Thomas Friedman's "The New Sputnik"

Thomas Friedman has a new column today in The New York Times that echoes his 2007 column on "The Power of Green" and should be helpful for those writing an Open Letter about climate change and China.  An excerpt from "The New Sputnik":

What do we know about necessity? It is the mother of invention. And when China decides it has to go green out of necessity, watch out. You will not just be buying your toys from China. You will buy your next electric car, solar panels, batteries and energy-efficiency software from China.

I believe this Chinese decision to go green is the 21st-century equivalent of the Soviet Union’s 1957 launch of Sputnik — the world’s first Earth-orbiting satellite. That launch stunned us, convinced President Eisenhower that the U.S. was falling behind in missile technology and spurred America to make massive investments in science, education, infrastructure and networking — one eventual byproduct of which was the Internet.