The Price of Oil Effects our Pace of Freedom

Tom Freidman talks in depth about the "hot" aspect of the issues our world is facing. In his book, Hot, Flat and Crowded, hot refers to the serious problem of global warming that our nation seems to be ignoring. Throughout the book he refers to the term "Code Green" rather than "Code Red." Watch his video, where he discusses key points in becoming a greener nation.

He first explains the effect that the United States has on other countries (primarily developing countries). If we become the leading country in energy efficiency, we will be followed by the developing nations. At the same time wealthy countries will increase energy efficiency as well, which will prevent the earth's natural resources from being consumed much quicker than we imagined.
Another big point he brings up is the involvement of money in this entire process. Freidman explains that the main goal behind becoming green is becoming an emissions free nation at a "China" or "India" price. Obviously, if being green comes at a low cost, people will most likely contribute toward the project of being more energy efficient. He brought up something he calls the "First Law of Petropolitics." This law explains that the price of oil has an inverse relationship with the pace of freedom. The lower the price of oil, the higher the pace of freedom. If we raise the price of oil, we are forced to come up with new innovations and ways to conserve oil because of the high price. In the end bringing up the price of oil eventually brings down the global cost of oil. The reason this happens is because during the time when our nation's oil prices are high we would have come up with more energy efficient innovations. When the energy efficient innovations are in higher frequency, the global price of oil comes down.
Freidman concludes the video by talking about how this project is probably one of the biggest transformative concepts to come around. It is best that we try not to become too intimidated and take on the task because in the end it is what is going to propel us forward.