| Slide 1 |
| Watching the Clock |
| Nature is the timekeeper – no one knows for sure when it will be too late to address the trends of decline in time to avoid collapse | ||
| Potential tipping points: | ||
| Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to save the Greenland ice sheet? | ||
| Can we address the root causes of high food prices and state failure before civilization begins to unravel? | ||
| Plan B: Four Main Goals |
| Stabilizing Population | |
| Eradicating Poverty | |
| Restoring the EarthÕs Natural Support Systems | |
| Stabilizing Climate |
| Stabilizing
Population, Eradicating Poverty |
| Universal primary education | |
| Eradication of adult illiteracy | |
| School lunch programs | |
| Aid to women, infants, and preschool children | |
| Reproductive health care and family planning services | |
| Universal basic health care | |
| Total Additional Annual Cost = $75 billion | |
| The Poverty – Education – Population Connection |
| School lunch programs help kids, especially girls, stay in school | |
| Girls who stay in school longer are likely to have fewer children | |
| Reducing family size helps lift families out of poverty |
| Achieving Social Goals |
| The number of elementary-school-aged children out of school around the world dropped from 106 million in 1999 to 69 million in 2008 | |
| Soap operas raising public awareness in Mexico, Ethiopia, and other countries have helped increase literacy and decrease population growth | |
| Iran cut its rapid population growth rate from 4.2% in the early 1980s to 1.3% in 2006 through national literacy, health, and family planning programs | |
| BrazilÕs Bolsa Familia (family grant) program has significantly lowered poverty rates and reduced income inequality at the same time |
| Restoring the Earth |
| Planting trees | |
| Protecting topsoil on cropland | |
| Restoring rangelands | |
| Restoring fisheries | |
| Stabilizing water tables | |
| Protecting biological diversity | |
| Total Additional Annual Cost = $110 billion |
| Earth Restoration Efforts |
| Once almost treeless, South Korea has reforested 65% of its land | |
| If every country recycled paper at the South Korean rate (91%), the amount of wood pulp used for paper production would drop by over one third worldwide | |
| Over the last quarter-century the United States reduced soil erosion 40% by retiring cropland and practicing conservation tillage, while increasing the grain harvest 20% | |
| Within 2 years of restricting fishing in 6,600 square miles of marine reserves in the Gulf of Maine in the North Atlantic, fish population density rose 91%, average fish size went up 31%, and species diversity rose 20% | |
| Climate Action Plan |
| Cut Global Net CO2 Emissions 80% by 2020 | |||
| Three components: | |||
| Raising energy efficiency and restructuring transportation | |||
| Replacing fossil fuels with renewables | |||
| Ending net deforestation and planting trees to sequester carbon | |||
| Éto prevent global atmospheric CO2 concentrations from exceeding 400 parts per million, minimizing future temperature rise. | |||
| Raising Energy Efficiency |
| Buildings | ||
| Retrofits with better insulation and more efficient appliances can cut energy use by 20-50% | ||
| Lighting | ||
| A worldwide switch to highly-efficient home, office, industrial, and street lighting would enable the world to close 705 of its 2,800 coal-fired power plants | ||
| Raising Energy Efficiency |
| Appliances | ||
| JapanÕs Top Runner Program uses todayÕs most efficient appliances to set tomorrowÕs standards; e.g. helped double computer efficiency | ||
| Industry | ||
| Improving manufacturing efficiency for carbon emissions heavyweights (chemicals, petrochemicals, steel, and cement) offers major opportunities to curb energy demand | ||
| Restructuring Transportation |
| Cities emphasizing underground rail, light rail, and bus rapid transit would save energy while making walking and cycling safer | |
| Intercity rail, including high-speed systems, can sharply reduce air and car travel | |
| Electrified transport systems curb oil dependence and reap big efficiency gains by moving to more localized energy sources and replacing inefficient internal combustion engines with electric motors | |
| Plug-in hybrid electric vehicles running primarily on emissions-free electricity would allow low-carbon commuting; drivers could charge up with wind power at a cost equivalent of less than $1 per gallon of gasoline |
| Progress in Energy
Efficiency and Transport |
| Many countries, including Canada, the United States, and China, are phasing out inefficient light bulbs | |
| New efficiency standards for U.S. household and commercial products estimated to save consumers $250-300 billion through 2030 | |
| 36% of CopenhagenÕs commuters bike to work | |
| JapanÕs high-speed rail system moves hundreds of thousands of passengers each day | |
| U.S. car fleet began shrinking in size in 2009 | |
| Slide 14 |
| Ramping Up Renewables |
| Wind | |
| Solar | |
| Geothermal | |
| Other: Small-scale Hydro, Tidal and Wave Power, Biomass |
| Harnessing the Wind |
| Centerpiece of Plan B energy economy | |
| Widespread – in every country | |
| Increasingly inexpensive | |
| Abundant – North Dakota, Kansas, and Texas alone could satisfy U.S. energy needs | |
| Plan B goal: 2 million 2-MW turbines installed by 2020 |
| Slide 17 |
| The Power of the Sun |
| Technologies include photovoltaics (PV), solar thermal power plants, solar hot water and space heaters | |
| Sunlight hitting the earth in 1 hour could power global economy for 1 year | |
| Plan B goal: Solar heating and electricity each exceed 1 million MW installed capacity by 2020 |
| Slide 19 |
| Geothermal: Energy from the Earth |
| Heat in the upper 6 miles of earthÕs crust contains 50,000 times the energy found in global oil and gas reserves | |
| Plan B goal: increase geothermal heating 5-fold to 500,000 thermal MW and geothermal electricity production 19-fold to 200,000 MW by 2020 | |
| Slide 21 |
| Phasing Out Fossil Fuels:
Hope from the United States |
| Some 150 proposals for coal-fired power plants in the United States have been shelved since 2000 | |
| Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. oil and coal consumption each dropped 8 percent | |
| At the same time, over 300 wind farms came online |
| Slide 23 |
| Ending Net Deforestation,
Planting Trees |
| Ending net deforestation by 2020 will reduce annual CO2 emissions by 1.5 billion tons of carbon | |
| Planting trees and adopting less-intensive farming and land management practices can stabilize soils and sequester carbon | |
| Slide 25 |
| How Do We Get There? |
| A Dishonest Market |
| The market omits many indirect costs of economic activity | |
| Fossil fuel prices do not reflect costs of climate change, environmental degradation, or health | |
| Fossil fuel subsidies further distort the market: in 2009, subsidies for production and use totaled roughly $500 billion worldwide |
| Toward an Honest Market |
| Restructure taxes: offset carbon tax with reduction in income or payroll taxes | ||
| (Tax what you burn, not what you earn) | ||
| Gradually raise tax on carbon emissions to reach $200 per ton of carbon by 2020 | ||
| A shift from labor to energy taxes in Germany reduced annual CO2 emissions by 20 million tons and created 250,000 jobs between 1999 and 2003 | ||
| Redefining Security |
| The Plan B Budget |
| Additional global annual expenditure needed to address the true threats to civilization: | |
| Basic Social Goals $75 billion | |
| Restoring the Earth $110 billion | |
| Total Plan B Budget $185 billion | |
| A Wartime Mobilization |
| We have the technologies necessary to implement Plan B – what is needed now is the political will to do so | |
| Saving civilization will require urgent action on a large scale, but weÕve mobilized quickly before: | |
| Upon entering World War II, the U.S. mobilized resources and completely restructured its economy within months |
| LetÕs Get to Work |
| Saving civilization is not a spectator sport. | ||
| Lester R. Brown | ||
| Lifestyle changes such as using more-efficient light bulbs are important, but not nearly enough | ||
| Preventing environmental and economic collapse requires political action from all of us in order to effect broad social change | ||
| Make sure your elected officials know whatÕs important | ||
| Note the successes of the U.S. grassroots movement in closing coal-fired power plants | ||
| Take action in an area that concerns and excites you | ||
| The Choice is Ours |
| Will we stay with business as usual and preside over an economy that continues to destroy its natural support systems until it destroys itself? | |
| or | |
| Will we adopt Plan B and be the generation that changes direction, moving the world onto a path of sustained progress? | |