We are facing issues of near-overwhelming complexity and unprecedented urgency. Can we think systematically and fashion policies accordingly? Can we move fast enough to avoid environmental decline and economic collapse? Can we change direction before we go over the edge? I will look at the economic future through and environmental lens to fashion a plan that will sustain civilization. The plan has four components: a massive cut in global carbon emissions of 80 percent by 2020; the stabilization of world population at no more than 8 billion by 2040; the eradication of poverty; and the restoration of forests, soils, aquifers, and fisheries.
Lester Brown: Perspectives on Limits to Growth World on the Edge
17 Comments
You are right the world is screwed but we must try to do something. If we
just sit back and watch the worlds resources plundered ……O forget it we
are screwed why wast my time. NO NO I must not give up. O forget it we are
screwed. No No I must not give up. We are screwed. If i was Superman I
would smash every NATO aircraft first off. Then kick the Presidents ass,
then all of Congress then the CEO’s.
Loved the speech. I’m a believer!
while I agree with much of limits to growth, grains are not a natural food
for either cattle or humans. Cows eat grass…it takes zero grains to make
a cow. Grains (and soy too) will make feedlot cattle sick (called “downers”
that can’t get up) and they’ll make you sick too. Gluten, for example,
causes intestinal permeability. IP is associated with autoimmune diseases.
Youtube Gluten Free Paleo Diet Discussed on Fox News Interview with Dr.
Osborne
Don’t give up my fellow kindred spirit. If we (the people who care) quiet
our voices now it is too late. Fight everyday, we are on the brink of a
revolution in humanity and society, new sustainable practices are coming
out everyday and we need the people who care to make these methods and
ideas become common knowledge to all. you are right we can not sit back and
watch the worlds resources be plundered, the environment turned into a
brownfield. You aren’t superman but you don’t have to be!
where are these people that care? I don’t know any of them. I would love to
do something, but everything seems so inconsequential…….and the
problems so immense, it seems it would be better to buy a gun and figure
out the best place to go to have access to food and water when it all comes
crashing down. That may be a cynical view……
The key to changing a current paradigm (belief system of the masses at that
point in time) is to persistently keep the idea in front of others. Each
person (it can only be one for example) has a responsibility to themselves
and others to stay on track and and tell others what they percieve to be
the best action and/or ideas for the good of themselves and thier
community. One person’s community could possibly be just one person,
another person’s community can be as large as a million souls.
You are right, most animals will become sick on grains. I have recently
gone sugar and gluten free also. Sprouted flax seed is very good for all as
well as rice. The animals need the grass and we should be eating animals
that are free range and anitiotic free. I am sure Lester is aware of all of
this.
I can’t believe that, of all people and WHEN HE IS TALKING ABOUT WATER
SHORTAGES, he takes out a plastic disposable bottle of water and drinks it!
Unbelieveable!
Cognitive dissonance!
Do you know that he didn’t refill that bottle earlier? Do you know that it
wasn’t vodka?
What, he’s supposed to die of thirst on stage because he’s calling
attention to the fact that there are impending water shortages? that don’t
make no sense.
Industrial agriculture is literally the conversion of petroleum into
(alleged) food. Petroleum is a finite and diminishing resource. Human folly
is not constrained by reality. Wanton delusion is and always will be
self-destructive. Bye bye bipeds.
I just wish there were a way to instantly mobilise every citizen in the US,
Europe and my little home Australia, to make all of this happen. That is
our scarcest resource – willing and informed people!!
Lester Brown makes a number of assumptions that do not have to be. the
majority of the crops that are grown are used to create manufactured food
that should not be considered necessary. When i walk in to a store, 75% of
the shelves can be removed and we would still have an abundance of good
food. The greatest detriment to agricultural and world of food is when ag.
scientists came up with the phrase “feed the world”. the implication of
this phrase is devastating. the food shortage is a hoax.
The USDA report predicts 2013-2014 corn ending stocks of 1.887 billion
bushels, which is about a 130 percent increase in stocks from 2012-13.
lol. The ‘war on carbon emissions’ will not happen.
America will start more wars for oil instead.
We are using the new revolutionary,the state of the Art of the 21st
century.The dry-tech cleaning system which leaves your carpets & upholstery
dries in one hour or less…Instead of one or two days.