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Plan B 3.0 road map: Start here

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We are here

Our destination: Global prosperity, comfortable, sustainable lifestyles worldwide, and an end to poverty.

According to world-renowned economist Lester Brown, it's all possible. Not only is it possible, but to save civilization for future generations, it is imperative.

Image credit: NASA's Visible Earth series


Can you imagine it? In Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to save civilization, Brown hands us a road map to worldwide prosperity and sustainability.

Not only does he show us how worldwide prosperity is possible, he sets a budget for achieving it--a realistic budget to end global warming and poverty.

Did I mention Dr. Brown is a world-renowned economist? He knows his stuff. And he says this is doable.

That's the primary take-home message of Plan B 3.0. We can do this. To save ourselves, we must do it before 2020. That's just eight short years from now. If we start now, we can do it. Are you up for the journey?

Start here. Begin your trek to building a sustainable economy. You're not alone. Millions of people the world over are on similar paths. Join us.
Lester R. Brown, Founder and President , Courtesy Earth Policy Institute

 

 

 


All the problems we face can be dealt with using existing technologies. And almost everything we need to do to move the world economy back onto an environmentally sustainable path has already been done in one or more countries.

Lester R. Brown in
Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization


Lester R. Brown
Courtesy Earth Policy Institute

Keep our destination in mind

While you're reading this lens, take care not to get discouraged. Keep in mind our destination: We're building a new, sustainable economy. There is enough to go around. If we act now, we can assure there always will be

  • Enough energy
  • Enough security
  • Enough land
  • Enough food
  • Enough resources
for everyone, the world over, to live well and sustainably.This is all about taking the first step toward building a new eco-economy. So before you begin, indulge a few seconds in this short Lester Brown clip on how exciting a new eco-economy can be for us all. (It's short and to the point. Worth the download.)
Important!

Decision time

It is decision time. Like earlier civilizations that got into environmental trouble, we have to make a choice. We can stay with business as usual and watch our economy decline and our civilization unravel, or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that mobilizes to save civilization. Our generation will make the decision, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to come.

Lester Brown

First step: Understand the problem

We cannot fix what we cannot see

Give yourself a quick pat on the back. Just by reading this lens, you're taking the first step. To vision a better economy, we must know why, if we care about leaving a world full of promise and opportunity to our children and grandchildren--a world of prosperity, fresh air and clean water--our present world economy isn't working and won't get us there. Read on.

Why isn't our economy working?

AND WHY WON'T IT CARRY US TO A GRAND FUTURE?

The short answer: The old economy, Plan A, the one we have now, cannot sustain quality of life for any of us in the decades to come.

Here's one example

IT HITS US IN THE POCKETBOOK EVERY TIME WE BUY GAS

We're running low on oil. You don't have to work on Wall Street to know supply is failing, because you're paying more and more at the gas pump. Sure, the oil cartels and Big Oil have lowered the prices since the big financial crisis began (See the 60 Minutes interview with the Saudi oil baron), but Even George W. Bush, himself from an oil dynasty family, says Americans are addicted to oil and must do something about it.

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world.

President George W. Bush State of the Union address 2006

So what? We can grow our fuel!

Now that we're running out of cheap oil, it's becoming cost-effective to make our fuel. We can make fuel from anything that burns. Corn works. We're making ethanol from corn, and it burns a tad cleaner than oil. That's a plus! So we'll grow our oil and eliminate our dependency on foreign sources. Bring it on home. We're turning corn into fuel.

Fifty-one cents per gallon FREE

To corn ethanol producers and their suppliers

Ethanol from corn works especially well in the current political climate because the US government pays a 51 cent per gallon subsidy to ethanol producers. That's on top of a whole slew of other corn subsidies, and that makes ethanol a real popular option. Now that crude is so expensive, all those subsidies make it just as cheap to make fuel here at home from corn as to buy from the Saudis and Iraqis.

Cheaper for whom?

Who picks up the tab?

Cheap for the producers, anyway. You and I pay for it in higher taxes, higher gas prices, and higher food prices. Tack that 51 cents right onto the price at the pump, please, and add a few more dollars to our grocery bill. Oops. That lowers our overall spending power--fewer dollars in our pockets here at home. But that's not all. Worldwide, the costs of our gas-slurping economy are far greater.

Corn for fuel is good business

Helps the economy

But, hey! Corn for fuel is good business. Take the commodities brokers who buy corn from our farmers and send it overseas to fill hungry bellies. These days, they're making more money selling the corn to ethanol distilleries right here. Anyone knows that the more dollars turn over, the more we all benefit. Right? Business is business. Leave the charity to the donors. They're more likely to get it right anyway.

So corn for fuel instead of food is good for all of us, Right?

CORN IS MORE THAN KERNELS, SYRUP AND COBS

Corn is in just about every product we buy on the supermarket shelf, one way or another. From the corn-fed beef, chicken and pork we prize so highly, to the high-fructose-corn-syrup-sweetener in our colas (Americans drink six hundred 12-ounce servings per person each year), to the additives that make our French fries crisp and our instant oatmeal soft, there's a corn product in there somewhere.

Corn is food

or is it?

As crude oil becomes more and more scarce, the price of corn will continue to rise. So will the price of rapeseed and other crops used to make ethanol and biodiesel. What will happen to the price of food as we divert more and more corn and cropland to fuel our vehicles?

Production will decline, and the prices for chicken, turkey, pork, milk, and eggs will rise. A number of Iowa's pork producers could go out of business in the next few years as they are forced to compete with ethanol plants for corn supplies.

How Biofuels Could Starve the poor
C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer

Cropland for food dwindling

Because cropland all over the world is being used to produce fuel, the amount of land used to grow food shrinks. Wall Street is paying attention--and dollars--as agricultural commodities increase in value. One stockbroker, citing ethanol for the rising cost of movie popcorn, advises his clients to jump on the haywagon and invest in agriculture.

Here's a sound bite for you

The grain it takes to fill a 25-gallon tank with ethanol just once will feed one person for a whole year.

Lester R. Brown
Inside Greentech - Quote o' the week

Here it is again, from Runge and Senauer

Filling the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn--which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year.

C. Ford Runge and Benjamin Senauer

What about that "One tank of gas = one full belly"

FOR A WHOLE YEAR

Assuming you and I keep driving gas-powered vehicles, will we literally deprive a human being of food for an entire year every time we fill our tanks? How often do you fill your tank?

Plan A not working

You can see that the costs of continuing to fuel our vehicles, our industries, and our lifestyles as we have for nearly a century--Plan A--are not sustainable. If we continue, we risk starving more and more people worldwide to satisfy the nearly insatiable needs of a relative few in developed countries. Simultaneously, we're pumping more and more carbon into the atmosphere, heating the planet, possibly irreversibly.

Two things you can do right now

It's all up to us--you and me--and the choices we make

In this clip, filmed when Plan B 2.0, precursor to 3.0, came out, Brown begins with the global picture and quickly brings it home to the personal. Watch and discover two important steps you can take right now to bring us all closer to a sustainable, eco-economy and a future that is better than the present.
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1st important contribution

Buy a re-usable water bottle and help slow global warming while saving hundreds of dollars/year on bottled water

Replace your bottled water with tap water

CARRY IT IN THE KLEEN KANTEEN

Americans discard 38 billion plastic water bottles a year. It takes 1.5 billion barrels of oil to produce them.

David Kiley in Business Week

Klean Kanteen 18 oz Steel Flat Cap Bottle

Klean Kanteen 18 oz Steel Flat Cap Bottle

Amazon Price: $15.00 (as of 05/27/2012)Buy Now
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The Kleen Kanteen is lightweight, has a wider mouth for easier cleaning, is non-toxic, and totally eco-friendly. It comes in a variety of sizes, including a small one with a Sippy-cup top for your little ones.

2nd important contribution

Ask your congressperson to sit down and talk about mobilizing to save civilization now

Dr. Brown says ...

People often expect me to suggest lifestyle changes, such as recycling newspapers or changing light bulbs. These are essential, but they are not nearly enough. Restructuring the global economy means becoming politically active, working for the needed changes, as the grassroots campaign against coal-fired power plants is doing. Saving civilization is not a spectator sport."
- Lester R. Brown

Set up a community meeting with your congressional representative

Invite your friends and neighbors

Call or write your congressional representative and tell them you'd like to meet with them next time their in town to discuss Lester Brown's Plan B 3.0 and mobilizing to save our world from economic and environmental disaster.

Hand deliver the book to your elected officials in Washington, D.C.

Because we can't do it alone and they'll listen to us when we sit down face to face

Want to show your congressional delegation just how serious you are about global warming and ending poverty? Visit them in Washington. They pay attention to constituents who go out of their way to talk with them.

Plan your trip to Washington here and get good deals from Orbitz.


 
 

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Can we do it? Yes!

It will take a war-time mobilization such as we have not seen in sixty years. In this vid, author Lester Brown identifies the single most important policy change required to save civilization and tells us how it can be done. Hint: He's not going to tell you to go shopping.

After the video, go to President-Elect Obama's website and tell him why you think America needs to ramp up a war-time mobilization to save our civilization.
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There's more

As the global economy expands, more and more people in developing nations are getting a taste of our wealth. They want what we have: fast cars and fast food, IPhones, HDTV and sparkling malls full of crisp new jeans and every electronic gadget under the sun. My next Plan B 3.0 lens--coming soon--digs into Brown's research and conclusions on global expansion.

Read the book to find out which country has taken over the US in consumption of all but one commodity, and learn what that commodity is. How long before we're second, or third, in consumption of all major commodities? What will that mean for our quality of life? For quality of life globally? How many cars, cell phones, I-pods, McDonalds and Walmarts can the world sustain?

Test your knowledge!

In his preface to Plan B 3.0, Brown states that China now uses more basic resources than the United States in all but one commodity. Yes, the US, with it's mere 3.2 million people, compared to China's 1.3 billion people, is still using more of one basic resource. Which is it? The answer in the upcoming lens on the global economy and our place in it.
 

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Want the full Plan B story?

GET THE BOOK!

Buy it! If you can't buy it, check it from your local library. If they don't have it, ask them to secure it on an interlibrary loan. If you can't wait, read it online for free, and if you're so inclined, make a donation to the Earth Policy Institute to help defray the costs of hosting the book.
 
Plan B 3.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble by Lester R. Brown

Have you read it?

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Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised) by Lester R. Brown

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We're all on this journey together. Share yours here.
Please, if you post a comment, make it count. Your opinion is important.

  • michael_kapsner Jun 19, 2011 @ 4:21 pm | delete
    Thanks for the lens. Have to say I have always been bothered buy the idea of burning food (ethanol). Seems to me that people are more important than getting 2 tons of steel down the road.
  • Fusion_Economics May 9, 2009 @ 7:56 pm | delete
    This is a great lens! You have put together a great collection of tips and information to help people. When you get a chance, I'd love it if you'd stop by my lens and say hello.
  • saffiandemi Apr 14, 2008 @ 5:39 am | delete
    This is a very informative lens. I live in the UK and petrol prices (currently £1.08 a litre!!) is quite a concern. I also fill my bottles back up with tap water and have worried about hygiene but those bottles from amazon look great and I hope to find a similar alternative over in the UK. Great lens!
  • Mar 17, 2008 @ 9:42 pm | delete
    This is such an important topic. I hope you get a lot of visitors who take the message to heart.
    I re-use everything I can, combine all my errands into one trip, and turn off all electric devices when not in use. I teach my children to love and treasure the natural environment around them.
Show All

Ethanol - Can it solve our energy needs?

Is it worth the cost?

Learn more about the ethanol debate right here. Researchers, economists, environmentalists, naysayers and pundits all have their eye on ethanol, once known in remote hills and vales as White Lightning. Here's a smattering of intelligence, opinion and, depending on your point of view, perhaps plain old riff-raff.
 
Corn Dog: The ethanol subsidy is worse than you can imagine
By Robert Bryce - For the last generation, ethanol has been America's fuel of the future. But there has never been more hype about it than there is today
Tariffs and Subsidies - The Literal Cost of High Fructose Corn Syrup
by the Accidental Hedonist -- A good explanation of why high fructose corn syrup replaced sugar in most of the soft drinks and packaged foods we eat; also explains why ethanol costs all of more in taxes, rising food prices, and more
Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in 2008
by Lester R. Brown -- We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before
Plan B - How to Stop Global Warming
by Bryan Walsh -- It's called eco-anxiety - free-form worry triggered by concerns about the worsening fate of the planet - and if you suffer from it, you might want to give Lester Brown's new book, Plan B 3.0, a pass

by

Graceonline

This page is one of a series focusing on Lester Brown's book, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.
The purpose of these pages is to break Plan... more »

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