Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, Third Edition | 
 enlarge | Author: Lester R. Brown
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 11871
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Pages: 384
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 0393330877
Dewey Decimal Number: 333.7
EAN: 9780393330878
ASIN: 0393330877
Publication Date: January 16, 2008
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Product Description
B"How to build a more just world and save the planet....We should all heed Brown's advice."#151;Bill Clinton/BBRBRIn this updated edition of the landmark Plan B, Lester Brown outlines a survival strategy for our early twenty-first-century civilization. The world faces many environmental trends of disruption and decline, including rising temperatures and spreading water shortage. In addition to these looming threats, we face the peaking of oil, annual population growth of 70 million, a widening global economic divide, and a growing list of failing states. The scale and complexity of issues facing our fast-forward world have no precedentBRBRWith Plan A, business as usual, we have neglected these issues overly long. In IPlan B 3.0/I, Lester R. Brown warns that the only effective response now is a World War II-type mobilization like that in the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 An Excellent, Comprehensive Analysis... August 6, 2008
D. Benor
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
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. br / br /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. br / br /...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. br / br /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. br / br /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) br / br /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. br / br /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. br / br /Implementing Plan B means undertaking several actions simultaneously, including eradicating poverty, stabilizing population, and restoring the earth's natural systems. (p. 20) br / br /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. br / br /If you are not contributing to the solution, you are a part of the problem. -Anonymous br /
 Deeply Insightful but Very Readable June 17, 2008
Alan Lekan (Boulder, CO)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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. br / br /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). br / br /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. br / br /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). br / br /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). br /
Saving Civilization Won't Be This Easy May 5, 2008
Richard H. Burkhart (Seattle, WA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
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. br / br / 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. br / br / 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. br / br / 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. br / br / 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. br / br / 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. br / br / 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. br /
exhaustive and detail oriented April 8, 2008
Michael D. Acheson (Silicon Valley, CA)
7 out of 10 found this review helpful
This is a difficult book to get wrapped around. Which is good news, and then again it is bad news. br / br /The good news is that this is an excellent and wide-sweeping run-up to the current health of our Earth. br / br /Such topics as Our Socially Divided World, Eradicating Poverty, Designing Cities For People, and The Great Mobilization are spread over 287 pages of dense statistics and research, backed up by nearly another 100 pages of footnotes. br / br /The bad news? There is far more content than is of interest to me - the motivated renewable energy reader. Some day I will wade through the less interesting parts, and then leave the remainder as a source reference. br / br /The book cover heralds "REVISED AND EXPANDED". Actually, I would have preferred the less-is-more previous edition.
If you don't believe we are all in for some serious challenges... April 7, 2008
B. Jablonski (Long Island, NY)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Then you must read this book. It clearly lays how mankind is on the road to ruin if we don't change our ways and the U.S. is no ways immune. It is hopeful also to read about tangible plans on how we can change our ways and build a world for all of us to thrive in, maybe compramising just a little bit for the better well-being of all of us. The book is extremely well writting and the documentation of sources is impressive. My only complaint is that some of it is unessecarily redundant, but I don't blame the author for trying to hit home key points. Anyone with any concern for the future needs to read this book, and take some action, even if just a little.
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