An article I published in The New Wolf in July 2011:
In preventing economic and environmental collapse, we cannot afford to lose ourselves…
Despite our greatest efforts to improve and maintain everything that dictates our apparent satisfaction with life, there is something forever looming over us, something we often feel powerless against: the environment. Today’s growing population requires one and a half times as many natural resources than the earth has to sustain present consumption rates. Discussions of climate change are often pessimistic, tacitly assuming that despite our efforts to improve the climatic instabilities we face we are fundamentally doomed. Lester Brown foresees a future with clean air, quiet streets and no more preventable deaths. World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, published earlier this year, provides readers with a vivid account of the vast and complex issues humanity faces today and provides a vision of how they might be tackled.
Water scarcity, erosion of fertile topsoil, desertification and rising sea levels are just some of the issues affecting the planet and our lives. These are causing serious socio-political and economic problems within and between societies, as states scramble for remaining resources, and as nations fall into disrepair, civil war and corruption because they cannot sustain their own populations. This is compounded by rapid global population growth, doubling in just sixty years from less than three billion to nearly seven billion, leaving an unsustainable number of lives to provide for. Brown claims to have found a lasting solution to these climatic, socio-political, and economic issues. ‘Plan B’ aims to build an energy-efficient global economy by changing the infrastructure of cities, as well as modifying taxes to encourage renewable resources, emphasizing the need to harness wind, solar and geothermal energy. Without tackling the problem of rising population, we can never achieve a safe, sustainable future for all, so he proposes a series of methods for stabilizing population growth and stemming the depletion of the earth’s resources. He also strongly emphasises that through education, better infrastructure, and improved health care we can eradicate poverty, minimizing state failure and improving food scarcity.
Brown estimates it will cost the world an extra $185 billion dollars annually to implement Plan B: not a huge sum compared to the $661 billion annual American military budget, or the estimated $1,522 billion of global military spending. But are governments willing to spend this money? Aside from the financial feasibility of Plan B, Brown presents immaculately researched work that provides realistic modifications to our daily lives in order to save energy, resources and lives. His work has one flaw though: it lacks a human perspective. Brown stresses that in order for Plan B to be carried out effectively the nature of our economic markets needs to change: sellers must be honest about the full price of goods; transparent markets are needed to expose the real connections between people. Everyone needs to know what happens to everything they consume: where, how and by whom it is produced, and how its production impacts the environment. As the public becomes increasingly aware of “better” products to consume, they should gradually shift towards those, phasing out many “bad” products. But what are the real-life repercussions of changing the nature of our markets?
Brown’s wish to make markets as transparent as possible, essentially changes the nature of capitalism.
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