Summary Of Plan B 4.0 By Lester R Brown

Introduction (Attention Step): What do you think is the greatest cause of emission pollution? What do you believe is harming our planet? Well if you guessed that fossil fuel emissions are the biggest emission polluters, then you are completely wrong (attention getter). Animal Agriculture is actually the number one Greenhouse Gas emitter in the planet. Yes, cow farts are destroying the environment. It sounds crazy, but ever since the mid 60’s, agriculture associations have been spreading across the Americas and dominated the industry. The most destructive of all Ag corps are Livestock Corporation. These associations include IBP, Conagra, Perdue, Farmland National Beef, Cargill, etc … Animal Agriculture is effecting every single person in this room because we all breathe in the same air, drink the same water, and eat the same (credibility). The buildup of Animal Agriculture is a great destruction to our planet and our species because it is creating

In the science article, “Beef and Climate Change Collide”, Los Angeles Times argues that beef is unhealthy for planet Earth due to the released gases that contribute to climate change. They claim that the U.S. beef production uses twenty eight times for land and eleven times more water than any other types of meets. Beef production pumps up five times more planet warming gases into our atmosphere than chicken, or pork. Furthermore, developing nations raising cattle have significantly increased the amounts of gases they produce. These developing countries have increased fifty one percent from 1961-2010. Although gases from cattle have been increasing, U.S. beef industry claims that the U.S. create the least amount of greenhouse gases being

Lester Browns Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization is one of a few books published that reveals in depth planning to ecological sustainability. Lester Brown is the President of a non-profit research organization titled “Earth Policy Institute,” which he founded in May of 2001. Mr. Brown has developed a four step plan to make the Earth a cleaner and better place. Throughout this paper we will be weighing the pros and cons of Lester Browns four step plan. Lester Brown’s plan has lots of upside but remember; nothing is free, everything produced has an opportunity cost. Mr. Brown is an intelligent human being, but fails to recognize the damage that can be made in producing “environmental-friendly” objects such as electric cars and windmills. It is also important to understand that every plan created for achieving ecological sustainability will have tremendous downsides. It is a good start, but humans are still decades, maybe even centuries away from creating the correct plan to achieve ecological sustainability. To understand the entirety of Lester Brown’s plan, you must break down each step individually. It is also important to comprehend that Lester’s results from each step could very well be correct but the process of each could do more harm than good.

Anna Lappé’s book, Diet for a Hot Planet, discusses the impact that meat consumption has on the planet and our environment. It discusses how the global food system is a major contributor to climate change, producing as much as one-third of greenhouse gas emissions. She writes about how the way we farm, what we eat, and how our food gets to our tables all

As the human population continues to grow exponentially, researchers like David Jenkins, are looking into other possible food production. Jenkins proposes that eating plants would not only be beneficial for the body, since it lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, but it would also be more sustainable than raising meat. Jenkins’ research highlights three dietary methods and he explains how these dietary methods (especially Simian) can help us feed 9 billion in 2050. With the exponential growth in human population, there must be an increase in livestock (meat) to support the rapid growth. Jenkins’ data show that already livestock feed processing and production heavily contributes in the emission of greenhouse gases. Jenkins’ proposal is that

The article Plan B written by Lester R. Brown, informs the readers the great effect of pollution on the earth. Lester goes into great detail on how humanity is using earth’s resources faster than earth can replenish it. One of the big issues Brown highlights in the article is the lack of food resource the humanity could face. The increase of CO2 gas released into the environment has caused the earth to grow much warmer causing lands and water resources to dry out. Causing the earth’s soil to no be able to grow food, this could become a great problem since the earth’s population keeps increasing. Leaving humanity with more people to feed but not enough resources to feed them with. The second part of the article is Brown’s “Plan

Brought up in the southern of China, I often heard about that people from there “eat anything with four limbs except tables, anything that flies except aero planes, and anything that swims except ships”. Nevertheless, I eat more fruit, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains but less meat to make careful choices for environmental protection. Similarly, Kathy Freston argues that animal agriculture is one of the top contributors to global warming. In her Huffington Post selection “Vegetarian Is the New Prius,” Freston lists how many emissions of greenhouse gases people make when they eat meat and illustrates the consumption of tree in animal agriculture. She effectively convinces her audiences that the livestock results in the most serious environmental problems and encourages people to lead a greener diet to protect our environment. However, ardent craving, poor health, and perpetual hassle and cost prevent all Americans from being vegetarian.

It’s often argued that cows are the main source of our Methane emission, giving a strong argument to reduce, or even stop, our consumption of meat. In all actuality, only about six percent to seven percent of all greenhouse

Another Ted Talk video “What’s Wrong with What We Eat” is a speech video by Mark Bittman discussing “what’s wrong with the way we eat now, and why it’s putting the entire planet at risk”. This video discusses the way we eat is a Holocaust of it’s time. Bittman discusses how energy production, livestock is the second highest contributor to atmosphere altering gases. With one-fifth of those greenhouses gasses coming from livestock production, more than transportation. Bittman also talks about how livestock is one of the largest problems with land degradation, air and water pollution, water shortage, and biodiversity.

Gary Stix calls to Americans to halt global warming. The world is changing and not for the better, he writes “The Debate on Global Warming is Over” (Stix 46). CO2 levels are higher than they have been in 650,000 years and are projected to only increase at an exponential rate. No one knows exactly when and what will happen, but all scientist can agree that it won’t be good. Making a difference in the fight against global warming will require a massive alteration in the entire world’s energy economy. Fossil Fuels account for 80% of the world’s energy and if a “carbon budget” is put into place then they will be ineffective (Stix 47). We need to begin to make a shift towards more renewable sources of energy, and adopt a system to help regulate the total amount of emissions. These programs will give us a head start on lessening the effects of global warming, but the

He clearly demonstrates in an estimate “the emissions produced in the process of supplying a kilocalorie of food energy for each food group.” He concludes from his research that fruit is more carbon intensive than chicken, fish, pork and even dairy. Wilson also notes that a tomato grown out of season can “have emissions 5 times higher than one grown in season” (Wilson). A researcher from the Carnegie Mellon University supports these findings stating that “Lots of common vegetables require more energy than you would think. Eggplant, celery, and cucumbers look pretty bad when compared to pork or chicken.” (qtd. in Dockrill). Not only are there some meats that have less of a negative impact on our environment than some vegetables, but as Christopher Doering points out in his article for The Des Moines Register, Study Finds Cattle May Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emmissions From Ag, “While cattle produce greenhouse gas methane when they chew and digest food, row crops have a bigger impact on the environment because of the increased soil erosion that later results in the increase in carbon emissions.” (Doering).

While all of us relatively understand how driving cars, leaving the lights on, or using too much water can affect the environment, there is one massive human activity that is frequently overlooked—eating. From growing, to processing, to distributing, and finally consuming, our agricultural system uses an immense portion of our planet’s limited resources and emits large amounts of greenhouse gases that have drastic effects on the environment. Because of this, it is imperative to understand the environmental impacts of the type of foods that we choose to include in our diets. While much of today’s population is heavily reliant on animal products, it is evident that a meat-based diet is not environmentally sustainable; on the other hand, a plant-based diet is much more environmentally friendly in terms of the amount of grain, water, and

One of the biggest controversies with livestock production is that the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that get released into the atmosphere. Its assumed that cars produce most if not all the greenhouse gas emissions however livestock has a big say in air pollution. According to Cassandra Brooks, writer for the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, 18 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions are due to livestock production. This is nearly 20% and can be greatly reduced if people reduced their demand for meat. The Environmental Working Group used a tangible variable for Americans stating “if everyone in the U.S. ate no meat or cheese just one day a week, it would be like not driving 91 billion miles – or taking 7.6 million

“Methane has been identified as a significant contributor to global warming. It is second to carbon dioxide in contribution to global warming and is said to be 15-20% of all greenhouse gas emissions.” (Yusuf, Noor, Abba, A. Hassan, & Din., 2012, p. 1). The majority of the greenhouse gases emitted in the agricultural sector came from livestock (Yusuf et al., 2012, p. 2). Studies have shown that “cows produce more greenhouse gases than the entire

The impacts of livestock on global climate change are important to the health of the ecosystem because it causes the average global temperature to increase. Livestock contributes to the majority of methane emitted into the atmosphere because of the feces it produces. The growing population increase is not helpful to this matter because as a result, a demand of food arises. This demand for food also includes the demand for livestock because it is appropriate for the human diet. “Meat production is to double from 229 million tonnes in [2000] to 465 million tonnes in 2050” (McMichael et al. 1259). The methane emission rate is bound to increase because it is “dependent upon the population size of the [livestock], their productivity, and [handling system]” (Jose et al. 3).