CHAPTER
3 – Finding Plan B
The date was August 11, 2004. Little did I suspect that the events
of this day would change the future course of my life. I awoke early
and opened the tent flaps to enjoy sunny skies and the smell of
the ocean nearby. It was my last day of a week-long adventure in
Alaska. Much as I had enjoyed it, I was looking forward to the comforts
of civilization in Petersburg, and more of such back home. But first
there was the chore of packing up all my gear. I tackled it with
enthusiasm.
Back
in Petersburg, there was plenty of free time to explore the
town before catching
a plane home. I spent the
greater part of the
afternoon in the town’s only bookstore. I wanted to know more
about local history, especially the role that Alaska played during
WWII. About mid-afternoon, I came across a book called “Plan
B” (2). The letters were large and red, and the image was
mostly of gathering clouds near a storm. I didn’t know the
author, Lester R. Brown, but I was captivated by the subtitle: “Rescuing
a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble”. The
words were wisely chosen, not overstated. I read the summary
on the back cover and the Contents page, and I knew that I had
to buy
this book and read it right away. I put aside other materials
and read the entire 222 pages as I flew to Seattle, Chicago and
Madison
all through that night.
A friend was at the airport to greet me and drive me home. He
was inquisitive and pressed me with many questions about the trip.
I found myself unable to tell him just about the trip, for I had
to include Plan B in my story. It had become more important to me
than the entire trip to Alaska!
My
friend persisted with his questions. Why should any book,
even “Plan
B”, affect me so much, he wanted to know? I answered that
its author, Lester Brown, appeared to have deep insights on a global
scale. I had been in China just 2 months before, and I had been
amazed by the prosperity of the city-dwellers and by the persistent
droughts in the northeast. Right in the first chapter of his book,
however, Dr. Brown explains that there are 1.3 billion people in
China, with 300 million sheep and goats. The latter, mostly in the
western and northern provinces, are destroying the land’s
protective vegetation. Then, the wind removes the soil and converts
the rangeland into desert. His words clearly explained what I had
seen and had not fully understood. Even more important, his answer
to Plan A (or business as usual) is a worldwide mobilization to
stabilize population and climate before these issues spiral out
of control. Plan B is a workable blueprint that can be enacted now.
As I read it, I recalled the words of Chief Seattle in 1854: “The
earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. All things
are connected like the blood which unites us all. Man did not
weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever
he does to
the web, he does to himself. ”
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