," said Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times.

 

Why? "The world is flat," he said.

 

By "flat," he means that economic globalization, along with the advent of the Internet and the digital revolution, has connected billions of people on the planet and enabled them to do business and prosper.

 

However, Friedman has calculated that globalization is creating the emergence of about 3 billion new consumers in the world, "all with their own version of the American dream a house, a car, a toaster, a microwave and a refrigerator "

 

"If we don't have alternatives to fossil fuels, fuelling our future will smoke up, heat up, choke up this planet so much faster than when the world was round," he said.

 

Who will take the "green" leadership in the world?

 

He hopes that China, which he has visited frequently in the past 15 years, will do it; he admits the United States has failed to.

 

The United States should "lead by example," he said. "Otherwise, we have no credibility."

 

However, Friedman still believes that the rapid economic development in the past 30 years has forced China to try to turn itself into a green leader in the world.

 

What China must not do, he said, is follow in the footsteps of other developed countries by growing and polluting now and cleaning up later.

 

"We have never seen 1.3 billion people grow as fast in the history of the world. If you grow now and clean up later, there will be no 'later'," he said, noting that half of the rivers and much of the farmland in China are already polluted.

 

To be a "green" leader, he proposed that China stick to its motto, "don't bring your garbage," when it transfers technology from developed countries.

 

(China Daily November 14, 2006)