Thomas Friedman Misguidedly Talks “Global Weirding,” Again

Thomas Friedman might be the New York Times’ most-ridiculed columnist. Certainly the backlash against him is the most vehement, evident in this hilarious-but-over-the-top piece by Matt Taibbi from the New York Press last year. Friedman is also a frequent target of the NYT Picker blog, a site we firmly believe one shouldn’t mess with. Friedman’s latest column appeared today in the NYT print edition and addresses his topic of choice, climate change. Unfortunately, it will do little to quiet criticism of him.

The column itself is inoffensive enough. He begins by lamenting the smug positions taken on global warming/climate change by some Congressmen in the wake of the recent blizzard in Washington…

When you see lawmakers like Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina tweeting that “it is going to keep snowing until Al Gore cries ‘uncle,’ ” or news that the grandchildren of Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma are building an igloo next to the Capitol with a big sign that says “Al Gore’s New Home,” you really wonder if we can have a serious discussion about the climate-energy issue anymore.

…and it’s hard to argue that such displays will accomplish anything constructive. Friedman’s problems begin when he advocates widespread adoption of the term “global weirding” in place of “global warming” or “climate change.” The first problem is that this term barely outpaces “lamestream media” on the Juvenile-O-Meter. The second is that he already advocated for this term – and was criticized for it then – two years ago. NYT Picker singled him out last year for repeating himself almost verbatim, and it appears here he did something similar. Here’s what he said in 2007:

And sweet-sounding “global warming” doesn’t really capture what’s likely to happen. I prefer the term “global weirding,” coined by Hunter Lovins, co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute, because the rise in average global temperature is going to lead to all sorts of crazy things — from hotter heat spells and droughts in some places, to colder cold spells and more violent storms, more intense flooding, forest fires and species loss in other places.

Today, he said:

Avoid the term “global warming.” I prefer the term “global weirding,” because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes. The weather gets weird. The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous.

Additionally, he said the following in November of last year:

According to the 2006 U.N. population report, “The world population will likely increase by 2.5 billion … passing from the current 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050. This increase is equivalent to the total size of the world population in 1950, and it will be absorbed mostly by the less developed regions, whose population is projected to rise from 5.4 billion in 2007 to 7.9 billion in 2050.”

Now, add one more thing. The world keeps getting flatter — more and more people can now see how we live, aspire to our lifestyle and even take our jobs so they can live how we live. So not only are we adding 2.5 billion people by 2050, but many more will live like “Americans” — with American-size homes, American-size cars, eating American-size Big Macs.

Today:

Even if climate change proves less catastrophic than some fear, in a world that is forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion people between now and 2050, more and more of whom will live like Americans, demand for renewable energy and clean water is going to soar.

Not as egregious as what NYT Picker pointed out, but awfully similar. Friedman’s point about projected population growth and renewable energy is valid, but if he simply repeats himself, he’ll get tuned out. A better solution for a column like today’s might be to put in blog format rather than print – that way, he can link to previous columns where he’s already said essentially what he intends to say, rather than regurgitating talking points. He does have an nytimes.com blog, but hasn’t used it in over two years. Such a forum would be a better fit for what he said today, and might help soften the criticism levied at him.

That, of course, and dropping “global weirding.”