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ONLY FOLLOW THE RIGHT LEADERS

Just like quasi-warrior Ian Dunlop, Thomas Friedman craves leadership:

People often ask: I want to get greener, what should I do? New light bulbs? A hybrid? A solar roof? Well, all of those things are helpful.

But actually, the greenest thing you can do is this: Choose the right leaders. It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs.

Why? Because leaders write the rules, set the standards and offer the tax incentives that drive market behavior across a whole city, state or country. Whatever any of us does individually matters a tiny bit. But when leaders change the rules, you get scale change across the whole marketplace.

Yet Friedman has somehow defied the leadership of George W. Bush. I suppose he means people other than he require to be led.

*PLEDGE WEEK* Don’t miss out on the thrill of giving! To me!

Posted by Tim B. on 10/23/2007 at 09:19 AM
  1. follow the right leaders… sounds like a plan for RWDBs

    Posted by KK on 2007 10 23 at 09:40 AM • permalink

  2. Why? Because leaders write the rules, set the standards and offer the tax incentives that drive market behavior across a whole city, state or country

    That woulde explain Mc Donalds, Humvees, leaf blowers etc.

    Posted by Nic on 2007 10 23 at 09:41 AM • permalink

  3. Well, following the Left leaders doesn’t seem to make too much of the population pay attention to the ever important Green lobby.

    Posted by Ash_ on 2007 10 23 at 09:43 AM • permalink

  4. ‘Green’ leaders like Brown, with such important issues as a Federal Inquiry into a TV worm?

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 10 23 at 10:25 AM • permalink

  5. Does this mean that the ALP are 20-watt bulbs; and the Greens are Christmas tree lights—the small ones, at least?

    Posted by andycanuck on 2007 10 23 at 10:30 AM • permalink

  6. #5
    More like a candle in the wind ...

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 10 23 at 10:45 AM • permalink

  7. But actually, the greenest thing you can do is this: Choose the right leaders. It is so much more important to change your leaders than change your light bulbs.

    A veiled reference to an Al Gore presidency?  A discreet hint that we should abandon free market enterprise and accept socialism?  I find Friedman vaguely threatening.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2007 10 23 at 10:57 AM • permalink

  8. What is it with the left and mutually exclusive beliefs coexisting quite happily in their brains.

    They sit there, demanding glorious leaders that will plan every aspect of their lives thereby ushering in the Golden Age. Then in the same breath condemn Bush, Lord Rove and everyone else on the right for some ludicrous conspiracy against freedom they’ve “discovered”

    Posted by Aging Gamer on 2007 10 23 at 11:11 AM • permalink

  9. Anyone for a bucket of chicken?

    Original or Crispy?

    Posted by El Cid on 2007 10 23 at 11:12 AM • permalink

  10. #9 El Cid, that is actually funny!  thanks.  I can use all the laughs i can get at work

    Posted by missred on 2007 10 23 at 02:28 PM • permalink

  11. Lefties scream paranoid bloody murder about dictatorship when a conservative wins an election, yet authoritarianism gives them raging hard-ons.

    Projection is funny.

    Posted by Dave S. on 2007 10 23 at 05:08 PM • permalink

  12. Why? Because leaders write the rules, set the standards and offer the tax incentives that drive market behavior across a whole city, state or country.

    This is quite true. Such incentives do artificially alter market behaviour.

    There is a big push on at the moment for the government to “support” the production of ethanol. This is coming from North Queensland canegrowers and can oly happen if ethanol is given a tax holiday compared with petrol.

    Why not go the whole hog and subsidise the growing of cane in Victoria. With enough incentives it can be made quite profitable?

    Every intervention subverts the decision making of millions of people which freely and peacefully allocates scarce resources. Why is the left so arrogant to think they they can do it better by force than all those people by cooperation.

    Posted by amortiser on 2007 10 23 at 06:23 PM • permalink

  13. You do need a leader if you want to get to Blisstonia.

    Posted by Zoidberg on 2007 10 23 at 06:47 PM • permalink

  14. This man is an idiot. Leaders don’t simply [I]write the rules, set the standards and offer tax incentives.[/I]

    Leaders give us what we want, what we ask for, which is why they are so full of sh*t regards giving us financial incentives to vote for them. Before the election was called there was much more talk about the environment, and about Kyoto. Now that we are at the money end of John Boys Term as Prime Minister, it’s all about money, tax and which part of society is gonna benefit the most financially from this election. Leaders lead by taking us where we want to go, or where they believe we want to go, none of this or any other crop of leaders around the world today is brave enough to take people where they don’t want to go, even if it’s for their own good. once we all start being individually serious about changing the environment, and spending less money on luxuries [I](consumption causes most greenhouses gases, since coal is used to generate the power used to manufacture those lovely little useless luxuries we all want)[/I] our leaders will be more comfortable about legislating for the environment. These idiots that insist that third world countries should stop cutting down trees as they are Carbon sinks, but still drive the kids to MacDonald’s for Happy meals and spend oodles of dollars on all the Disney merchandise that goes with the latest Cartoon sensation make me sick. Lead from the back you idiots, don’t wait to be taken to the promised land, start getting there on your own.

    aguycalledbrad.blogspot.com

    Posted by aguycalledbrad on 2007 10 23 at 07:04 PM • permalink

  15. #4 Seriously? Then again it is Brown.

    Posted by Old school on 2007 10 23 at 08:19 PM • permalink

  16. This is how scale change happens. When the Big Apple becomes the Green Apple, and 40 million tourists come through every year and take at least one hybrid cab ride, they’ll go back home and ask their leaders, “Why don’t we have hybrid cabs?”

    Just like that, huh? I take one hybrid cab ride and I become a big government nanny-statist top-down central planning tree-hugging moonbat? Thanks for the warning. Sigh. To echo a previous commenter on these pages: NYT, rebuild that wall!

    Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2007 10 23 at 08:34 PM • permalink

  17. Is it just me, or is Bob Brown clueless?

    Posted by kae on 2007 10 23 at 08:40 PM • permalink

  18. #15
    Brown wants Senate ‘worm’ probe

    Prolly juz grandstanding, however; who knows, with the ‘Watermelon Party’?

    This is the headline from which IT had to restrain himself (due to many permutations and comnbinations?) :)

    Posted by egg_ on 2007 10 24 at 02:18 AM • permalink

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