Please Read this Book!

A Review of World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse
by Lester Brown

Our summer in Berlin has been truly filled with the joys of urban living - except for the changeable weather! People tell us this has been the coolest, wettest summer they can recall. We still have had some lovely sunny days but more frequent cool and rainy times indicate that the weather is just not normal! Folks here are convinced this is not an aberration - it is climate change at work.

It was with these thoughts in mind, that I read Lester Brown’s latest book, World on the Edge, to understand what’s really happening with the planet. World on the Edge, the most recent release of the Plan B series of books, is assiduously well documented, and a reasoned account of the environmental trends that are undermining the world economy.

For those unfamiliar with Lester Brown, he is the founder of the Earth Policy Institute and before that he founded Worldwatch, the organization that has published State of the World each year. Brown and the Earth Policy Team developed Plan B, outlining a plan, a budget, and a timetable for rescuing our twenty-first century civilization.

The environmental trends he discusses are falling water tables, eroding soils and expanding deserts, rising temperatures, melting ice, shrinking harvests and food insecurity. These trends lead to a new politics of food scarcity, environmental refugees, mounting stresses and failing states. As Brown states in the Foreword, "Restructuring the economy in time to avoid decline will take a massive mobilization at wartime speed." This book provides a more urgent call to action and presents the latest version of Plan B supported by new data and research.

On the hopeful side, he reports that all over the world, investments are being made by private firms, national governments and international organizations to restore the global economy’s natural support systems through energy efficiency, renewable energy generation, reforestation, and irrigation efficiency. Investments are being made, too, in education, health care and family planning.

But it is not enough! This Plan B envisions an additional annual expenditure of $75 Billion to meet the social goals such as universal primary education and school lunch programs, adult literacy programs, reproductive health and family planning and universal basic health care worldwide. To meet the environmental restoration goals including stabilizing water tables, protecting biodiversity, planting trees, and restoring topsoil, range lands and fisheries, an additional annual investment of $110 Billion will be needed. The total investment of $185 Billion is the ‘new defense budget’ to address the most serious threats to national and global security. This investment is just 28% of the US military budget or 12% of the world military budget!

What is needed, then, is a fundamental restructuring in two cornerstone areas: taxation and security. Plan B envisions a total restructuring of taxation from income to carbon. Income taxes would be reduced while carbon emissions would be taxed to include the costs of climate change and pollution. As to security, a total rethink would take place. As Brown states, "The threats to our future now are not armed aggression but rather climate change, population growth, water shortages, poverty, rising food prices, and failing states."

Lester Brown has made a powerful, well documented case to foretell the grim and chaotic future our civilization faces. He has also advanced a way forward for all of us to save civilization. But this massive mobilization at wartime speed requires each of us to participate by taking action in some way. He has provided the plan and the information sources, the data and the rationale. Now it is our turn.

I urge you to read the book, to think about how you will participate in the transformation, and to act!

My offer:

If you have a book reader or laptop, you may download a pdf copy for free from Earth Policy Institute, http://www.earth-policy.org.

If you promise to read this book, let me know and I will send you a print copy.

After you have read the book, please share your reactions and your own personal Plan B with us at http://globalPW.blogspot.com