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SAVING CIVILIZATION IS NOT A
SPECTATOR SPORT

www.earthpolicy.org/index.php?/book_bytes/2010/pb4ch10_ss8

By Lester R. Brown

Earth Policy Release
Book Byte
April 22, 2010

Given the enormous environmental and social challenges faced by our early
twenty-first century global civilization, one of the questions I hear most
frequently is, What can I do? People often expect me to talk about lifestyle
changes, recycling newspapers, or changing light bulbs. These are essential,
but they are not nearly enough. We now need to restructure the global
economy, and quickly. It means becoming politically active, working for the
needed changes. Saving civilization is not a spectator sport.

Inform yourself, read about the issues. If you want to know what happened to
earlier civilizations that found themselves in environmental trouble, read
Collapse by Jared Diamond or A Short History of Progress by Ronald Wright
or The Collapse of Complex Societies by Joseph Tainter. My latest book, Plan
B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, can be downloaded free of charge from Earth Policy Institute's
(EPI's) Web site, earthpolicy.org, along with complementary data sets and a slide show summary. If
you find these materials useful in helping you think about what to do, share them with others.

Pick an issue that's meaningful to you, such as tax restructuring, banning inefficient light bulbs,
phasing out coal-fired power plants, or working for streets in your community that are pedestrian- and
bicycle-friendly, or join a group that is working to stabilize world population. What could be more
exciting and rewarding than getting personally involved in trying to save civilization?

You may want to proceed on your own, but you might also want to organize a group of like-minded
individuals. You might begin by talking with others to help select an issue or issues to work on.

And communicate with your elected representatives on the city council or the national legislature.
Aside from the particular issue that you choose to work on, there are two overriding policy challenges:
restructuring taxes and reordering fiscal priorities. Write or e-mail your elected representative about
the need to restructure taxes by reducing income taxes and raising environmental taxes. Remind him
or her that leaving costs off the books may offer a false sense of prosperity in the short run but that it
leads to collapse in the long run.

Let your political representatives know that a world spending more than $1 trillion a year for military
purposes is simply out of sync with reality, not responding to the most serious threats to our future.
Ask them if the Plan B budget-an additional $187 billion a year for eradicating poverty, stabilizing
population, and restoring the earth-is an unreasonable expenditure to save civilization. Ask them if
diverting one eighth of the global military budget to saving civilization is too costly. Remind them of
how the United States mobilized during World War II.

And above all, don't underestimate what you can do. Anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, "Never
doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that
ever has."

It doesn't hurt to underpin your political efforts with lifestyle changes. But remember they supplement
your political action; they are not a substitute for it. Urban planner Richard Register recounts meeting a
bicycle activist friend wearing a t-shirt that said "I just lost 3,500 pounds. Ask me how." When queried
he said he had sold his car. Replacing a 3,500-pound car with a 22-pound bicycle obviously reduces
energy use dramatically, but it also reduces materials use by 99 percent, indirectly saving still more
energy.

Dietary changes can also make a difference. The climate footprint differences between a diet rich in
red meat and a plant-based diet is roughly the same as the climate footprint difference between
driving a large fuel-guzzling SUV and a highly efficient gas-electric hybrid. Those of us with diets heavy
in fat-rich livestock products can do both ourselves and civilization a favor by moving down the food
chain.

Beyond these rather painless often healthily beneficial lifestyle changes, we can also think about
sacrifice. During World War II the military draft asked millions of young men to risk the ultimate
sacrifice. But we do not need to sacrifice lives as we battle to save civilization. We are called on only
to be politically active and to make lifestyle changes. During the early part of World War II President
Roosevelt frequently asked Americans to adjust their lifestyles. What contributions can we make
today, in time, money, or reduced consumption, to help save civilization?

The choice is ours-yours and mine. We can stay with business as usual and preside over an
economy that continues to destroy its natural support systems until it destroys itself, or we can adopt
Plan B and be the generation that changes direction, moving the world onto a path of sustained
progress. The choice will be made by our generation, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to
come.