Book meme

[only_more_love]

Snagged from mdemvizi .

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next seven sentences in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.
6. Tag five other people to do the same.  Bueller?  Bueller?

From Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman:

Cities all over the world have caught America's affluenza -- surely one of the most infectious diseases ever known to man.  Tom Burke, co-founder of the group E3G -- Third Generation Environmentalism, a nonprofit green consultancy -- likes to put it this way:  Think of America as a unit of energy.  So one "Americum," as Burke puts it, "is any group of 350 million people with a per capita income above $15,000 and a growing penchant for consumerism."  For many years, there were only two Americums in the world, says Burke -- one in North American and another in Europe, with small pockets of Americum-style living in Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East.

"Today," he notes, "there are Americums taking shape all over the planet."  China has given birth to one Americum and is pregnant with a second, which is due in 2030.  India has one Americum now and also has another on the way, also due by 2030.