Yesterday on NPR's "Fresh Air," noted New York Times journalist Thomas Friedman laid out the basic green energy argument of his newest book, Hot, Flat and Crowded (also the new slogan for the city of Los Angeles). Instead of making a traditional argument for switching to green sources of energy, he focuses on the geopolitical reasons for kicking the carbon habit.

Throughout the interview, Friedman seems flabbergasted at the state of things, that John McCain's energy policies are "making people stupid," that oil prices can explain the fall of the Soviet Union and that global warming means that we can't tell the difference between an act of God and an act of man.

He also argues that leadership spurs innovation by providing the right incentives to develop green energy technologies, and shapes the market. "We need 100,000 innovators in 100,000 garages trying 100,000 things. 100 of which will be pretty promising, 10 will be workable, and three be the next Google," he says.

In what I thought was the most interesting part of the interview, Friedman explained how the U.S. invested billions in wind and solar technology, only to have the funding cut in the 1980s. This caused American renewable energy companies to go broke, only to get bought out by Japan and Denmark, who are now the leaders in those fields.

The renewable energy tax credit is again on death row, failing to pass eight times this year alone (Friedman notes that McCain was not present at any of those votes). As with mullets, it looks like the '80s can teach us a lot about what not to do.