Book of the Week: Plan B 4.0

27 Jan 2013

[caption id=”attachment_476” align=”alignnone” width=”584”] Plan B 4.0[/caption] Lester Brown was on Science Friday to promote his new book, “Full Planet, Empty Plates”. I decided to read his older book, Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, available free online at earthpolicy.org. Since the book was published in 2009, it mentioned a lot about things that were scheduled to happen in the future. So it is interesting to compare people thought was going to occur compared to what did occur. This is probably why this is Plan B 4.0 and not just plan B. The book didn’t really excite me, because I pay attention to the topics mentioned in the book. I care about the future and how the shit is going to go down. Even though I was aware of many things, I did learn a few new things. If you’re totally unacquainted with the problems facing humanity, this book is a good starting point, because is a lot of information referenced. For people acquainted, more action is required upon your part than reading. The first part of the book talks about the problems facing the human race. I think we are already screwed. It is not about saving the earth, but saving civilization from collapse. The main problems are food, water, energy and climate. They are all interconnected. Pretty much all of the same problem. I need energy and water to eat, but getting energy screws the climate, which makes it harder to grow food and get water to grow food. The meat of the book is Plan B. How are we as a civilization going to solve this problem. Since I am in the business of solving problems, I pay a lot of attention to this. Every problem is a opportunity. If you want to learn about Plan B, then read the book. There are also updates to Plan B on the earthpolicy.org website. Other Thoughts Here are some other thoughts that came into my head as I was reading the book. China imports chopsticks from Georgia. Georgia, the state, not the country. The quest for resources have led richer nations speculating on land in other countries. Is it really cost effective to go solar? Loyd Case wrote about his experiences going solar. I wouldn’t call his experience in 2008 cost effective, but today might be different. It’s getting there. The air quality in Beijing is deadly. These are the consequences we are living with now since we screwed things up already. Fracking uses precious water to get oil. I’d rather use the water for other purposes, like pooping in it. The byproducts from making ethanol can be used to feed livestock. That is mentioned by a caller on the science friday podcast. When I went beer tasting, the brewery uses the byproducts to feed hogs, resulting in awesome bacon. There’s like a three-way for water use in California: fisheries, farmers and cities. Totally. Reminded of cattle rancher dealing with drought on Marketplace. The earth has self correcting mechanisms: global warming -> fight for food -> nuclear winter -> global cooling and reduced populations. If we want to think about making the most use of resources for food, we can look to NASA and how they will build a Mars Colony. Food production on Mars has to be the most extreme case. What can we learn from that? We can make more efficient use of our land. Growing Power uses greenhouses combined with aquaculture to make food and fish in a small area. In the future, the cheapest way of making protein will be fish (tilapia and perch) and insects. I remember stories of using gray water from the bath to garden since water was rationed in the past. It is only when we don’t have something, do we realize how precious it is. If we all grew our own victory gardens, I wonder how would the world change. Or maybe if there were aquaculture greenhouses dispersed throughout the city. Deforestation happens, but how did the forests get there in the first place? Golden Gate Park in San Francisco used to be all sand dunes. The problems mentioned in Plan B are becoming current problems. Purchase Plan B 4.0 on Amazon.com or check it out from your local library.