Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised) by Lester R. Brown Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)
Book Review: Plan B 4.0 - Mobilizing
Summary: 5 Stars
The short final Part of Plan B - "The Great Mobilization" - is the key to success. Brown improves it from 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0, and Plan B 4.0 will be even better. Here's why ...
Read other reviews for great coverage of Part's I and II of Plan B 3.0.
In the Preface Brown says: "The most revealing difference between Plan B 2.0 and Plan B 3.0 is the change of the subtitle from "Rescuing ..." to simply "Mobilizing to Save Civilization." But only the short, final, Part III is about mobilizing. Even so, Brown is right to tell us this is the key. So why does he spend most the book on Parts I and II? He explains this as he talks about mobilization:
. * Young people can be mobilized to conduct educational campaigns (p. 134)
. * The restructuring of the energy economy will be driven by The Realization that the fate of our global civilization may depend not only on doing so, but doing so at wartime speed. (p. 238)
. * Mobilizing to save civilization ... requires an enduring economic restructuring. (p. 279)
. * Mobilizing to save civilization means restructuring the economy. (p. 280)
Brown cannot, by himself, restructure the economy. So in Parts I and II he does what he can to mobilize. He helps people "Realize" the need to mobilize (bullet 2). He encourages young people to conduct educational campaigns based on his books (bullet 1). Parts I and II are information needed to mobilize, but they don't tell us how to mobilize or much about actions to mobilize for (only what goals).
In Plan B 2.0 Brown already glimpsed Plan B 3.0, and called a section of his final chapter "Mobilizing to Save Civilization." Just before he launches into it, he explains the purpose of his book:
. . "The world can restructure the economy quickly if it is convinced of the need to do so. ... The Purpose of this book is to convince more people of this need." (Plan B 2.0, p. 255)
Note that he wisely does not say the purpose of the book is to achieve Plan B, even though that's true. That would lead people to skip crucial steps leading up to Plan B. Plan B is Brown's vision of a better world. But Brown also has a broader vision which I will call Strategy B (for Brown). This strategy runs as follows:
1. Show people the current fate of civilization and the fix - Plan B.
2. "Convince more people" that the world needs to "restructure the economy quickly."
3. Get "young people to mobilize to conduct educational campaigns."
4. Get us to "become politically active." (p. 285)
5. "Restructure taxes and reorder fiscal priorities." (p. 286)
6. Economic restructuring leads to Plan B.
Strategy B is a much bigger deal than Plan B. Plan B is a set of goals, but Strategy B is the way to make Plan B happen. If it doesn't happen it's useless.
"The purpose" of his book is to convince people of the need for Step 5, which makes Plan B happen. This is Brown's big-picture take on Step 5:
. . "The two overriding policy challenges are to restructure taxes and reorder fiscal priorities. Saving civilization means restructuring taxes to get the market to tell the ecological truth. And it means reordering fiscal priorities to get the resources needed for Plan B."
"Economic restructuring" is the key So what does Brown tell us about how it works? This is mostly in one six-page section: "Shifting Taxes and Subsidies." Here are his main points:
. . Tax coal, gasoline, logging, etc. and use the taxes to "lower income taxes."
. . Shift subsidies from fossil fuel, the fishing industry, etc. to wind, solar, biomass, and geothermal power, marine parks, etc.
. . "The most efficient means ... to stabilize atmospheric CO2 levels is a carbon tax." (p.268)
. . We propose a worldwide carbon tax of $240 per ton to be phased in at the rate of $20 per year between 2008 and 2020. (p.268)
Brown wisely does not go for the Environmental Defense or NRDC position of cap and trade but instead proposes a carbon tax. He says: "Although tradable permits are popular in the business community, ... tradable permits are a concept not widely understood by the public, making it more difficult to generate broad public support." (p.271)
I predict Plan B 4.0 will spend more time on the crucial question of economic restructuring. In the final chapter of Plan B 2.0, on mobilizing, Brown admits: "This chapter is frustratingly difficult to write because it is ... about how to mobilize support to do it." (p.252) Then, on the next page, he says "We need economists who can think like ecologists. Unfortunately they are rare." I hope I am one of those rare economists.
I have written a book, Carbonomics: How to Fix the Climate and Charge It to OPEC, aimed precisely at helping Lester Brown and others find economic proposals that make mobilizing easier and more effective. Unlike Brown, I leave out his Parts I and II - that's his job. Mine is to focus on economic restructuring. I support and explain in depth all his major points:
. . Tax carbon. Don't cap and trade.
. . Don't follow the Kyoto path, but switch to a global carbon tax.
. . Shift subsidies from fossil fuel etc. to clean energy and ecology.
There are two keys to my approach that I hope Brown will utilize in Plan B 4.0.
1) The failure of markets to include environmental costs is failure #1, as he says. But there are three more market failures worth correcting.
2) To pass strong policies soon, we need broader support from those who are sympathetic but are not coverts to Plan B. If we wait for everyone to convert, it will be far too late.
Now I must warn you about Point 2. It requires me to address a broad audience - not just the converted. So, like Obama (but without his brilliance) I take a very bi-partisan approach, which you will see as "watered down." But as Brown says, we must be quick. So I say tackle the slow parts - like setting up a carbon tax - without waiting for agreement on the numbers. We can talk about the numbers, but don't let them block our path. Later, when the tax is set up, the need for higher numbers will be more obvious and support for them easier to mobilize.
I also hope that Brown considers the impact on the poor of high carbon taxes used to pay off income taxes. The carbon tax hits the poor hardest and income taxes reductions help them the least. This is why ultra-right conservatives love this proposal - it's very regressive. Al Gore's science advisor, NASA climate scientist James Hansen has a progressive way to do just what Brown wants. That is fully explained and supported by Carbonomics.
In conclusion, Carbonomics develops the fossil-fuel part of Brown's economic restructuring - the key to making Plan B happen. So I hope you'll buy both books. Thanks, if you do. (Google carbonomics and earth policy institute.)
Book Review: Please do not buy this book, when it is available free online
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is available at the earth policy institute free of charge for downloading online. Book Review: An Excellent, Comprehensive Analysis...
Summary: 3 Stars
Lester R. Brown presents an excellent, comprehensive analysis and discussion of the major ecological and social challenges threatening humanity with the possibility of extinction. These include problems with oil and food supplies; climate change and rising sea levels; water shortages; depletion of natural resources; and warnings about possible tipping points in failing social and economic systems. The most concerning factor is global heating, which could reach a tipping point beyond which it would be impossible to reverse the melting of glaciers and the destruction of life as we know it on our planet.
He proposes numerous solutions for our most serious and urgent challenge, climate change, often measured in the numbers of coal-powered electricity generating facilities that could be eliminated. This is vital to climate control because emissions of carbon dioxide from coal burning facilities is the most serious contributor to global warming on the one hand, and one of the most readily replaceable factor on the other hand.
...in plan B we propose to cut net carbon dioxide emissions 80 perent by 2020. our goal is to prevent the atmospheric Co2 concentration from exceeding 400 ppm, thus limiting the future rise in temperature.
This is an extraordinarily ambitious undertanking. It means, for example, phasing out all coal-fired power plants by 2020 while greatly reducing the sue of oil. This is not a simple matter.
We can, however, make this shift using currently available technologies. The three components of this carbon-cutting effort are halting deforestation while planting trees to sequester carbon, ... raising energy efficiency worldwide, ... and harnessing the earth's renewable sources of energy... Plan B calls for using the most energy-efficient technologies available for lighting, for heating and cooling buildings, and for transportation. It calls for an ambitious exploitation of the earth's solar, wind, and geotheramal energy sources. It means, for example, a wholesale shift to plug-in hybrid cars, running them largely on wind-generated electricity. (p. 67)
The challenges that are threatening to overwhelm the capacities of various countries to deal with the pressing problems of their populations are not being addressed in anything resembling serious or concerted efforts by the wealthier nations. Brown points out that relatively modest investments in enhanced education (sums far smaller than are being spent on arms and military engagements) are key to stabilizing social and political crises around the world. These are potential human time bombs that could escalate into global problems of population migrations which would threaten other nations. With basic education it is possible to achieve birth control, reductions in population growth and reducing the spread of AIDS are achievable goals.
Plan be is shaped by what is needed to save civilization, not by what may currently be considered politically feasible. Plan B does not fit within a particular discipline, sector, or set of assumptions.
Implementing Plan B means undertaking several actions simultaneously, including eradicating poverty, stabilizing population, and restoring the earth's natural systems. (p. 20)
This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in understanding the global crises that threaten the continuation of life as we know it on our planet, and wanting to contribute to preventing this disaster.
If you are not contributing to the solution, you are a part of the problem. -Anonymous
Book Review: Deeply Insightful but Very Readable
Summary: 5 Stars
This is one of the finest books to summarize in layman's terms both the problems and solutions to our unsustainable, industrialized economy. What distinguishes Lester Brown form other authors on the topic of sustainability is the ease of readability of his books. That definitely cannot be said about other, overly laborious works that mostly appeal to policy makers or academia.
Version 3.0 (2007) here expands where Plan B 2.0 left off and what Eco Economy started in 2001. There is much valuable news and trends in 3.0 not in 2.0 as this is an extremely fast moving topic which needs updating every year. (I've had Harvard profs tell me they need to completely revamp their sustainability lectures each year to keep up with the latest happenings).
Positives: very clear, readable writing style ... a keen ability to "connect the dots" of the many issues of a unsustainable society ... depth and insight ... loaded but not overloaded with useful eco-factoids ... and ability to balance bad news/good news and not be either wholly focused on total eco-gloom disaster scenarios or a total pie-in-the-sky-kind-of-a-guy. His balance is superb and his recommendations believable.
Negatives: not many but some charts and graphs to break up the text would have enhanced the points and visual interest. Also, the 100+ pages of reference notes could have been indexed on the website to save some trees and shipping weight (as only researchers need this for most part).
Other good recent books include "Earth: The Sequel" by Fred Krupp (super detailed accounts about the latest eco-solution technologies poised to change the world) ... and "Peak Everything" by Richard Heinberg (how the collision course of severe resource constraints and industrialization impacts will wreak havoc on society and how new thinking is required to dig out of this mess).
Book Review: Saving Civilization Won't Be This Easy
Summary: 5 Stars
Lester Brown gives us a solid plan to save civilization from the ravages of Peak Oil and Global Warming. But at $190 billion a year, it just sounds too easy.
In fact Peak Oil is now becoming Peak Everything (the title of Richard Heinberg's latest book), driving huge price increases in many key commodities. This means that the actual cost is likely to become twice Brown's estimate or more, the longer we delay, the higher the price. To keep costs down will take a global mobilization, with many agreements like the proposed Oil Depletion Protocol (subject of another Heinberg book) and massive rationing or taxation of non-essential consumption.
One way or another global economic decline is in the offing. This is a scary issue, especially for politicians, but it needs to be faced. This is because there is a huge difference in how this decline occurs. Business-as-usual decline (Plan A) will lead to collapse, possibly by mid-century. Decline imposed through mobilization (Plan B) will lead to survival, though with far less of many of today's luxuries.
Here's how decline will hit home, even with mobilization. Brown, along with the Apollo Alliance and many others, are now talking about a new economy of "green collar" jobs, with re-localization of much outsourced productive activity. What they don't tell you is that most of these jobs will pay far less in real purchasing power than most white and blue collar jobs in today's top industries.
But good people will take these Walmart-pay type jobs anyway because of layoffs that will skyrocket in the coming decades. That is, today's wealth is based primarily on cheap energy, so with many more people competing there will a lot less wealth to go around as we head down the Peak. Much of Plan B amounts to learning how to live with less. Many of those who've looked carefully at the numbers don't see the resources to build and maintain the renewable energy we'd need to replace all of today's fossil fuels.
This brings up the population issue. Brown says that we must stabilize at eight billion people. But will we really have the resources for 8 billion people to live sustainably and with at least basic middle class amenities (decent food, clothing, housing, health care, education, transportation, ...)? Some people are now saying that we need to think two billion or less.
Radical population reduction seems impossible without invoking the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it's actually very simple in concept: Women have only one child, on the average, and that child is born in the woman's mid thirties, again on the average. Mathematically this will reduce the population by a factor of 4 in 80 to 100 years. Sure, this would take a global cultural mobilization, but it is possible. As Brown points out, Iran cut its population growth rate in half in less than a decade, and Thailand did too. Perhaps we need Al Gore to show the world the kind of Apocalypse that happens when an exploding population uses up all its resources.