HOT, FLAT and CROWDED

Author: Thomas L Friedman
Published by Allen Lane in 2008

Senior Executive: Strategy and Thought Leadership, SAICA .

If you enjoyed Thomas Friedman's landmark book ‘The World is Flat' (2005), you will undoubtedly find his new book ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded' well worth reading.

In ‘The World is Flat' he argued that the technology revolution was levelling the economic playing field and enabling more people around the world to connect and compete in a new dimension of globalisation.

In his new book, he explains how global warming, rapidly growing populations and a mushrooming middle class, are producing a planet that is “hot, flat and crowded”.

He makes it very clear that humankind faces its biggest threat ever, and it has little time to take corrective action.
The main body of the book is about what is currently being done and what needs to be done to combat this enormous threat.

In a chapter particularly relevant to Africa, he discusses ‘energy poverty'. He says Africa's biggest problem is its lack of a sustainable energy. In the modern world you need energy, yet the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, produces less electricity than the Netherlands. There are champions for AIDS, there are champions for poverty, but nobody is championing ‘energy' in Africa. Yet Africa will not be able to rise up and create a sustainable future without energy security.

This is a fascinating book and an essential read for anyone involved in business strategy.

A book every CA(SA) must read. It is carefully crafted and deals with each stage of his life in a well-balanced and insightful way.