WC Archive

Tom Friedman's "Geo-Greens" model may not be fully-baked yet, but is clearly the subject of his next book. His Sunday column in the New York Times continues to expound on the concept, and this time he manages to get in a couple of decent proposals. The money quote:

As a geo-green, I believe that combining environmentalism and geopolitics is the most moral and realistic strategy the U.S. could pursue today. Imagine if President Bush used his bully pulpit and political capital to focus the nation on sharply lowering energy consumption and embracing a gasoline tax. [...] Sadly, the Bush team won't even consider this. It prefers cruise missiles to cruise controls. We need a grass-roots movement. Where are college kids these days? I would like to see every campus in America demand that its board of trustees disinvest from every U.S. auto company until they improve their mileage standards. Every college town needs to declare itself a "Hummer-free zone." You want to drive a gas-guzzling Humvee? Go to Iraq, not our campus. And an idea from my wife, Ann: free parking anywhere in America for anyone driving a hybrid car.

(Emphasis mine.) While as a hybrid driver I can certainly get behind that last suggestion, I think the divestment strategy in particular has a great deal of merit. The 1980s college campaigns to cease investments in companies which did business with the Apartheid government in South Africa drew a great deal of attention to the issue, and helped to bring about the end of the regime. We would need a catchy ska tune, though...