<p>Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman will speak about the environment on April 22, 2008, at 6 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101.</p>

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Green is the new red, white and blue, according to Pulitzer-Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who will speak at Brown University on April 22, 2008, at 6 p.m. in the Salomon Center for Teaching, Room 101.

Friedman’s Earth Day address is free and open to the public. The event is sponsored by Brown’s Environmental Change Initiative as part of its spring speaker series, “Going Green, Globally: Scientific, Economic and Political Perspectives.”

“Moving nimbly between politics, economics, history, culture and science, Tom Friedman demonstrates a tremendous intellectual agility in his columns and books,” said Osvaldo Sala, the Sloan Lindemann Professor of Biology and director of the Environmental Change Initiative. “The Environmental Change Initiative is proud to host his visit and we look forward to a challenging and enlightening conversation.”

Friedman will discuss the economic and foreign policy implications of green technology.

Continued American dependence on foreign oil, instead of developing more sustainable and home-grown energy alternatives, does our country and planet a grave injustice while promoting the well-being of those unfriendly to our national interests, he has said.

“One day Iraq, our post-9/11 trauma and the divisiveness of the Bush years will all be behind us – and America will need, and want, to get its groove back,” Friedman wrote in The New York Times Magazinein 2007.

“We will need to find a way to re-knit America at home, reconnect America abroad and restore America to its natural place in the global order – as the beacon of progress, hope and inspiration. I have an idea how. It’s called ‘green.’”

Thomas L. Friedman


Friedman, a world-renowned author and journalist, joined the New York Times in 1981 as a financial reporter. A three-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Friedman has covered the Middle East conflict, the end of the Cold War, U.S. domestic politics and foreign policy, international economics and the worldwide impact of terrorism.

Friedman’s first book, From Beirut to Jerusalem, won both the National Book Award and the Overseas Press Club Award in 1989. It spent a year on the New York Times bestseller list. His most recent book,The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, released in April 2005, was named the first Goldman Sachs/Financial Times Business Book of the Year.

A 2007 Discovery Channel documentary featured Friedman’s reporting on green technology. He is currently on leave from the Times, writing a book about energy and the environment.

A Minneapolis native, Friedman graduated summa cum laude from Brandeis University and received a master’s degree in modern Middle East studies from Oxford University. He lives in Bethesda, Md.

Environmental Change Initiative

In 2004, Brown University launched the Environmental Change Initiative, an interdisciplinary research, education, and service initiative focused on environmental change. The initiative sponsors speakers, workshops and conferences, encouraging a broad conversation about environmental challenges and solutions.