WORLD ON THE EDGE

Many readers will be familiar with Lester Brown's previous work on eco-economies, including his books on Plan B, now in version 4.0. This is his latest and most concise book which is essential reading for anyone wanting to gain an overview of our current environmental situation and how we can set about remedying the deep-rooted and systemic problems that we have created. He is the world's leading commentator and brings together both incisive analysis and comprehensive data. You can also subscribe to his Earth Policy updates at www.earthpolicy.org where the background data for this book are also available.

People are increasingly aware that we are facing a perfect storm of food shortages, water scarcity and expensive oil - much of the debate centres around exactly when this will happen. The extreme climate events in Russia and Pakistan last year are a foretaste of climatic disruption of food systems. Russian grain yields were cut by 40 million tonnes to 60 million tonnes, while 6 million acres of crops were destroyed in Pakistan, and over 1 million livestock drowned. The first event is consistent with predictions of global warming, while the second was effectively a man-made disaster. Forest cover in Pakistan has been reduced from 30% in 1947 to 4% now, so there is very little to prevent run-off turning into floods. In addition, there is huge pressure from a population of 185 million. Despite this, Pakistan has chosen to prioritise military rather than environmental security. In the course of this century, we will realise how closely these two aspects of security are linked.

The book is structured in four parts: the first, a deteriorating foundation, catalogues falling water tables, eroding soils, shrinking harvests, rising temperatures and melting ice, all of which are related to food security. The second part spells out the consequences of the emerging politics of food scarcity, the rising tide of environmental refugees, and mounting stresses leading to failing states. The response is Plan B, with four central components: cutting carbon emissions by 80% by 2020, stabilising population at 8 billion by 2040, eradicating poverty and restoring the Earth's natural systems and resources in terms of forests, soils, aquifers and fisheries. These issues are all interrelated, indicating ecological overshoot and potential collapse. This means that we are in a race between natural and political tipping points. So far, we are heading for a natural tipping point bringing about a series of emergencies which we can anticipate but cannot precisely predict. Brown envisages wartime mobilisation, showing that we have the capacity and the necessary funding to carry out his plan - but we will not move into a wartime mentality until we experience a series of climate related catastrophes, by which time it may be too late to mitigate the situation – we may just have to adapt. The costs are modest - under $200 billion a year - when compared with a military budget of $1.5 trillion. This is just 12%. It seems as if we are prepared to adopt the precautionary principle in military affairs but we have not yet extended this to the environment on which our biological security ultimately depends. The three main drivers of a growing demand for food are population growth, rising affluence and corresponding increases in consumption of meat, milk and eggs. Add to this is the demand for biofuels, already absorbs a quarter of US corn production. Countries like China are also buying up land elsewhere on the planet, partly to grow biofuels. As might be expected, China is now the largest market new car sales, and this in itself, combined with further industrialisation removes further productive land as roads and car parks are constructed. China and India also have a total of 325 million people whose food is dependent on unsustainable use of water from underground aquifers. A specific example of changing patterns of demand is world soya production, which has grown from a mere 17 million tonnes in 1950 to 252 million tonnes in 2010. In 1995, China both produced and consumed 40 million tonnes of soya, but by 2010 this demand had increased to 64 million tonnes, representing half the world's soya bean exports. Brown's Plan B is both comprehensive and workable. The goals he spells out are conceptually simple and easy to understand, but politically hard to achieve. A first step is to become better informed about our challenges and the solutions he proposes, and then to press our political representatives to begin to think through and apply some of the policy implications. Nothing less than the future of civilisation is at stake - many previous civilisations have collapsed by eroding their environment base, and ours will be no exception if we do not wake up to the urgency of these challenges in time.