Plan B 2.0

I gave this talk, borrowing heavily from Lester Brown's Pan B 2.0 (2006) for a local television program called "Voice of the Voter." I went over my allotted time and didn't get through half of it (because my son was tugging on me and I missed the one minute warning). I highly recommend the book.


We are entering a new era. A few decades ago the drive to grow was prized as the great American way. Only recently have we begun to see the down side- that resources have limits, and that pollutants cannot be endlessly pumped into the environment where nature will render them harmless. We built an economy on fossil fuels although we knew supply was limited. Parents’ main concern has been protecting their kids from harm and ensuring their education. Now it must also include passing onto them an earth that is habitable.

With 5% of the world’s population, America uses 25% of the world’s resources. We are facing multiple major threats due to our misuse of resources. Global Warming will cause heat waves, rising seas, more powerful storms, droughts, advancing deserts, melting glaciers and fresh water shortages. Other problems include deforestation (or the destruction of the earth’s lungs), fisheries collapsing, disappearing species and peak oil. Peak oil refers to the point of maximum oil production. Many scientists are predicting that the peak will occur within the next 10 years. Beyond the peak comes an imbalance where supply cannot keep up with demand. This will not only mean higher and more volatile prices for gasoline, but also for all goods due to transport costs, and food because modern agricultural practices rely heavily on fossil fuels.

The amazing thing is that we can go a long way toward fixing all these problems by changing how money is collected from us and by spending it smarter. If we play our cards right, we will also build a new economy by investing in efficiency and renewable sources of energy.

One way is to shift the tax system to decrease income taxes, and increase levies on environmentally destructive activities. This is working in Germany and Sweden. Decreasing income taxes makes labor less costly which protects and grows jobs. Our modern economic prosperity has been achieved partly by running up ecological deficits- costs that do not show up on the books but costs that we all eventually pay. The economic term for this is “negative externality.” For example, when you fill up your tank, what are you NOT paying for? The costs of that gasoline that are not included in the retail price but that you pay with your tax and healthcare dollars amount to an additional $9 per gallon. These costs include oil industry tax breaks, oil supply protection costs, oil industry subsidies and health and environment costs.

The other way is to change these subsidies, which is a giveaway of our tax money, from fossil fuels to alternative energy. From 1992 to 2002, a total of $26 billion was given to oil and gas companies. But investing in renewable energy technology keeps dollars here instead of sending them overseas. Also, renewable energy creates more jobs per unit of energy produced and per dollar spent than fossil fuel technologies do. And the costs of renewable energy decrease over time because you don’t have to keep finding, mining and transporting fuel. Invest now, save later is considered a smart move.

The bottom line is, you can pay either directly at the pump, or out of your paycheck through taxes and for increasingly expensive healthcare plans. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have more control over how my money is spent. I’d rather have the option to drive less or get a more efficient car in order to reduce the amount of my money that goes to energy sources that degrade the environment and make us less safe.

One major way to better spend the money is on efficiency programs. The easiest, cheapest energy to make available is the energy you don’t use. It was government programs that brought about the major reductions in energy used by refrigerators. California’s demand reduction program has saved 5000 MW or the output of 10 power plants. We should focus on alternative, renewable sources of energy. Wind power can be combined with hydrogen fuel cell technology to maximize the efficiency. We could also expand recycling. Recycling one aluminum pop can saves enough energy to power a TV for an hour. We should decrease the amount of throwaway containers and packaging, because everything that gets thrown out means that energy was wasted in its production, transport to you then transport to the dump or recycling center. We should increase investment in mass transit and think about designing cities for people, not cars. Individuals should “vote with their wallets” and preferentially buy green power and products.

Stabilizing the world’s population through public health initiatives and ensuring they have adequate resources (such as food and water) will go a long way toward decreasing global instability.

Why should we care about inadequate resources in other countries? Because we are impacted by failed states- these governments and countries in trouble weaken the capacity of the international community to maintain stability in the monetary system, control the spread of infectious disease or deal with famine or local conflict. We can’t close our borders in this age of globalization and be unaffected by the world’s problems. We are mis-spending an enormous amount of money in the defense budget. The reality of international conflicts has dramatically changed. Historically the greatest threat America faced was aggressor nations that built up military might. But our heavy investment in military power and sophisticated weapons are of little use in dealing with terrorism, as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have shown. Today, the strife coming out of failed and failing states represents the greatest threat.

Lester Brown and the Earth Policy institute have figured out how to fix ALL these problems for 1/6 of the world’s military budget. That dollar amount, $161 billion, would provide universal education and healthcare, wipe out hunger, restore natural resources and stabilize the population.

America needs to lead. We do not have time to wait for the perfect international agreement. We have the know-how, the labor force and the infrastructure. All that’s lacking is leadership.