Lester R. Brown presents an excellent, comprehensive analysis and discussion of the major ecological and social challenges threatening humanity with the possibility of extinction. These include problems with oil and food supplies; climate change and rising sea levels; water shortages; depletion of natural resources; and warnings about possible tipping points in failing social and economic systems. The most concerning factor is global heating, which could reach a tipping point beyond which it would be impossible to reverse the melting of glaciers and the destruction of life as we know it on our planet.

He proposes numerous solutions for our most serious and urgent challenge, climate change, often measured in the numbers of coal-powered electricity generating facilities that could be eliminated. This is vital to climate control because emissions of carbon dioxide from coal burning facilities is the most serious contributor to global warming on the one hand, and one of the most readily replaceable factor on the other hand.

...in plan B we propose to cut net carbon dioxide emissions 80 perent by 2020. our goal is to prevent the atmospheric Co2 concentration from exceeding 400 ppm, thus limiting the future rise in temperature.

This is an extraordinarily ambitious undertanking. It means, for example, phasing out all coal-fired power plants by 2020 while greatly reducing the sue of oil. This is not a simple matter.

We can, however, make this shift using currently available technologies. The three components of this carbon-cutting effort are halting deforestation while planting trees to sequester carbon, ... raising energy efficiency worldwide, ... and harnessing the earth's renewable sources of energy... Plan B calls for using the most energy-efficient technologies available for lighting, for heating and cooling buildings, and for transportation. It calls for an ambitious exploitation of the earth's solar, wind, and geotheramal energy sources. It means, for example, a wholesale shift to plug-in hybrid cars, running them largely on wind-generated electricity. (p. 67)

The challenges that are threatening to overwhelm the capacities of various countries to deal with the pressing problems of their populations are not being addressed in anything resembling serious or concerted efforts by the wealthier nations. Brown points out that relatively modest investments in enhanced education (sums far smaller than are being spent on arms and military engagements) are key to stabilizing social and political crises around the world. These are potential human time bombs that could escalate into global problems of population migrations which would threaten other nations. With basic education it is possible to achieve birth control, reductions in population growth and reducing the spread of AIDS are achievable goals.

Plan be is shaped by what is needed to save civilization, not by what may currently be considered politically feasible. Plan B does not fit within a particular discipline, sector, or set of assumptions.

Implementing Plan B means undertaking several actions simultaneously, including eradicating poverty, stabilizing population, and restoring the earth's natural systems. (p. 20)

This book is a must read for anyone seriously interested in understanding the global crises that threaten the continuation of life as we know it on our planet, and wanting to contribute to preventing this disaster.

If you are not contributing to the solution, you are a part of the problem. -Anonymous

This is one of the finest books to summarize in layman's terms both the problems and solutions to our unsustainable, industrialized economy. What distinguishes Lester Brown form other authors on the topic of sustainability is the ease of readability of his books. That definitely cannot be said about other, overly laborious works that mostly appeal to policy makers or academia.

Version 3.0 (2007) here expands where Plan B 2.0 left off and what Eco Economy started in 2001. There is much valuable news and trends in 3.0 not in 2.0 as this is an extremely fast moving topic which needs updating every year. (I've had Harvard profs tell me they need to completely revamp their sustainability lectures each year to keep up with the latest happenings).

Positives: very clear, readable writing style ... a keen ability to "connect the dots" of the many issues of a unsustainable society ... depth and insight ... loaded but not overloaded with useful eco-factoids ... and ability to balance bad news/good news and not be either wholly focused on total eco-gloom disaster scenarios or a total pie-in-the-sky-kind-of-a-guy. His balance is superb and his recommendations believable.

Negatives: not many but some charts and graphs to break up the text would have enhanced the points and visual interest. Also, the 100+ pages of reference notes could have been indexed on the website to save some trees and shipping weight (as only researchers need this for most part).

Other good recent books include "Earth: The Sequel" by Fred Krupp (super detailed accounts about the latest eco-solution technologies poised to change the world) ... and "Peak Everything" by Richard Heinberg (how the collision course of severe resource constraints and industrialization impacts will wreak havoc on society and how new thinking is required to dig out of this mess).

Lester Brown gives us a solid plan to save civilization from the ravages of Peak Oil and Global Warming. But at $190 billion a year, it just sounds too easy.

In fact Peak Oil is now becoming Peak Everything (the title of Richard Heinberg's latest book), driving huge price increases in many key commodities. This means that the actual cost is likely to become twice Brown's estimate or more, the longer we delay, the higher the price. To keep costs down will take a global mobilization, with many agreements like the proposed Oil Depletion Protocol (subject of another Heinberg book) and massive rationing or taxation of non-essential consumption.

One way or another global economic decline is in the offing. This is a scary issue, especially for politicians, but it needs to be faced. This is because there is a huge difference in how this decline occurs. Business-as-usual decline (Plan A) will lead to collapse, possibly by mid-century. Decline imposed through mobilization (Plan B) will lead to survival, though with far less of many of today's luxuries.

Here's how decline will hit home, even with mobilization. Brown, along with the Apollo Alliance and many others, are now talking about a new economy of "green collar" jobs, with re-localization of much outsourced productive activity. What they don't tell you is that most of these jobs will pay far less in real purchasing power than most white and blue collar jobs in today's top industries.

But good people will take these Walmart-pay type jobs anyway because of layoffs that will skyrocket in the coming decades. That is, today's wealth is based primarily on cheap energy, so with many more people competing there will a lot less wealth to go around as we head down the Peak. Much of Plan B amounts to learning how to live with less. Many of those who've looked carefully at the numbers don't see the resources to build and maintain the renewable energy we'd need to replace all of today's fossil fuels.

This brings up the population issue. Brown says that we must stabilize at eight billion people. But will we really have the resources for 8 billion people to live sustainably and with at least basic middle class amenities (decent food, clothing, housing, health care, education, transportation, ...)? Some people are now saying that we need to think two billion or less.

Radical population reduction seems impossible without invoking the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it's actually very simple in concept: Women have only one child, on the average, and that child is born in the woman's mid thirties, again on the average. Mathematically this will reduce the population by a factor of 4 in 80 to 100 years. Sure, this would take a global cultural mobilization, but it is possible. As Brown points out, Iran cut its population growth rate in half in less than a decade, and Thailand did too. Perhaps we need Al Gore to show the world the kind of Apocalypse that happens when an exploding population uses up all its resources.

This is a difficult book to get wrapped around. Which is good news, and then again it is bad news.

The good news is that this is an excellent and wide-sweeping run-up to the current health of our Earth.

Such topics as Our Socially Divided World, Eradicating Poverty, Designing Cities For People, and The Great Mobilization are spread over 287 pages of dense statistics and research, backed up by nearly another 100 pages of footnotes.

The bad news? There is far more content than is of interest to me - the motivated renewable energy reader. Some day I will wade through the less interesting parts, and then leave the remainder as a source reference.

The book cover heralds "REVISED AND EXPANDED". Actually, I would have preferred the less-is-more previous edition.

This book does a good job of suggesting that the United States trims it's military budgets from the largest to a very slim one.

and demonstrates how necessary it is to move away from oil, thru the use of windmills and electric cars.

It does a good job of putting into laymans terms facts which most people do not consider in their daily grind, and how decisions made by super powers when it comes to (over)population levels, econimic models, and the environment must be addressed.

According to the book, every single member of the US Senate was given one copy hopefully they read it so they can grasp the issues discussed.

which points out the consequences of the "biofuels" rage, which will create food shortages and will drive food prices through the roof. It also does a good job explaining the consequences of overpopulation in various countries around the world, putting into perspective the problems associated with food shortages, water table shortages, energy shortages, and speaks about promoting stabilization where the woman lives.

It also provides a main point of moving away from oil, thru the use of windmills and electric cars.

It also has a budget for the United States to go from the country with the highest military budget in the world to instead spending a small portion of that budget to start solving the worlds problems instead of rehashing them by continuing to use oil.

It does a good job of putting into laymans terms facts which most people do not consider in their daily grind.

Then you must read this book. It clearly lays how mankind is on the road to ruin if we don't change our ways and the U.S. is no ways immune. It is hopeful also to read about tangible plans on how we can change our ways and build a world for all of us to thrive in, maybe compramising just a little bit for the better well-being of all of us. The book is extremely well writting and the documentation of sources is impressive. My only complaint is that some of it is unessecarily redundant, but I don't blame the author for trying to hit home key points. Anyone with any concern for the future needs to read this book, and take some action, even if just a little.

The numbers don't lie. Lester Brown has presented a very informative synopsis of the most pressing issues facing our planet. The trends are all pointing in the wrong direction as far as the environment. He does offer an extremely innovative solution to get us back on a sustainable path. The scary thing is the narrow window of time in which we have to make some monumental changes in the way that we live. This is especially true for us Americans. We need to realize that there are another 6+billion people on the planet and that we all can not consume and waste as Americans collectively do. Great job Lester. I bought 8 copies of the book, which I never done before in my life to circulate to people to get the word out. Buy this book, you will not regret it.

Read this book then become active. Our children will either blame us or thank us. It is up to us to decide which.

Lester Brown's book leaves the reader in no doubt of the perilous state to which environmental degradation has brought human civilisation. He sets out the facts and figures which disclose the dangers we are in. Falling water tables, shrinking forests, widespread soil erosion, advancing deserts, collapsing fisheries, rapid population growth, precarious levels of food production, biodiversity loss, and above all rising temperatures and rising seas are among the warning signs of a reality which will soon become manifest if we do not change our habits.

However although he sees our current prospects as alarming Brown's main concern is to show that there are achievable means to avert disaster and keep the world safe for civilised life. Collectively they constitute his Plan B, the alternative to business as usual. In the second half of his book he explores them in detail, often referring to hopeful developments already under way. Population planning, earth restoration, tree preservation and planting, marine reserves for fishery regeneration, more careful and effective water use, car-reduced cities, energy efficiency, electrically powered cars, and a total change to renewable energy sources are among the many topics he covers, in careful and measured detail.

For those who claim that society will not accept the financial cost of Plan B alternatives Brown offers an analysis of the costs and reveals they are by no means beyond our capacity. One sixth of the world's current annual military expenditure would cover them. Some nevertheless say it is politically impossible to turn around the industrial juggernaut. Brown counters by pointing to the government-ordered change, during the wartime 1940s, of the whole US economy within months to an entirely different type of production, with attendant gains in vitality.

Like its Plan B predecessors this is an impressively detailed yet easily read compendium of the necessary information, coherently ordered to explain the new direction we must take. Whether we will take it or not is by far the most important question for our time and the human future, as the book clearly demonstrates.

The information contained in PLAN B 3.0 is so utterly important to civilization as we know it, it should be mandatory reading by anyone seeking political office, and, frankly, should be read by, or read to, everyone on this planet. This is no joke.

The urgency to do something NOW about our damaged environment could not be better explained. We are running out of time to restore the earth to sustainable living conditions, if we haven't already. The only thing worse than destroying the world we live in is understanding the problem and not doing anything about it.

Read this book as soon as possible.

RT

I've read a number of Lester's books, including Plan B 2.0 and this, the latest iteration, 3.0. Is there enough of a difference between 2 and 3 to merit the purchase? Absolutely. Not only is there plenty of new material, but to see how swiftly things have moved in the short span between editions is staggering.

No need for me to get into WHY this is a worthy read. Other reviewers have that covered.

What I WILL offer is a money back guarantee to anyone who buys this book and finds it less than staggering. I'm far, far from a wealthy man, but I do believe in the world-changing significance of this book that I will back up my offer. I'm easy to contact mind you.

Lastly, try to pick up the book directly through Earth Policy Institute. That way EPI actually makes a few cents to further their research.

I consider myself well informed on the environmental crisis's that loom before us but the author describes all the ones I was familiar with, and a few others, all in one place. He also gives us a ray of hope by giving examples of how people throughout the world are acting to ameliorate some of these crisis's. It is an easy book for the layman to read. I would recommend it.

Although sections of the book get tedious with an incredible about of statistics and references, this book is easily one of the most important books written in the last several decades. Brown makes the case for drastic measures to be taken to save civilization from climate change, over population, over-pumping of potable water wells, and poverty.

The second section lists a great many solutions to these problems, for both the average citizen and the movers and shakers.

Everyone should read this book. Buy it, read it free online, get it from the library, or borrow a copy.

If you are short of time at least read the second section. You will be pleasantly shocked by how simple some solutions are (condoms, bicycles, composting toilets) and by how draconian are others.

Lester Brown and Barak Obama share something in common: they've got HOPE in abundance. And they both have the wisdom to share it with those on the tipping point of dispair.

Lester has been on the road most of his life talking to world leaders in private and to audiences of hundreds and 1,000s in public. As one of the highest paid speakers in the world, when Lester Brown speaks, people listen. And they also buy his books.

Now, he is digging deep into his life-long ideabank to come up with solutions that could turn the world around tomorrow, if ... and only if ... people do more than read and agree with what he says. People will need to take action soon, before the domino effect of economic collapse worldwide creates panic, not strategic planning.

Plan B offers hope, and a real plan. In his book, Lester Brown proposes an all-out effort to cut net carbon dioxide emissions 80 percent by 2020. Want to learn how? Buy the book. I did, and highly recommend it! My own book focuses on global warming and human adaptation strategies to accelerate self-evolution. If Lester's plan works, then you won't need mine.

Alexia Parks, author of Rapid Evolution, Seven Words That Will Change Your Life Forever!

Lester Brown, the president of the Earth Policy Institute, has written another splendid summary of the environmental problems we face. Even better, he has formulated a plan we can use to increase our odds of surviving the coming crises. This is the third edition of Plan B and has many updates. Even though I have read the first two editions, I still enjoyed Plan B 3.0 and learned much.


Mr. Brown starts with a review of the problems. Declining reserves of oil, increasing food insecurity, increasing climate change, decreasing supplies of clean water, shrinking forests, collapsing fisheries, and advancing deserts - all these issues are coming together to challenge our generation. Our overpopulation and wanton overuse of resources is catching up with us.

Lester Brown emphasizes that if we continue along the current course (e.i. Plan A ), we are fast heading towards societal collapse and misery. We simply can not continue to use resources at a rate faster than the resources regenerate.

The second part of the book is the the best summary I have read about what we should do. The author reviews various tasks such as stabilizing population, restoring forests, rebuilding soils, raising water productivity, redesigning transportation, raising energy efficiency, and turning to renewable energy. I was much inspired by Mr. Brown's review of specific tools we can use to carry-out these programs. He speaks with great hope of a "Great Mobilization" in which we actually realize the mess we are in and work together to insure a healthy future for generations to come.

In summary, this spectacular book provides a good initial blueprint for action that may indeed preserve civil society.

For those of us who ruminate on the death knell of the consumerist culture, this book offers some optimism. There are more ideas and possible solutions discussed here than in many of the books of this type. It definitely deserves a place on the bookshelf, after a thorough study!

Unless you've been taking the sleep cure in Switzerland for the last few years, skip the first section of Lester R. Brown's book. "A civilization in trouble" --- roger that, and the details will only send you looking for Wellbutrin. You're a Solutions Person, you want the memo that suggests ways we can turn this planetary tipping point into a transformational opportunity. And in Part II, "The Response", Brown delivers.

Control population, educate the poor. Everyone sane says this. But Brown knows better ways to help that along than the usual entreaties. Like: Mexico, where "a well-written soap opera can have a profound short-term effect on population growth." Consider: The day after a soap-opera character visited a literacy office on TV, 250,000 followed his example --- in one day --- in Mexico City. Across the country that season, 600,000 more Mexicans enrolled in literacy courses.

Move down the food chain. Michael Pollan can show you how.

Acknowledge that the suburbs are museums of the recent past; re-engineer cities to make them more people-friendly. That means parks, bike lanes, better and more buses. "On my bike, I estimate I get easily 7 miles per potato," Brown writes. Not a bad line from a thinker who heads the Earth Policy Institute. Not bad ideas, given that "by 2020 close to 55 percent of us will be living in cities."

Use less energy. Prime energy wasters: the gold and bottled water industries. You know about bottled water, of course; you use home filters and carry SIGG bottles. Still, it is bracing to recall that American bottled water companies burn about 50 million barrels of oil --- a year.

Switch to renewable energy. Here Brown hits his stride, and his list of countries using natural sources of power will brighten your day. China has 160 million people getting hot water from rooftop solar heaters. Ninety percent of Iceland's homes are heated with geothermal energy. Sixty million Europeans get electricity from wind farms.

Wind makes for the most exciting reading. By Brown's calculations, an Iowa farmer growing corn on a quarter-acre of land produces enough corn to make $300 worth of ethanol. If he put wind turbines on that quarter-acre, he'd produce $300,000 worth of electricity in a year. Please send this book to any corn farmers you know.

Want to stabilize the climate? Brown's solution: Install 1.5 million 2-megawatt wind turbines. Of course this would require mass manufacturing of turbines. Where might we do that? The assembly lines of Detroit auto factories. Unless, like Mitt Romney, you believe full employment making cars that people want is still possible for Detroit, this could strike you as an exciting idea. Even if you're sentimental about General Motors, you might warm to the image of wind turbines in the Sahara --- and Algeria selling electricity to Europe.

There's more. And it requires a national commitment to get it done --- like the first year of World War II, when America turned into a giant factory to pump out tanks and planes. Will we step up in time? Lester R. Brown gives you the facts and ideas you need to do better thinking than you'll find in what passes for most "serious" conversations.

This is an extraordinary book and the time to implement its suggestions is now. Read it, then write your elected officials and ask them to read it too. As individuals there is much we can do to live more sustainably but to really have an impact on climate change will take coordinated action on a global scale. Brown provides the game plan and sorts out the promising (e.g. wind and solar) from the counter-productive (e.g. nuclear). The breadth of the scope is astonishing.

Lester Brown has taken on the daunting task of examining in painstaking detail, the scope of the interconnected problems we face on this planet. The cascade of crises between global warming, water shortages, starvation, environmental refugees, species extinction, desertification, and failed states producing terrorism are all leading to catastrophe. Hard to put down, if for no other reason than it makes it impossible to sleep, the first half of the book is truly terrifying.

But Brown takes equal pains to analyze and document the efforts that need to happen to turn this into a web of solutions equal to the task at hand. Some of these efforts are already happening, others are proposed, but all are achievable and for a pricetag that is less than half the U.S. military spending so far in Iraq.

Lester Brown is stunning in his grasp of details, but what he doesn't address is the need for deep underlying change in the cultural values of how we live. His solutions are practical, achievable, and realistic, but not philosophical. They aim to mitigate the crisis and make civilization sustainable, but do not address the underlying break from Nature that has led to our domination and exploitation. But given the scope of Plan B, that would be a different book, and one could say he has accomplished quite enough in this impressive manifesto for our planet. (see Waking the Global Heart: Humanity's Rite of Passage from the Love of Power to the Power of Love

One can see no reason whatsoever not to make Plan B the worldwide plan for the future. Everyone should read this book.

Two years ago Lester R. Brown was introduced to me by another who had noticed I had Al Gore's book, An Inconvenient Truth. The recommendation of Brown's book Plan B 2.0 Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble proved true. Brown could have won the Nobel Prize for his book and for his organization the Earth Policy Institute. However, a Nobel Prize to Brown would have passed under the media radar. Gore had reached the top of the best-sellers list. It was the beginning of a big year for Gore. With Gore as a winner, controversy ensued, bringing airplay week after week.

Brown is yet the master. Brown advocates mobilization in his new book, a reflection on the scale of the challenge and the "wartime speed" of the response that is called for.

Beyond mobilization, I find significant Brown's call for the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth. Writes Brown, "How will we respond to our children when they ask, 'How could you do this to us? How could you leave us facing such chaos?' These are questions we need to be thinking about now - because if we fail to act quickly enough, these are precisely the questions we will be asked." Brown goes on to note how the global economic accounting system leaves costs off the books which carries consequences. "If we can get the market to tell the truth, then we can avoid being blindsided by a faulty accounting system that leads to bankruptcy."

Brown's discussion of the increasing number a failing states is also significant. Brown suggests a link between the degree of state failure and the destruction of environmental support systems. Spreading political instability across borders could disrupt global economic progress.

The day calls for addressing the business of a sustainable plan - for mobilization. This is it.

Lester Brown is the creator of Worldwatch Institute. I have read every one of its State of the World Reports since the first one came out in 1984.

A few years ago he quit Worldwatch and founded a new organization, the Earth Policy Institute.

This book provides answers about what to do. Too many environmentalists seem to concentrate 99% of their efforts on talk of gloom and doom and only 1% of their efforts to realistic, practical ideas about what to do about the very real problems they worry about. By contrast, Brown and his staff at Earth Policy Institute have taken the time to put together a game plan about how to create a genuinely sustainable society. Nobody is going to agree with all their ideas. I'm a bit skeptical about some of the cost estimates. However, at least Brown has cost estimates. Sadly, very few people or organizations have put togther the kind of detailed plan that is presented here. Buy this book. Read it. Think about it. Discuss it. It creates a solid framework for debate about our planet's future. For anybody who is interested I have lists of some other good books and documentary films on similar subjects on my Amazon profile page.

I have followed Lester Brown's dedication to evaluating the state of our planet for over a decade, and wrote to the Nobel Committee urging them to recognize him, Herman Daly, and Paul Kawkins and the two Lovins instead of Al Gore. They have all done a great deal more of the heavy lifting.

I decided to purchase this book when Medard Gabel, creator of the analog World Game with Buchminster Fuller, gave me a budget for saving the planet that totals no more than $230 billion a year (at a time when we spend $1.3 trillion waging war).

I've gone through the book and consider it to be a best in class effort, a seminal work no one else on the planet could have produced. In the author's chosen area of focus, there is no other book like this one. However, some other books are easier to read and understand, such as High Noon 20 Global Problems, 20 Years to Solve Them, and others do a better job of addressing all ten high-level threats to Humanity and Earth, such as A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility--Report of the Secretary-General's High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

Here are a few highlights:

+ Book is offered free online (but the hard copy is much better deal, easier to work with, mark up and return to as a reference....use the online version to search for specifics.

+ The Introduction is clear and inspiring. This book is loaded with carefully collected facts ably presented.

+ $12 per gallon of fuel in "true costs" externalized and not billed

+ One 25 gallon ethanol tank takes enough grain to feed a person for a year. This means that those in hunger going to double from 600 million to 1.2 billion, as cars compete for grain (which is nuts).

+ Food-oil axis is developing into a triple crisis: oil, food, water. As 50% live in cities, the fuel intensity of food in the face of Peak Oil is becoming a major issue.

+ Stopping the ethanol program dead in its tracks is the single best thing US Government could do, followed my more wind farms and an end to coal plants.

+ Amazon reaching a tipping point, mega-fires are foreseen (as with New York City if its 1920's water system fails and a firestorm emerges)

+ Western model will not work for China or India (or Brazil, Indonesia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela, and other Wild Cards)

+ Ice cap is melting fast, gfalciers are melting fast and causing small earthquakes.

+ 600 million refugees expected if sea level rises ten meters (33 feet)

+ Mortality has been reduced, but fertility has not, leaving persistent population issues.

+ 15 of 24 primary ecosystems degraded or pushed beyond their limits.

+ Climate has become more destructive, with 55 weather events costing $1.5 billion or more each since the 1980's.

+ Great discussion of the ecology of cities, Bioneers would resonate with all the author recommends.

+ Scarcity crossing national boundaries.

+ Excellent notes, heavy reliance on UN and other primary sources.

+ He proposes a budget of $190 billion a year to achieve our social goals and restore the Earth.

+ The only thing missing from this book are some of the positives, for example bacteria as an energy source, healing bacteria, eletrified water as a cleanser needed no other ingredients, the recovery of the Dead Sea with furrows that retain every drop of water.

I am so surprised to find only one review that I wanted to quickly add my praise for this author, while also pointing out three things that a handful of wealthy philanthropists could do tomorrow to execute this vision.

#1 We should all support the World Index of Social and Environmental Responsibility (WISER) as created by the Natural Capital Institute, and encourage colleges and universities around the world to begin loading the "true cost" information for all products and services (e.g. 4000 gallons of water in a designer T-shirt). Delivered to end-users via cell phone query at the point sale, this will dramatically affect markets.

#2 We should ask the 90 major foundations in the USA to host a summit to which all governments, non-governmental organizations, prominent wealthy individuals, and the United Nations are invited. The objective should be to create an online "Range of Gifts" Table that identifies specific contributions that can be made at every cost level, to eradicate the ten high level threats within fifteen years, by harmonizing the twelve policies such that ALL organizations and ALL individuals can opt in on a master budget that is strategically sound, operationally executable, and tactically open to all.

#3 We must absorb the wisdom of C. K. Prahalad, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and others listed below, and recognize that the only enduring sustainable solutioin lies in educating the five billion poor, who do not have the time or the money to sit in a classroom for 18-22 years. We can create today, using Telelanguage.com, an immediate registry of 100 million volunteers with Internet access, speaking 183 languages among them, who can educate the poor--who are not stupid, just illiterate--one cell call at a time.

I believe that Reuniting America, True Majority, and WISER are reaching critical mass. All we lack now is one well endowed champion who sees that it is our collective intelligence that will solve the world's problems, and there is no need to run for President. Here are the handful of books I would recommend to Michael Bloomberg if he were to ask me today how to fulfil his vision of political, educational, and philanthropic reform.

Visit Earth Intelligence Network for free public intelligence on the ten threats, twelve policies, and eight challengers. The weekly report "GLOBAL CHALLENGES: The Week in Review," will appeal to anyone interested in this book and its topic.

The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits (Wharton School Publishing Paperbacks)
Revolutionary Wealth: How it will be created and how it will change our lives
Infinite Wealth: A New World of Collaboration and Abundance in the Knowledge Era
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest
The Future of Life

This is the third iteration of the Plan B series. They just keep getting better. This book delivers beautifully in laying out the unprecedented challenges faced by humanity as we move into the 21st century. Plan B thoughtfully examines the critical global issues of our time: fresh water scarcity, soil depletion, deforestation; desertification; fisheries collapse; habitat destruction; species extinction; extreme weather; global warming, energy policy, and human population growth. Though the subject matter is sobering, it is presented in highly engaging and convincing fashion. Lester Brown and his support team show that we humans are our own worst enemy. But the book is hardly all gloom and doom. There is a decidedly wise and positive course offered in these pages. Plan B shows that we are capable of cleaning up the mess we have made of our planet. It includes a clear, reasonable, and immanently doable public policy blueprint that offers hope for an equitable, life affirming, and environmentally sustainable future for all life on Earth. Anyone interested in a single volume that will get them up to speed on the world's most pressing issues should look no farther. Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown is as good as it gets.