Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0393337197
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
“[Brown’s] ability to make a complicated subject accessible to the general reader is remarkable.”―Katherine Salant, Washington Post
As fossil fuel prices rise, oil insecurity deepens, and concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. Wind, solar, and geothermal energy are replacing oil, coal, and natural gas, at a pace and on a scale we could not have imagined even a year ago. For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, we have begun investing in energy sources that can last forever. Plan B 4.0 explores both the nature of this transition to a new energy economy and how it will affect our daily lives.
“S.F. Mayor Bans Bottled Water at City Offices,” Associated Press, 25 June 2007; Ross C. Anderson, Salt Lake City Mayor, national press telephone conference, Think Outside the Bottle Campaign, 9 October 2007. 99. Janet Larsen, “Bottled Water Boycotts: Back-to-the-Tap Movement Gains Momentum,” Plan B Update (Washington, DC: Earth Policy Institute, 7 December 2007); John G. Rodwan, Jr., Confronting Challenges: U.S. and International Bottled Water Developments and Statistics for 2008 (New York:
its lifeline for survival.9 In the western hemisphere, Haiti, one of the early failing states, was largely self-sufficient in grain 40 years ago. Since then it has lost nearly all its forests and much of its topsoil, forcing it to import over half of its grain. Like Lesotho, Haiti is also dependent on a WFP lifeline.10 A similar situation exists in Mongolia, where over the last 20 years three fourths of the wheatland has been abandoned and wheat yields have fallen by one fourth, shrinking the
developing the earth’s renewable sources of energy, where there are equally exciting possibilities. 5 Stabilizing Climate: Shifting to Renewable Energy As fossil fuel prices rise, as oil insecurity deepens, and as concerns about climate change cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new energy economy is emerging. The old energy economy, fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas, is being replaced by one powered by wind, solar, and geothermal energy. Despite the global economic crisis, this energy
their vast desert to power the entire world economy. This is not a mathematical error. A similarly striking fact is that the sunlight striking the earth in just one hour is enough to power the world economy for one year.4 Turkey, which now has 39,000 megawatts of total electrical generating capacity, issued a request for proposals in 2007 to build wind farms. It received bids from both domestic and international wind development firms to build a staggering 78,000 megawatts of wind generating
to 859 in 2004, a fall of 16 percent. Media coverage of the health effects of smoking, mandatory health warnings on cigarette packs, and sharp increases in cigarette sales taxes have all contributed to this encouraging development.46 The prospect of further reducing smoking in the United States got a major boost in April 2009 when the federal tax per pack of cigarettes was increased from 39¢ to $1.01 to reduce the fiscal deficit. Many states were contemplating a raise in state cigarette taxes