"Green and Flat"

Could renewable energy somehow connect to the integration of the global poor into the global economy?

Friedman argues, in "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," that, just as developing countries, lacking infrastructure, leapfrogged over the age of landline telephony directly into cellphone usage, so, too, do they need to leapfrog (at least in large measure) the age of centrally organized 'dirty' power into decentralized solar, wind, etc. power. He writes of a rural Indian village that powers internet-based employment with solar power. Interestingly, he notes, some town residents had lived in the city but returned, in spite of somewhat lower salaries, so that they could enjoy the openness of the countryside, the culture and family ties of their youth, etc.