ABSTRACT
In a recent article in The New York Times, Friedman (2010) stated that, “The fat lady has sung.” Specifically, he was speaking about America’s transition from the “greatest generation” to what novelist Kurt Anderson has referred to as the “grasshopper generation.” According to Friedman, we are “going from the age of government handouts to the age of citizen givebacks, from the age of companions fly free to the age of paying for each bag.” Our parents were the greatest generation, but we have changed course and become the grasshopper generation, which is “eating through the prosperity that was bequeathed us like hungry locusts.” Emphasizing again the major theme of this text, what we are eating through, among other things, is our readily available, relatively inexpensive source of energy. The point is we can, like the grasshopper, gobble it all up until it is all gone or we can find alternatives-renewable alternatives of energy.
