Government funded research is essential to the development of this new technology (as with nearly all others). Despite the popular myth of a free market system providing the research funding to develop new technologies, nearly every new technology is funded in part by government funded research, especially at thea early stages. Look into the history of any recent technology and you will find this to be true. Even the Google search engine technology was developed with National Science Foundation funds.

Easterbrook offers this strange example of wind turbine technology which he says only took off after US government funding dried up. What he doesn't mention, but I'm sure Friedman's book does say, is that other countries such as Denmark and Germany did support the development of this technology, and as a result, these are the countries with the large and rapidly growing wind turbine businesses and the jobs that go with it. The US, which used to lead in wind and solar technology, has now fallen behind.

Many others have written about other problems and inaccuracies with this article, so I won't.

Why does Slate insist on having people like Gregg Easterbrook, who clearly has no understanding or interest in the sciences or fields involved, review a book . I'm sure that there are valid criticisms of this book, there always are on books that promote big changes in policy and strategy like this one. But since Easterbrook has so little background or knowledge in this area, all we get is uninformed inaccuracies and the same old tirade about how energy consuming a book tour is.

Please find qualfied reviewers. We read here to be informed and enlightened, not to read inaccurate statements that devolve into a personal attack on the lifestyle of the book's author.

Let Easterbrook write articles about football.

I caught an interview Friedman did on Fresh Air yesterday, and yes he does talk about Denmark's development of these technologies. In fact he points out that they bought up most of the companies and their patents after we stopped supporting them. Meaning that we provided the start up capitol for some of Denmark's most successful businesses.

Government must also be involved given the scale of some aspects of a real green revolution. For example, we must have a modernized national power grid capable of transmitting massive amounts of electricity over large distances. Our current grids are barely up to the tasks at hand.

So let's have the government improve the existing infrastructure to meet energy needs. That's the kind of thing that will spur more development. The last thing we need is some ethanol like subsidy program

I think we can see that when it comes to complex issues, nobody gets it 100% right. Easterbrook points-out some of Friedman's shortcomings, but then clearly misses the importance of government-funded research (like say, the Human Genome project).

I think we can learn that what's ultimately important is to have leaders who are capable of having lively and respectful discussions on these kinds of topics. It takes a consensus, afterall. Personally, I feel Obama and probably McCain will meet that criteria, along with Joe Biden. Sarah Palin, maybe not so much. When it comes to Congress, well, we're doomed, I suppose.

I too caught the interveiw that Blueshift was talking about on Freshair yesterday. I found it to be far more interesting and enlightening than this book review. I would encourage interested folks to listen to it you should be able to get to it through NPR.org and then Freshair. The funding of research and development was the most interesting part of the interview. The government of Denmark even awarded a medal to a US wind turbine developer who went to Denmark with the technology he developed here and then took there when Regan took the funding away from these industries. Currently the Rupublicans are doing the bidding of Big Oil by blocking legislation to continue subsidies for solar and wind development. Currently almost all wind and solar projects in the US are on hold (including a big solar project for Phoenix)because of the funding bill hasn't passed the Senate. On the last vote it didn't pass by one vote and John McCain, who was in Washington, missed role call.

I do find it dissapointing that this book is not footnoted. I was thinking of reading this book after hearing the interview, after reading the review I'm thinking that I'd better read it rather than relying on a reviewer.