Welcome to the best of the left podcast with clips today from NPR, CounterSpin, The

Onion Radio News, La Show, Point of Inquiry, and The Cold Bear Report.

My guest is New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. He's written a new book called Hot Flat

and Crowded, Why We Need A Green Revolution, and How It Can Renew America. Hot refers

to global warming, flat to the global economy that has put the American middle class in

competition with workers around the world. Crowded refers to rapid population growth.

Friedman says hot, flat, and crowded have converged to tighten energy supplies, expand

the extinction of plants and animals, deepen energy poverty, strengthen petro dictatorships,

and accelerate climate change. Friedman has won three Pulitzer prizes for his work with

the New York Times. His bestselling books include From Beirut to Jerusalem and The World

Is Flat.

Tom Friedman, welcome back to Fresh Air. I was reading your book last Wednesday night

while I was listening to the Republican Convention. As I was reading your thoughts on ending

our oil addiction, I heard Rudy Giuliani lead a chant of Drill Baby Drill. As I listened

to everybody chanting Drill Baby Drill at the Republican Convention, I was wondering,

what will Tom Friedman have to say about that? So what do you have to say about that?

Well, I started to imagine a column where the Saudi, Russian, and Venezuelan observers at

the Republican Convention were watching this. And what would they be saying to each other?

They would be up there in one of those sky boxes, high-fiving each other. It is happy

days are here again, Drill Baby Drill. Because what basically Giuliani was leading that crowd

into saying is, let's stay addicted to oil. And boy, that is the best news in the world

for the Venezuelan, Russian, and Saudi delegates. They couldn't have scripted a chant like

...