The Power and Interest News Report (PINR): "Conflict over increasing energy needs is foreseeable; consequently, although demand for energy resources at the global level may be a catalyst for short-term cooperation, it may also lead to conflicts. "

Earth Policy Institute Book Bytes - The Environmental Revolution: "Restructuring the global economy according to the principles of ecology represents the greatest investment opportunity in history. In scale, the Environmental Revolution is comparable to the Agricultural and Industrial Revolutions that preceded it.

The Agricultural Revolution involved restructuring the food economy, shifting from a nomadic life-style based on hunting and gathering to a settled life-style based on tilling the soil. Although agriculture started as a supplement to hunting and gathering, it eventually replaced it almost entirely. The Agricultural Revolution eventually cleared one tenth of the earth’s land surface of either grass or trees so it could be plowed and planted to crops. Unlike the hunter-gatherer culture that had little effect on the earth, this new farming culture literally transformed the earth’s surface.

The Industrial Revolution has been under way for two centuries, although in some countries it is still in its early stages. At its foundation was a shift from wood to fossil fuels, a shift that set the stage for a massive expansion in economic activity. Indeed, its distinguishing feature is the harnessing of vast amounts of solar energy stored beneath the earth’s surface as fossil fuels. While the Agricultural Revolution transformed the earth’s surface, the Industrial Revolution is transforming the earth’"

Contents of Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble - by Lester R. Brown - Earth Policy Institute - Entering a New World - Restoring the Earth: "Plan B 2.0:
Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

2006"

Earth Policy Institute Book Bytes - A New Materials Economy: "The potential for reducing materials use has been examined over the last decade in three specific studies. The first—Factor Four, by Ernst von Weizsäcker, an environmentalist and leader in the German Bundestag—argued that modern industrial economies could function very effectively with a level of virgin raw material use only one fourth that of today. This was followed a few years later by research from the Factor Ten Institute organized in France under the leadership of Friedrich Schmidt-Bleek. It concluded that resource productivity can be raised by a factor of 10, which is well within the reach of existing technology and management, given the appropriate policy incentives."