Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "plan-b"

New York, W.W.Norton and Company, 2011
Do re-read this book. It’s 200 pages filled with data --all confirmed and expanded by recent events--erratic weather extremes, water loss, expanding deserts, rising temperatures, refugees and failed states.

The Earth Policy Institutes “Plan B” is simple--its conclusions all too obvious: “…we need to build an economy…powered [by] wind, solar and geothermal--one that has a diversified transparent system that reuses and recycles everything.

Changing our current economy requires “full-cost pricing.” Economists must calculate indirect costs and restructure taxes. Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would provide “rapid economic growth.” Taxing carbon emissions is an obvious need-- being honest about costs of “…burning gasoline or coal…deforestation…over pumping aquifers and …overfishing.” We need to recognize the “sustainable yield limits of natural systems.”

In 2007 a Florida coal plant license was refused because “…the utility proposing it could not prove that building the plant would be cheaper than investing in conservation, efficiency, or renewable energy sources.”

The obvious quick fixes are “…eliminating fossil fuel subsidies…build[ing] together” instead of spending so much on the military, and “taxing each tree cut” and cutting only mature trees.

The extreme storms had already begun when this book was written. Surely Lester Brown’s Plan B makes a lot more sense than blindly assuming we must grow the economy, regardless. See Lester Brown

Lester R. BrownWorld on the Edge--How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse by Lester R. Brown, WW Norton and Co. N.Y. 2011.

Early studies have concluded that human demands on Earth’s resources exceeded its natural systems in 1980 and in 2007 exceeded Earth’s “sustainable yields by 20 percent.” In contrast, economic date of about 2010 showed a “10-fold growth in world economy since 1950. The fourfold increase in world income was celebrated.

That is good news, Lester Brown tells us in 2011, until we realized that Earth’s recent environmental declines suggest inevitable economic and social collapse following the shrinking of Earth’s forests, soils, aquifers, fisheries and high temperatures

Brown’s Plan B focused on cutting global carbon emissions, stabilizing the human population at 8 billion by 2040, eradicating poverty, and restoring forests, soil, aquifers, and fisheries. Costs, he said, were 1/8 of the 2011 world military spending.

What were we thinking? He also predicted that by 2020 up to 60 million people would migrate from Sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa and Europe. CO2 emissions should be cut to 400 ppm by 2020 so we can reduce it to the 350 ppm recommended. In 2020 a worldwide carbon tax of $200 per ton could be offset by reduction in income taxes. An additional $200 billion could restore Earth’s national systems, by 2020 we should stabilize population and eradicate poverty--paid for by “updating the concept of national security. How different are questions for the world now? It’s already 2020.

Brown’s ideas could still help, if we could change our individual focus. CO2 emissions per passenger mile on high speed trains are about 1/3 those of cars and 1/4 of planes. Do we have to be slaves to saving time? We have been using more solar and building more efficient buildings, but we need to do more. The oceans are filling with plastic, People are desperate for food and safety on too many places for too many wrong reasons. In 2011 government were spending $500 billion per years to subsidize the use of fossil fuels. Simple requirements like rooftop solar, water heaters and energy efficient building.

Brown’s ideas are simple once fully realized. They could reverse the downward trend we have taken since 2011. Think wind, solar and geothermal, a tax on carbon. Raise gasoline taxes and cut income taxes. We could still do it--build a new economy--carbon free. Oystein Bahle of Exxon Norway noted that “Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the economical truth.

WW Norton and Co, New York, 2004.

When this book was published, 16 years ago!, climate change was “widely discussed,” the author wrote, but “…we are slow to grasp its full meaning…there is no normal to return to.”

Listening to the evening news makes it clear that we are still not grasping what we need to be doing. In 2004 Brazil was the “…only country with the potential to expand world cropland area measurably.” and now? What is happening in Brazil? Have we already outgrown the Earth and failed to recognize that fact?

In 2004, “falling water tables and rising temperatures” were already slowing the growth of world food production. Lester Brown’s list of “environmental fallout from overuse” goes on and on, on page 8.

Mortality and fertility of humans were “…essentially in balanced in some countries, and others were able to “reduce family size” quickly. Has it been enough? Have fisheries continued to collapse, as Brown saw.? Have the world’s range lands been overgrazed in 2020?

Earth’s productivity was increasing in 2004. What are we doing now to recycle plant nutrients, as we did when “the world was largely rural? Are we we using crop residues, animal manures, soil rebuilding, leguminous plants? Have we learned to avoid overgrazing and overplowing?

Have we confronted the fact that in 2004 “…waste tables are falling in scores of countries…”? Are we all being efficient by using drip irrigation? Are all our choices water-efficient? No more water wasting coal-fired power plants? Recycling urban water supplies?

Stabilizing water tables was urgent in 2004, and now as urgent as stabilizing global temperatures and atmospheric carbon dioxide. Sea levels will rise. It’s probably too late to stop that. Wind energy is being used now, but is it enough? How can we reduce our use of electricity--everywhere?

In 1991 the U.S. Dept. Of Energy concluded that three states alone could provide the entire nation’s electricity needs. As we deal with the pandemic of 2020 and plan to rebuild the future, there will be chances to rethink and reinvest more wisely the way we use Earth’s gifts. The lessons are clear in books such as this one.