Brown Lester Russell - Plan B 3.0: mobilizing to save civilization

When Elizabeth Kolbert was interviewing energy analyst Amory Lovins for a profile piece in the New Yorker , she asked him about thinking outside the box. Lovins responded, There is no box. There is no box. That is the spirit embodied in Plan B.

Perhaps the most revealing difference between Plan B 2.0 and Plan B 3.0 is the change of the subtitle from Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble to simply Mobilizing to Save Civilization. The new subtitle better reflects both the scale of the challenge we face and the wartime speed of the response it calls for.

Our world is changing fast. When Plan B 2.0 went to press two years ago, the data on ice melting were worrying. Now they are scary.

Two years ago, we knew there were a number of failing states. Now we know that number is increasing each year. Failing states are an early sign of a failing civilization.

Two years ago there was early evidence that the potential for expanding oil production was much less than officially projected. Now, we know that peak oil could be on our doorstep. Two years ago oil was $50 a barrel. As of this writing in late 2007, it is over $90 a barrel.

In Plan B 2.0 , we speculated that if we continued to build ethanol distilleries to convert grain into fuel for cars, the price of grain would move up toward its oil-equivalent value. Now that the United States has enough distilleries to convert one fifth of its grain crop into fuel for cars, this is exactly what is happening. Corn prices have nearly doubled. Wheat prices have more than doubled.

Two years ago, we reported that in five of the last six years world grain production had fallen short of consumption. Now, it has done so in seven of the past eight years, and world grain stocks are dropping toward all-time lows.

As the backlog of unresolved problems grows, including continuing rapid population growth, spreading water shortages, shrinking forests, eroding soils, and grasslands turning to desert, weaker governments are breaking down under the mounting stress. If we cannot reverse the trends that are driving states to failure, we will not be able to stop the growth in their numbers.

Some of the newly emerging trendssuch as the coming decline in world oil production, the new stresses from global warming, and rising food pricescould push even some of the stronger states to the breaking point.

On the economic front, China has now overtaken the United States in consumption of most basic resources. By 2030, when its income per person is projected to match that in the United States today, China will be consuming twice as much paper as the world currently produces. If in 2030 the countrys 1.46 billion people have three cars for every four people, U.S. style, China will have 1.1 billion cars. And it will be consuming 98 million barrels of oil per day, well above current world production.