In his column today at the NYT, Thomas Friedman writes:

We have to show [China] what Wal-Mart is showing its competitors—that green is not just right for the world, it is better, more profitable, more healthy, more innovative, more efficient, more successful.

Friedman wants to go green. He knows that the threat of global warming is real. He chastises the federal government in general, and the Bush administration in particular, for not doing enough to try to stop it.

But what Friedman, ever gleaming in his Panglossian naivete, doesn’t seem to understand is that his prescription for fighting the problem dumps us right back into the thinking that caused the problem in the first place. If the bottom line is the bottom line, if the ultimate arbiters of every political decision are economic values—profit, innovation, efficiency, success—then we leave ourselves helpless in the face of problems that can’t be—or aren’t*—adequately described in economic terms.

(more…)

Lou Dobbs would have you believe that Mexican immigrants are bringing communicable diseases into the United States. At first it seemed like just another trot for an old and tired trope. But an article in today’s NYT suggests Dobbs was closer than he might have hoped: disease is crossing the border, but it’s going the other way.