Do we need to transform our world economy?
Lester Brown assesses humanity’s future.
Salazar: You’ve spoken of the economic decline – and possible eventual collapse – of our civilization. Do you think the public sees a pressing need for widespread economic change?
Brown: What’s happening in China now, I think, is going to convince a lot more people of the need for change.
Since I can remember, we’ve been saying that the U.S., with 5% of the world’s people, consumes 40% of the world’s resources.
That was true. It is no longer true.
Today, China consumes more of most basic resources than does the United States. China consumes more grain, meat, coal, and steel. China’s meat consumption is nearly double that of the United States. Its steel consumption is triple that of the United States.
Among the major commodities, the U.S. is still the leading consumer only of oil.
What happens if China’s consumption per person one day reaches the U.S. level? If we assume that the Chinese economy grows at eight per cent each year, then by 2031, income per person in China would be the same as in the U.S. today.
At that point, China would be consuming the equivalent of two–thirds of the current world’s grain harvest. Their paper consumption, at the U.S. per capita level, would be double the current world production.
There go the world’s forests.
If, in 2031, China has three cars for every four people as we now do, they would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars. The current global fleet is 800 million. They would be consuming 99 million barrels of oil a day. The world currently produces only 84 million barrels a day and may never produce much more than that.
Salazar: What can we learn from that?
Brown: What China is teaching us is that the western economic model – the fossil fuel–based automobile–centered throwaway economy – is not going to work for China.
If it doesn’t work for China, it will not work for India, nor for the other 3 billion people in the developing world who are also dreaming the American dream.
And, in an increasingly integrated global economy – where we all depend on the same oil, grain and steel – it will not work for the industrial countries either. That is the principle finding of Plan B 2.0, Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, which is book published earlier this year. What we’re faced with is the need to shift to an economy that is powered largely by renewable sources of energy, that has a much more diversified transport system, and that recycles everything.
This is the challenge for our generation. If we can build the new economy, then we can sustain economic progress. And the exciting thing is that we have the technologies now to build this new economy, and we see glimpses of the new economy emerging here and there around the world.
Salazar: What are some examples of this new economy?
Brown: We see it, for example, in the wind farms of western Europe, in the solar rooftops of Japan, in the growing fleet of hybrid cars in the United States. We see it in the bicycle–friendly streets of Amsterdam, in the reforested mountains of South Korea.
We can see the new economy beginning to emerge. The question is, can we complete the transition to the new economy before we get into serious trouble?
Salazar: Are these ideas about sustainability being taken more seriously now by the people in power to make a difference?
Brown: The answer is yes.
I think the world – particularly in the United States – is becoming concerned about the future and where things are headed. I think that there’s an openness now, a receptivity to thinking about these things in a way that was not the case until the last year or so.
What we need to keep in mind is that saving our civilization is not a spectator sport. It is something that we all need to get involved in.
It means that we need to become politically active, to become active in supporting political candidates who recognize these problems and will do something about them. It means writing letters or doing op–ed pieces for local newspapers. It means organizing like–minded people to meet with elected officials in Washington when they come back to one’s home district.
It means becoming active in trying to do something ourselves, each of us. Otherwise we’re probably not going to make it.
Salazar: Do you think we have the resources to make the big changes?
Brown: We have some exciting new possibilities now with the existing techonologies.
For example, although oil is being depleted, and oil prices are rising, there are available alternatives. If, in the United States, which is the world’s leading consumer of oil and gasoline, we were to systematically shift over to the state–of–the–art gas–electric hybrid cars in the next decade, we could cut gasoline use in half in this country, without any change in the number of cars or the number of miles driven. We’d just doing it much more efficiently than we now are.
But with that shift to hybrids, we have another option. Consider the Toyota Prius, which is the most advanced of the hybrids. If you add a second storage battery and a plug–in capacity – so you can plug it in at night to recharge the batteries while you’re sleeping – then we can do most of our short distance driving with electricity alone. That’s the daily commute, grocery shopping, that sort of thing.
At the same time, in the United States, instead of investing in hundreds of wind farms, if we invested in thousands of wind farms, feeding cheap electricity into the grid, we could largely run our cars on wind energy. There’d be no carbon emissions and the supply would never be exhausted because wind is an inexhaustible resource.
And we could do this at a cost equivalent to less than one dollar per gallon of gasoline.
Salazar: Let’s imagine how these changes would change the way our world looks today. What would that future world – a sustainable world – look like?
Brown: It’s interesting that today we’ve created cities where we often want to spend weekends away from the city because we’ve made such a mess of it. They’re polluted, congested, noisy, and just not pleasant living environments.
It doesn’t have to be that way. If we move to gas–electric hybrids, with a plug–in capacity, so we can run them largely on wind energy, suddenly, we have clean air.
Suddenly, we have dramatically reduced carbon emissions, so we can look forward to stabilizing the Earth’s climate and halting the rise in temperature.
We’re looking at cities with a much more diversified transport system, cities that are both bicycle friendly and pedestrian friendly.
I can see a future where cities will be a very pleasant place to live.
Salazar: How does what you do as a researcher percolate down into everyday life?
Brown: I suppose it more than percolates down. In many ways, it permeates one’s lifestyle.
I live in a one–bedroom apartment in downtown Washington. It’s a very pleasant apartment along Rock Creek Park within a mile of work, so I can walk to work. It’s an easy 20–minute walk along a very pleasant route.
I don’t have a car. I don’t need a car.
In my apartment, there are two air–conditioning units. It’s an old building, but I have ceiling fans, which is what I use in the summertime. I never use the air–conditioning. I’m quite happy with ceiling fans, so I can have the windows open and listen to the birds singing.
So my lifestyle is a rather simple one, and I like it that way.
Salazar: Thank you for your time today, Dr. Brown.
