That sounds a tad cynical, Rachel.

Here’s the problem: first anything and everything can be coopted - including Lester Brown’s Plan B.

But more importantly is understanding the nature of the problem you’re addressing. Living systems take corrective action to sustain a state of dynamic stability. But here’s the catch, every correction can exaserbate the problem. There are no exceptions. So correction requires vigilance and a systems thought process which is, yes, organic.

There is no one and done solution. Human scale can best match up with the natural order which is the only sustainable order. Jiggering with the system, creating technologies to “overcome” can divert, perhaps prolong the inevitable, but frequently leads to a deadend. In no way am I disagreeing with Lester Brown’s ideas, just that no master plan will suffice. Not his, not anyone’s. Human beings will incubate ideas which may sustain us, and we’ll need to constantly re-evaluate, correct and correct the corrections, etc. etc. etc.

I’d suggest a reading of Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma if you haven’t already. I don’t think you’d be so jaded about the local approach if you had - particularly the second part on GRASS. It’s a struggle, but such is life.

“Plan B” (i.e. restructuring the economy through education, ending poverty, efficiency, renewable technology, reducing population trends, and banning deforestation with a massive multi-billion tree planting campaign) is unfeasible due to political/social/economic inertia, so a new feasible plan must be conceived and implemented based upon “what is,” rather than “what ought to be.” Obviously, the first step is to remove the excess CO2 from the air. I advocate the low cost, highly scalable, and technically feasible method of biosequestration.

My question is three-fold. One, if planting a billion trees, which is not only doable (See Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai), but is the purest form of bio-sequestration including reducing soil erosion, sponging and maximizing groundwater infiltration, cleaning both air and water – reducing evaporation – providing a renewable resource, etc. - if that’s unfeasible on the one hand why is it feasible on the other hand as a “low cost, highly scalable, and technically feasible method of biosequestration?” If you’re talking about mechanical sequestration, you will not researched costs and nothing comes close to the benefits of a natural forest.

Further, if Brown’s plan is “unfeasible due to political/social/economic inertia” where will the inertia come from to activate your plan which is semantically similar? You do not articulate why the one plan requires inertia and your plan, apparently, doesn’t.

If the first step is to “remove the excess CO2 from the air, what purpose does that serve if we continue to put ever growing quantities of CO2 into the air? Doesn’t one need to work both ends?

As to Albert Einstein and the comment: “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them-Albert Einstein.” I couldn’t agree more. I see that “old tool box” thinking in nearly every approach to proposed solutions these days. What’s being proposed is a paradigm shift, writ large – in brief – a shift that represents stepping into a stride that parallels the natural cycle rather than opposing it.

As I understand the development of civilization with the onset of plant and animal domestication, water diversions, sedentary lifestyles and hierarchical centralized governments, the industry of mining resources has been the centerpiece of that movement thereafter. That mining those resources came to use predominately fossil fuels and that all of those natural resources have been thoughtlessly over-mined to overproduce populations and destroy natural systems is both the consequence and challenge we face. To approach that problem with a reverse mining mentality, or, to develop a relationship with nature where there is no such thing as waste, and nutrient cycles are maintained throughout living systems, and we consume only what we need is by any measure, including Al Einstein’s measure, a paradigm shift of proportions heretofore unknown to civilized man. Rachel

No matter how you project China or India’s resource numbers relative to U.S. consumption, the earth finds all of these future prospects unimaginable and beyond reach.

Much of this issue from the perspective of people and change, at least as it relates to bridging the divide between what is truly sustainable (as some comments note) and what is not, seems more challenging than arresting climate change itself.

The Disneyland Life as one commenter put it, cannot feed itself, warm itself, shelter itself, transport itself, transmit itself, distract or entertain itself, or even fabricate a way out without oil in a supporting role through that transition. How do you deflect the modern global juggernaut from that path in a timely fashion? – Is it even possible? A path that nearly 7 billion depend on.

At first, I shared and supported the localization movements to develop their bioregions resources and setup local distribution systems in defiance of global models. But they too, mostly, apparently, like the organics and green industry before, have been co-opted by greed, ego, elitism, and exclusion – marking time with the proper slogans and a large pot to stew their non-profit grant dollars.

Nature is the timekeeper and we can only guess of her melting deadlines. Economic and environmental collisions are occurring throughout the world – the dynamics of failing states and tipping points cannot be ignored or dismissed. Some of us realize that this one will likely to “go to mattresses” and all that implies. Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia and an ever growing list are windows into that disturbed future.

I think Brown has centered the target as it relates to a mostly peaceful way out. It will take a war-time speed effort by the stronger nation states of North America and Eurasia. The sooner the financial house of cards collapses, the better. The only problem is locating the leadership with the courage and wherewithal to pull it off. Germany, Norway and Finland demonstrate encouragement. Rachel

Food is the central issue. Land and other natural life sustaining gifts have been and will continue to be the means of continuing life on this planet. In fact all of our environmental predicaments are of a piece. The Environment is not an issue - it’s absolutely everything. Everything else is just Disney Land. There are no greater issues. And yes, we’re looking the other way as it’s about to come crashing down around us. Cause and effect are rarely temporal in these matters and so most of us just think its an alarmist cry. But the facts are there and plain to see, if we look.

As far as cars, I don’t think Brown is promoting cars. He talks about a simple sustainable way to reduce the carbon footprint of autos by converting them to electric and then using windturbines to supply the energy for local commutes. Frankly, I agree that we need to greatly reduce this mode of transportation. It produces excess of 50,000 deaths a year and many more in injuries which are frequently quality of life debilitating. They also create a nation of isolated individualist who have no particular care in doing what will become the most important human trait and basis for commerce - SHARING.

Making and using cars as the core mode of personal mobility is ecologically unsustainable. It is wasteful to provide everybody with that much machinery to accomplish the simple task of moving them around town, and even the best possible cars will still get ridiculously bad MPG, compared with other uses of the energy inputs.

What we need is to build modern railroads within and between towns reconstructed to favor walking and bicycling.

Why can’t Lester Brown figure this out?