Plan B 4.0 Mobilizing to Save Civilization is a novel written by environmentalist Lester R. Brown. Our world has been shaped into a monetary system that is run in the most cost efficient manor to make things as cheap as possible. This way of thinking in today's day and age is catastrophic to our futures, our children's futures, and the future of our planet. As resources are being depleted and climate change is darkening our future, we have shifted toward a new industrial revolution by investing in new sources of energy and changing how we live. Our planet is dying. The average person uses between 3-4 planets of resources to fund and provide the lifestyle that we live. This book explores the new lifestyle that our society is trying to conform to so we can survive on this planet. Chapter 1 talks about the weak links and the main problems that are causing states to fail, people to go hungry, and talk about what Plan B actually is. The world is struggling to feed the people that live in it. With food demand, there are three main components that make up this side of the equation. Those components are population growth, consumption of grain-based animal protein, and mass use of grain to fuel cars. On the supply side of the equation, soil erosion is decreasing food productivity down around 30% of the worlds croplands and depletion of top soil has been a growing problem over recent years. These factors are making it hard to plant and harvest food. In the past, people feared states that possessed too much power, like Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Imperial Japan. Now there is worry about a lack of power amongst estates and this is cause civil wars, laws to no longer be followed, charisma lost among state leaders, and growth of terrorist groups. The book lists the top 20 states that are failing. Of those 20 top failing states, all but few are having more population growth than they are food production. Plan B has a lot in store for how to change our ways to stabilize the planet. Some of the components of Plan B are to get more energy from wind turbines, repairing and protect the natural systems that support mankind, cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2020, stabilize the population at 8 billion people, and eradicate poverty.
Chapter 2 talks about two imperative aspects to support life. Those two things are the two main components that make up our green and blue planet, land and water. Land is important because the top layer of land is top-soil. Soil erosion of that top layer has been growing with the integration of mass livestock agriculture, natural destruction from storms, and failure to keep the soil fertile. The next big thing concerns water, where the water tables are falling. Agriculture irrigation is shrinking and this mainly due to the fact that there are less farmers today than there were fifty to sixty years ago. The land is being dried out and lacking water with the climates raising temperature. We are also pulling a lot of water from aquifers and those aquifers are depleting. There is such a demand for water in cities that farmers aren't getting enough water to farm their crops. It is the governments issue to handle the distribution of water in local areas and, due to corruption in the government system with buyouts, they are giving corporations and cities the water that farmers need in order to provide food for citizens.
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