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Electrified!
Sep. 17th, 2008 04:21 pmI had the good fortune to be able to attend Innovation: The Business of Green for free today. Got a nice lunch and saw Thomas Friedman talk about his book, "Hot, Flat and Crowded." He is a good speaker, if not excellent, and his ideas were really well thought out. I liked that he didn't just identify the problems with energy consumption, biodiversity decline, climate change and inequality of resources but also provided some possible solutions and some optimism.
In and of itself, the event was very cool. However, what was so electrifying is how the event and his talk tied into what I've been reading, David Quammen's "The Song of the Dodo: Island Geography in an Age of Extinctions". Quammen's opening metaphor about divvying up the rain forests and nature in general haunts me: if you take a priceless oriental rug and cut it into 24 pieces, you don't have 24 small priceless rugs-- you have trash.
I don't have a lot of deep things to say about either, but this stuff has really got me thinking. I recommend the Quammen book and now want to get my hands on the Friedman book to see if the whole thing is as good as the excerpts I heard.
In and of itself, the event was very cool. However, what was so electrifying is how the event and his talk tied into what I've been reading, David Quammen's "The Song of the Dodo: Island Geography in an Age of Extinctions". Quammen's opening metaphor about divvying up the rain forests and nature in general haunts me: if you take a priceless oriental rug and cut it into 24 pieces, you don't have 24 small priceless rugs-- you have trash.
I don't have a lot of deep things to say about either, but this stuff has really got me thinking. I recommend the Quammen book and now want to get my hands on the Friedman book to see if the whole thing is as good as the excerpts I heard.
