New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman.

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EAST LANSING, Mich. — Three-time Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman will be in Michigan to outline an emerging agenda that will make “green power the next great global industry.”

The program, featuring Friedman and remarks by University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman and Michigan State University President Lou Anna K. Simon is Wednesday, Sept. 17, at 12:20 p.m. at the Eastern Michigan University Convocation Center. Registration for the Michigan Business Review’s “The Innovation Experience” begins at 10:30 a.m.

Friedman’s No. 1 bestseller, “The World is Flat: A Brief History of the 21st Century,” changed the national discussion on the opportunities and challenges of a global economy. His newest book, “Hot, Flat and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution – and How it Can Renew America,’’ is the focus of his address as energy has become one of the top election year issues.

Sponsors of the program include the Washtenaw Economic Club, the Michigan Business Review and presenting partner, the University Research Corridor. In addition, the URC also will make available a new report offering a breakout on Michigan’s opportunities for developing green technologies.

The URC, an alliance of MSU, U-M and Wayne State University, was formed to transform, strengthen and diversify the state's economy. The universities are working together to leverage their collective assets and encourage collaboration with business, government and communities to help accelerate innovation and economic growth.

Friedman’s talk is part of a daylong focus on Michigan-based innovations forming the seeds of a growing green-energy industry, including the Michigan Business Review’s “Innovation: The Business of Green 9.17,” a daylong event bringing together Michigan’s most innovative companies utilizing and supplying alternative energy.

Friedman’s book states that America has been overwhelmed with articles about “easy ways to go green’’ and notes “green’’ was the single-most trademarked word in 2007. But he said the over-abundance of such articles shows the makings of “a party – not a revolution.’’ The real changes will be hard, not easy, and most are yet to come, he writes.

Despite the increasing need for new green technologies, U.S. venture capital funds invested just $5 billion in green revolution investments last year compared to $100 billion invested in information technology in 2000, the peak of the dot.com boom, Friedman said.

“Anyone who looks at the growth of middle classes around the world and their rising demands for natural resources, plus the dangers of climate change driven by our addiction to fossil fuels, can see that clean, renewable energy — wind, solar, nuclear and stuff we haven’t yet invented — is going to be the next great global industry,’’ Friedman said in a recent column. “It has to be if we are going to grow in a stable way.

“Therefore, the country that most owns the clean power industry is going to most own the next great technology breakthrough –  the ET revolution, the energy technology revolution –  and create millions of jobs and thousands of new businesses, just like the IT revolution did.”

Friedman, the Times’ foreign affairs columnist who has done his research in many countries around the world, writes that a population explosion, a “flattening world’’ with China, India and their rising middle classes, as well as climate change, have all converged. Calling it a “hopeful book,’’ he said that “if America seizes the opportunity to solve these problems, it will be a huge engine propelling our economy in the 21st century.’’

A limited block of 1,000 free tickets (for the speech only) are available to MSU, U-M and WSU students, faculty and staff. For more details visit: www.mlive.com/innovation  or www.washtenaweconclub.com/tix.php.

Partners of the event include the Michigan Economic Development Corp., Butzel Long, Cleary University, Detroit Regional Chamber, Consort Display Group, EMU, National City, NextEnergy, Russell Video, HP and Washtenaw Community College.

Related information can be found at:

www.mlive.com/innovation

www.thomaslfriedman.com/bookshelf/hot-flat-and-crowded

www.washtenaweconclub.com

www.urcmich.org

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