Hot, Flat and Crowded Question Set #1: Chapter 4, p. 64-84.
1. Look at the first paragraph on p. 8 to learn what Friedman means by “hot, flat and crowded”. He frequently uses those terms so you must understand what they mean to him.
2. What are the five problems that “define the Energy-Climate Era”?
3. What will Earth’s human population be by 2050 according to the UN? In what parts of the world will this increase occur?
4. Note that since the book’s publication humans have become an urban species as more than one half of us now live in cities.
5. Why is the CIA worried about demographics?
6. What were the four “flatteners”?
7. What were the benefits and detriments of the “flattening”?
8. Because it’s been covered in popular media and K-12 education for so long, I’m not going to write questions to accompany Friedman’s description of the history of fossil fuel use and Greenhouse gas emissions. However, please learn Lefkowitz’s “fuels from Hell” vs. “fuels from Heaven” example.
9. So, we move to p. 74-84. What does Friedman mean when he says, “The simple answer is that flat met crowded”?
10. How did 2004 signal that we were in a “new era” of global energy supply and demand?
11. What factors have led to the “massive transfer of wealth”? From where has the wealth been transferred? To where? So, what?
12. How have flattening and warming made electricity more important?