New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman criticizes Bush Administration energy policy at Wheaton

Author and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman warned the 350 members of Wheaton College's Class of 2001 to be wary of the "globalization lifestyle" and to embrace the fundamental virtues, including conservation.

"I can assure you," Friedman said, "when Vice President [Dick] Cheney says, 'Conservation-oh, that's a feel-good virtue,' [I say] Oh, no, I'm sorry; it is an obligation."

(For a transcript of Friedman's remarks, click here.)

"We now live in a world where 1.5 of the six billion people in the world live the globalization lifestyle," Friedman said. "The globalization lifestyle means you use a lot of hydrocarbons, petrochemicals and bent metal. But we are rapidly moving from a world where a billion people are living that lifestyle to three billion. And if we make that transition without being able to do more things with less stuff, we are going to smoke up, burn up and heat up this planet at a speed absolutely never witnessed by any class of Wheaton College."

Friedman urged graduates to become more familiar with the increasing complexity and connectivity of the global village. "When Bill Clinton became president, no one you knew had e-mail and most people thought the Internet was something you used to catch fish with on the Nile," he said. "If the next eight years are as complex as the last eight years, we will have to reconvene the Founding Fathers and Founding Mothers of this country to fundamentally restructure the legal system of America."

Among the more than 600 alumnae/i who participated in the graduation as part of their Reunion Weekend was Alice Whalley Holcomb, a member of the Class of 1926. College President Dale Rogers Marshall honored Holcomb on her 75th reunion and thanked her for a lifetime commitment to the college.

In the 2000-2001 academic year, Wheaton students and recent graduates won eight prestigious national awards: a Rhodes, British Marshall, Truman, Udall and four Fulbright scholarships. Graduating award winners include Rhodes Scholar Miles Sweet of Fairfield, Maine, a chemistry major, and three Fulbright Scholars: Andrea Christoforou of Lynn, Mass., a pre-med and mathematics major; Susan Habas of Ogunquit, Maine, a biochemistry major; and Laura Steele of Kennebunkport, Maine, a dual major in French and psychology.

Friedman's keynote address drew the greatest response when he spoke of the dangers of what he called "the real Y2K disease - overconnectedness. "The assumption now is that you are always in. You are stepping into a world where [OE]out' is over[sigma].Managing this overconnectedness is going to be a real social challenge. The best thing you can do for yourself when you walk out of here is either don't get one, or throw away whatever cell phone, pager, Blackberry or Palm Pilot you've acquired."

Our connected world, Friedman said, is not about modems or bandwidth. "It's all about the fundamentals. It's about reading, writing and arithmetic, church, synagogue, temple, mosque, rule of law, good governance, good institution. You get those right, and the wires will find you."

Considered one of America's leading interpreters of world affairs, Friedman has served as foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times since 1995. Before that, he worked as bureau chief of the Times' Beirut office, chief White House correspondent, chief diplomatic correspondent covering Secretary of State James Baker and the end of the Cold War and foreign economics correspondent for the Times. He won the Pulitzer Prize for international reporting twice in the 1980s.

Joining Mr. Friedman on the dais May 19 were honorary degree recipients Margaret J. Tibbetts '41, former ambassador to Norway; Frederick Barton, the United Nations deputy high commissioner for refugees; Winston R. Hindle, Jr., Wheaton trustee and former senior vice president of Digital Equipment Corporation, and John F. Mars, president and CEO of Mars, Inc. Mars is the husband of Wheaton trustee Adrienne B. Mars '58.

Wheaton, located in Norton, Mass., is a selective college of the liberal arts and sciences with a student body of 1,500. It is a member of the Twelve College Exchange, which also includes Amherst, Bowdoin, Connecticut, Dartmouth, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Trinity, Vassar, Wellesley, Wesleyan and Williams.