The World on Jenny Craig

Thomas Friedman is not just crazy. Numerous other intelligible people around the world are starting to realize the adverse effects of our style of life. If we, as Americans, are to continue with this same rate of consumption of resources and destruction of our environment, the livelihood of our species will be at stake. We, as a society, are learning that we need to change our style of living far too slowly. We will be facing tremendous consequences, as we already somewhat are, if we are to continue on this path. Our resources, food in particular, will not be sufficient to sustain our world's human population within a few, short years at the rate it is growing now. Friedman pointed this out in his book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, and Mark Bittman, a columnist for the New York Times, also points out, in his article entitled "Seeing a Time (Soon) When We’ll All Be Dieting." In the article, Bittman outlines Julian Cribb's new book called The Coming Famine--The Global Food Crisis and What We Can Do to Avoid It. Bittman explains that: 

Much of “The Coming Famine” builds an argument that we’ve jumped off a cliff and that global chaos — a tidal wave of people fleeing their own countries for wherever they can find food — is all but guaranteed. The rest of the book concentrates on catching an outcropping of rock with a finger and scrambling back up. The writing is neither personality-filled nor especially fluid, but the sheer number of terrifying facts makes the book gripping.

Like Friedman, Julian Cribb also argues that the world is on a fairly dangerous road at the moment, and it will take a lot of human energy and effort to break away from this path. Although Friedman does not put it as boldly as people will be fighting for scraps and remnants of food, Friedman does agree with Cribb's argument. The world is headed toward an incredible food shortage as a result of the exponentially increasing population, and the over-consumption of and waste of food by wealthier people. Friedman puts it in simply as the world is getting crowded, which suggests that there will not only not be enough food, but there will not be enough other non-renewable resources or land to sustain human life.
Also like Friedman, Cribb knows that the human race will stand up in the face of adversity and find a solution to this monumental issue:

Mr. Cribb is not hopeless; he predicts that we’ll eventually “unlock new insights capable of making profound gains in food production and sustainability on a par with those of the Green Revolution.”

Cribb also shares the idea of a "Green Revolution" with Friedman, which Friedman calls "Code Green," in his book. This "Code Green" or "Green Revolution" is what the world is waiting on and is the answer to nearly all of the environmental issues we face. We are on the verge of a revolution and the people at the forefront of the revolution are the people of the new generation, Generation We.

Here is the link for the New York Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/books/25book.html?ref=earth

The Rate of Crowding in America Decreasing?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/02/us/02immig.html?_r=1&ref=us

The New York Times article entitled Number of Illegal Immigrants in U.S. Fell, Study Says, by Julia Preston explains an astonishing figure. 

The number of illegal immigrants in the United States, after peaking at 12 million in 2007, fell to about 11.1 million in 2009, the first clear decline in two decades, according to a report published Wednesday by the Pew Hispanic Center.
The reduction came primarily from decreases among illegal immigrants from Latin American countries other than Mexico, the report found.

This implies two things. First, America's status as one of the world's superpowers and greatest countries is declining because people of foreign countries, especially those of Latin America, are finding that America is less of a desirable place to live and work due to the failing economy, among other factors. This fact confirms Thomas Friedman's concern that America is losing its place in the world because it is becoming, as he states it in his book, hot, flat, and crowded. While the world's population may be increasing rapidly, America's population, or at least the population of its illegal immigrants from Latin America, is decreasing. The fact that the number of immigrants from Latin America has declined may also suggest that people from Latin America are beginning to realize that America is becoming overcrowded.