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: sustainadelic
on 26 Oct, 2011
On October 31st, a newborn baby will take the world's population to seven billion.
Population is the elephant in the room in any discussion of the environment. One reason is that most population growth is in Asia, Africa and South America, and left-leaning greenies don't want to be seen to blame the poor nations of the "global South" for the planet's woes.
You see, the global North - the rich nations of Europe, north America, Japan, Australia - created most of our environmental problems. Capitalism, a European/American invention, drives our endless and rapacious consumption of the natural world. Colonialism turned much of the global South into a giant logging and mining operation. Most of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were put there either by rich nations, or by developing nations such as China producing goods for consumption in those rich nations.
But we can't ignore population. It's obvious that seven billion people will use more natural resources than the billion who lived in 1800, or the two billion in 1920.
Our current rate of population growth + consumption, as a species, is unsustainable. We are using natural resources, such as forests or fish, faster than they can regenerate. The Global Footprint Network calculates September 27 was "Overshoot Day" - the day we used up our sustainable supply of nature for the year.
Some, such as James Lovelock (who formulated the Gaia Hypothesis), predict human population will crash to about a million by the end of the century. Disease will thrive in the hotter temperatures of a globally warmed world. Human food supply will collapse as farmland is exhausted through drought and over-farming, and fish stocks will collapse through overfishing and ocean warming and acidification. These things are already happening. Fish stocks are hugely depleted. Arable land around the world is turning to desert.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 08 Jul, 2009
A new report, the Happy Planet Index, ranks nations according to the quality of life they deliver for the least environmental harm. Costa Rica was first. Australia comes in a magnificent 102nd.
Posted by:
on 30 Oct, 2008
It's here again... the WWF's Living Planet Report [is one of the best surveys of the state of the world's environment, and the 2008 version is just out.
