Posted by: Mark Mann
on 24 Jan, 2012
Lester Brown is one of America's leading environmentals, and founder of the Earth Policy Institute and Worldwatch (which produces the annual state of the planet reports). World on the Edge, his latest book, outlines the Earth Institute's "Plan B", a big-picture blueprint to save the world/civilisation from environmental catastrophe.
The first part of the book rounds up our current environmental woes. It's familiar territory, but a useful overview nevertheless.
The underlying problem, Brown says, is over-population (itself made possible by using fossil fuels, soil nutrients and water at unsustainable rates). This, in turn, is driving rapid deforestation, soil depletion and desertification, draining ancient freshwater aquifers and pushing fish stocks to collapse.
Rapidly rising consumption in emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil is exacerbating these problems.
On top of all that, increased use of fossil fuels is causing climate change. This will devastate agriculture through sea level rises, changing rainfall patterns, heat stress, increased drought and melting glaciers. For instance glaciers, most notably in the Himalaya, act as frozen freshwater aquifers on which a quarter of world food production depends. A one metre sea level rise would shrink Asia's rice harvest. Drought is spreading Africa's Sahara desert south. Ocean acidification and ocean warming will destroy coral reefs and devastate already depleted fish stocks.
Depressing, huh?
But Brown believes we already have the knowledge, technology and money to prevent climate change and environmental disaster.
Read the book if you can, but here's a condensed summary of Brown's plan to save the world...
1. Drive a switch to greater energy efficiency and clean energy by including the full environmental and social costs in the energy price. Make energy companies pay to clean up their pollution; they will pass the cost to the consumer. That would instantly make renewable/zero-carbon energy cheaper than fossil fuel and make energy efficiency more financially compelling. (Currently, taxpayers subsidise fossil fuel through government spending on health and environmental cleanups, and the loss of environmental services and amenity.)
2. Reverse population growth. It is well-established that improved primary education, healthcare and birth control will achieve this in poor countries, which are where the growth is taking place.
3. Implement an "earth restoration plan" of massive reforestation and more environmentally aware farming techniques. This will check soil erosion, stabilise water supplies and draw down carbon from the atmosphere.
4. Redefine "security". Most conflicts and failing states are due to environmental stresses, which leave governments unable to feed their populations. If we redirect some of our "security" budget from military spending to environmental restoration, Brown calculates we can fund his population and earth restoration programs with just 12 per cent of the world's annual military spending. (Or, 28 per cent of the $661 billion US military budget alone; America accounts for 43 per cent of global military spending.)
5. Act quickly: history shows change of sufficient speed and scale is achievable, if the political will is there. Brown cites President Roosevelt harnessing America's industrial might in the second world war in less than three years, and how Iran halved its birthrate between 1987 and 1994.
Of course, generating the political will is the real problem. Brown doesn't have an answer to that. I guess it's up to the rest of us.
Posted by: Mark Mann
on 13 Dec, 2011
Michael Duffy in the Sydney Morning Herald urges us to give up the fight against invasive introduced species. Instead, he says, conservationists should concentrate on creating "novel" but viable ecosystems that integrate introduced species with native ones.
Duffy, a contrarian environmentalist who likes to challenge mainstream green positions, points out there hasn't been untouched wilderness in Australia since Aboriginal people arrived 50,000 or so years ago and wiped out the megafauna. That's a generally accepted view, popularised by Tim Flannery in his book the Future Eaters.
Duffy argues that untouched nature isn't necessarily "better" than modified ecosystems. I think that goes too far: if we define "better" as an ecosystem with more stability, biodiversity and biomass, I think nature does a better job if left alone.
The problem, of course, is nature hasn't been left alone and Duffy is surely right to say we now have no chance of restoring Australia (or anywhere else) to a pre-colonial, or pre-human, state. We can't bring back the megafauna and we won't get rid of introduced species. Cats, rabbits, foxes, rats, mice, goats, camels, wild horses, buffalo, feral pigs, cane toads, carp, tilapia and the rest are here to stay. Foreign plant species now make up around half of Australia's flora, according to this study. Weeds such as Paterson's curse, blackberry, willows, bridal creeper, gorse, lantana and soursob are rampant.
So what is the goal of landcare, bushcare, national park management plans and other conservation strategies?
Some conservationists now propose we focus on enhancing the resilience of ecosystems, even if that means using introduced species to fill ecological niches and/or recreate a balanced ecosystem. In an essay in Nature in June, US ecologist Mark Davis and others argued many invasive species are harmless, and we shouldn't waste time trying to eradicate them.
And while it's hard to argue feral cats or foxes are harmless, trying to hold back the tide of invasive species is as futile as King Canute. Yet attempts to re-engineer ecosystems can backfire badly - think of cane toads. There's no easy answer, but it's a serious question.
It's worth reading Duffy's article, which is here.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 16 Sep, 2011
Federal environment minister Tony Burke has announced the national heritage listing of the west Kimberley region.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 11 Nov, 2010
Former UK lawyer Polly Higgins, in her new book This Is Ecocide, asks the question: what if destroying the environment was a crime?
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 17 Jan, 2010
Ecosia say 80 per cent of their advertising revenue goes to a WWF project to buy up Brazilian rainforest. They claim that every search you do on Ecosia generates enough revenue to buy two square metres of rainforest.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 28 Aug, 2009
`Sentence first, verdict afterwards,' said the Queen in Alice in Wonderland, and I suspect Kevin Rudd might have said something not entirely contrary-wise to Environment Minister Peter Garrett about the massive Gorgon natural gas project off the coast of northwest Australia.
Posted by:
on 05 Aug, 2009
Most of the Australian media missed it, but a survey out last week reported the world is in the midst of its “sixth great extinction event”, with Australia one of the planet’s worst extinction hotspots.
Posted by:
on 25 May, 2009
Updating my recent post about the strains on Aboriginal-green relations in the Kimberley and Cape York, Noel Pearson's brother Gerhardt has signed a letter supporting the Queensland Government's proposal to put Cape York up for World Heritage Listing.
Posted by:
on 18 May, 2009
The Kimberley Land Council's recent decision to accept a $1.5 billion deal with Woodside to allow development of a natural gas hub at James Price Point on the Kimberley coast north of Broome is a worrying development for the Australian conservation movement.
Posted by: John McGuinness
on 16 May, 2009
Its simple. Recycle your old phone at your local mobile store or Council and help thousands of koalas affected by the bush fires.
Its the Old Phones More Trees campaign by the Koaladoors Project and its helping not just koalas but all native animals. Full details are in this article at AustConserv. Well worth checking out and getting involved in.
So dig out those old phones now.
Posted by:
on 30 Apr, 2009
Well, don't forget peak oil entirely, but as
this New Internationalist article explains, a shortage of fertile topsoil could be more alarming. Agricultural soil loss is outpacing soil formation tenfold. With world population rising fast will we run out of land to feed ourselves?
Posted by:
on 20 Feb, 2009
While conservative parties around the world are slowly sidelining their most strident opposition to policies addressing environmental problems, conservatives' suspicion of what is still perceived as a “lefty” agenda continues to be a significant roadblock on the road to decisive action. How to overcome that suspicion? Here's one idea to help make the case for the benefit of climate-change skeptics among your family and friends: Global warming will kill million of conservatives – namely plants.
Posted by:
on 10 Aug, 2008
You wake up to a beautiful day, blue skies and birds singing. Then you read something like this, an article about oil exploration in the western Amazon. In Peru, 72 per cent of the country's Amazon region has been approved for oil exploration - most of it since 2003.
