Western Industrial Throwaway Economy No Longer Viable

The notorious environmentalist, Lester Brown (discussed in a prior post here) thinks that we need an urgent and immediate response, on the scale of World War II, to revamp the Western Economic system (here).

We need an economy for the twenty-first century, one that is in sync with the earth and its natural support systems, not one that is destroying them.The fossil fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy that evolved in western industrial societies is no longer a viable model—not for the countries that shaped it or for those that are emulating them. In short, we need to build a new economy, one powered with carbon-free sources of energy—wind, solar, and geothermal—one that has a diversified transport system and that reuses and recycles everything. We can change course and move onto a path of sustainable progress, but it will take a massive mobilization—at wartime speed.

It is not likely to happen without a major catastrophe on the order of a world war, but he is offering a Plan B, should it be needed.