Alternative Plans for Dealing with Economic & Environmental Issues
Plan A for dealing with economic and environmental issues is to continue our current course of action – or inaction, as the case may be. If we continue with business as usual we can expect the following world trends:
1. Continued rapid population growth.
2. Emerging water shortages.
3. Eroding soils and shrinking grainland.
4. Global climate change.
5. Poverty, hunger, disease, and unrest.
Plan B is an alternative approach which has been proposed by Lester R. Brown, President of the Earth Policy Institute. This plan calls for addressing economic and environmental issues in a way that transforms our national and world economy into a sustainable one, and that reduces the environmental damage to the point where citizens can exist at a high quality of life. The goals of Plan B include:
1. Stabilizing population.
2. Raising water productivity.
3. Raising land productivity.
4. Cutting carbon emissions in half.
5. Responding to the social challenge.
How can we achieve Plan B? In scale and urgency the effort required is comparable to the U.S. mobilization during World War II.
The only hope now is to use market driven signals that tell the ecological truth. Our current system of production, distribution and consumption does not reflect all the costs involved. Producers are able to discharge pollutants into the air and water without paying for that privilege. They are able to distribute goods without paying for the harm that diesel exhaust imposes on our air. If these costs were incorporated into the price consumers would pay for the products, consumer shopping habits would change and less harm would be done to the environment.
In order to achieve an honest market that tells the ecological truth, what is needed is an "environmental tax shift", i.e. lowering taxes on earned income while raising taxes on environmentally destructive activities. Such a tax shift has been initiated on a small scale in Europe, and it is working. It is time for citizens to insist that such a tax shift be implemented in the United States.
Edward M. Lawrence
Secretary, Citizens for Responsible Government (www.ResponsibleGov.net)
Fairhope
Note: For additional information see Lester R. Brown’s book: Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble. It can be downloaded or ordered at www.earth-policy.org.