Flying the Friendly Skies with Green Tommy

Remember way back on Sunday when Tommy declared the oil spill was our fault because WE "sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much oil as possible at the cheapest price." And how inspired he was by his buddy Mark Mykleby's courageous decision to stop blaming BP and start haranguing his wife to drive a more fuel-efficient car? Well, what did Green Tommy do after urging all of us to look in the mirror?

He flew to Turkey!

Now, I'm no climatologist, but I have heard rumors that flying wasn't so good for the earth. So I went to one of those websites where you enter all sorts of data about yourself to determine your carbon footprint so that you'll feel terrible about yourself so that you'll fork over some money that goes God knows where so you can feel good about yourself again.

It turns out that for taking a round trip flight to Istanbul from Washington DC, we can assign 4,525 lbs of CO₂ emissions to Thomas L. Friedman. That sounds like a lot - good thing he doesn't fly very often. I mean, in the past six months he's only gone to:

• London -2,867 lbs of CO₂
• Athens - 4,463 lbs of CO₂
• Mexico City - 1,740 lbs of CO₂
• St. Louis - 1,074 lbs of CO₂
• Qatar and Yemen - 7,123 lbs of CO₂
• Hong Kong and Taiwan - 7,586 lbs of CO₂
• Davos -3,682 lbs of CO₂
• Copenhagen (for the summit on climate change) - 3,760 lbs of CO₂

For a six-month total of 36,215 lbs of CO2. Which means Tom Friedman is on pace for more than 72,000 lbs -- or 32.7 metric tons -- of plane-related CO₂ emissions this year! By comparison, the average gluttonous American emits 19 metric tons of CO2 a year from all of their activities.

So what do we get in return for Tommy's high-flying carbon belching? Let's look at today's column. There's not a single on-the-ground observation. No interviews with anyone in Istanbul. In fact, the only quote in the entire article that wasn't pulled from the Internet is a mysterious "Turkish foreign policy analyst" whose views so perfectly align with Friedman's that he or she is probably a) made up; b) Tommy's neighbor in Bethesda; or c) corporate strategy consultant Peter Schwartz. There is nothing in here that requires boarding a plane. Oh, he does has a cringe-inducing imaginary conversation with some Turks (Wait one minute, Friedman. That is a gross exaggeration, say Turkish officials), but that obviously doesn't require real airline travel, either.

There is simply no reason that Tom Friedman needs to go to Turkey to write a column. Or anywhere, for that matter. So if we really want, as a certain NYT columnist urges, to get"serious about fixing the problems that we can control," we could start by taking away Tom Friedman's passport. Maybe even place him under house arrest. Although we should probably find a more suitable house first.

Hot, Flat & Crowded Manor

Fire Tom Friedman.

The Mansion With No Mirrors

According to the large-type teaser in the print edition, Tommy's latest column is about "Looking in the mirror after the oil spill."

Wowee! Looking in the mirror? Which mirror? The Iraq mirror? The Israel mirror? The free trade is my god mirror? And is just a coincidence that America's most mirror-adverse pundit has finally decided to to embark on a little self-reflection just weeks after the launch of Fire Tom Friedman? All those visits to FTF from Bethesda -- I just knew it!

My friend, Mark Mykleby, who works in the Pentagon, shared with me this personal letter to the editor he got published last week in his hometown paper, The Beaufort Gazette in South Carolina. It is the best reaction I’ve seen to the BP oil spill.

OK. I guess it wasn't me that got Tommy got to the mirror. Ego a little bruised, but what's important is that someone did. Huzzah for Mark Mykleby! Can't wait to read this letter:

“I’d like to join in on the blame game that has come to define our national approach to the ongoing environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. This isn’t BP’s or Transocean’s fault. It’s not the government’s fault. It’s my fault. I’m the one to blame and I’m sorry. It’s my fault because I haven’t digested the world’s in-your-face hints that maybe I ought to think about the future and change the unsustainable way I live my life. If the geopolitical, economic, and technological shifts of the 1990s didn’t do it; if the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 didn’t do it; if the current economic crisis didn’t do it; perhaps this oil spill will be the catalyst for me, as a citizen, to wean myself off of my petroleum-based lifestyle. ‘Citizen’ is the key word. It’s what we do as individuals that count. For those on the left, government regulation will not solve this problem. Government’s role should be to create an environment of opportunity that taps into the innovation and entrepreneurialism that define us as Americans. For those on the right, if you want less government and taxes, then decide what you’ll give up and what you’ll contribute. Here’s the bottom line: If we want to end our oil addiction, we, as citizens, need to pony up: bike to work, plant a garden, do something. So again, the oil spill is my fault. I’m sorry. I haven’t done my part. Now I have to convince my wife to give up her S.U.V. Mark Mykleby.”

This is the best reaction to the BP oil spill Tommy read? I guess that's technically true since it's the only one he's read besides his own. Still, it's a piece of crap letter. Assigning equal blame to those who want to "Drill, Baby, Drill" and those who want to regulate oil companies? Making individual lifestyle changes not government policy the key to ending our addiction to oil? ("How dare you tax my carbon - I changed my light bulb!") And what sacrifice is the great Mark Mykelby going to make? He's going to convince his wife to give up her car.

(Which gives me a great idea for a sitcom. Global warming has gotten so bad that every time someone does something environmentally wasteful, catastrophe ensues. Yet, women can't stop shopping! Mark Mykelby to wife: "Honey, they just said on the radio that Bangladesh is entirely under water. Is there something you want you tell me?" Mrs. M., standing in front of a gleaming new Lincoln Navigator, "No." Cue laugh track!)

Quit your nitpicking and sitcom writing, Fire Tom Friedman. Who cares about the substance of the letter? Thomas L. Friedman is headed to the mirror. Tom Friedman, the great environmentalist, is finally going to deal with the fact that he lives here:

Hot, Flat, and Crowded Manor

And while I would prefer a mea culpa on Iraq or Palestine, this is an important start. So lay it on me:

I think Mykleby’s letter gets at something very important: We cannot fix what ails America unless we look honestly at our own roles in creating our own problems.

Amen, brother Tommy. Tell us how you sinned!

We — both parties — created an awful set of incentives that encouraged our best students to go to Wall Street to create crazy financial instruments instead of to Silicon Valley to create new products that improve people’s lives.

Uh-oh. This isn't a very promising start. Good confessions start with I, not we. And what's with the rambling nonsense about the boys of Goldman being victims? But maybe Tommy's nervous and this is a little throat clearing before we get to the mansion, the golf, the countless flights to the Middle East and China, the family fortune made in the not-so-green shopping mall business.

We — both parties — created massive tax incentives and cheap money to make home mortgages available to people who really didn’t have the means to sustain them.

OK, Friedman. We're going to ask you one more time. Your friend Mark, he already confessed he hasn't been doing his part. What about you? Did your lifestyle contribute to the oil spill?

And we — both parties — sent BP out in the gulf to get us as much oil as possible at the cheapest price.

As Pogo would say, we have met the enemy and he is us.

Ladies and gentleman, Tommy has confessed! . . . to collective guilt. He is guilty in the sense that we are a little guilty. Equally. Angry bloggers who live with their families in 2.5 bedroom apartments and smug pundits who live in houses the size of the Gaza Stripe. People who drive to low-paying jobs because they have no other way to get there and rich blowhards who fly around the world giving lectures that they could have crapped out on Skype.

Thomas L. Friedman, you are America. You promote your brand and interests at all costs, including other people's deaths. You've devoured everything in sight -- and now you want everyone who didn't get a piece of the pie to tighten their belt because it is threatening your lifestyle. You preach endlessly about others' flaws without ever pausing to consider whether you live in a glass mansion. And you can't understand why everyone hates you.

Fire Tom Friedman.