Building a Sustainable World – Earth Policy Institutes Plan B

Earth Policy Institute (EPI) President Lester Brown says, “Saving civilization is not a spectator sport.” Check. Many of us already know this. The problem is getting enough people to believe it is a necessary undertaking and then getting us all to agree on how to do it.

EPI has dedicated itself towards building a sustainable future. They have addressed the need to act against the mounting pressures on our global environment and have attracted many industry leaders to formulate a plan to answer this call. That plan is called simply: Plan B.

One of the key components of Plan B, is to halt world population growth at no more than 8 billion by 2040.

Hold on a minute, halt world population growth at no more than 8 billion by 2040? Let’s put aside the ‘deadline’ for this fantastic undertaking and let’s ignore the stated limit of 8 billion people. Any talk of halting population growth is completely absurd.

This would not only require a tremendous effort to educate people everywhere on how this would work but it would require convincing them that it is necessary. Also, there are totally insurmountable obstacles concerning religious beliefs and cultural mores that would have to be overcome as well as many other objections and hurdles I cannot even begin to comprehend.

I do believe the people at EPI have placed themselves squarely in the same category as those who run around the street crying “the sky is falling”.

While their goal to “replace the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy with a new economic model powered by abundant sources of renewable energy: primarily wind, solar, and geothermal” is a noble one, this population control thing is so far out in left field to be deemed laughable.

Mankind’s relationship with our natural support systems is deteriorating rapidly and perhaps desperate measures are required to overcome the rate as we are descending into our self-imposed oblivion, but forcing the end of population growth will never be an attainable goal.

We do need to get reproductive health care and birth control services to the more than 200 million women today who want to plan their families but lack access to the means to do so.

Nature has shown time and again its ability to adapt itself to changing conditions to ensure its survival. When the world’s population has reached that tipping point when our planet will no longer be able to support it nature will find a way to relieve the pressure. Whether it be through increased natural disasters or some ‘biblical plague of locusts’. Nature will continue long after we are gone. It’s a cold way of looking at the situation but nature can be pretty heartless. Plus, it is no colder than forcing birth control on our population.