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Lester Brown's latest account of our environmental outlook, with bad and good factors alike, is a masterly survey. Consider, for instance, his treatment of China and India. Their sudden and powerful emergence as economic giants can be viewed as both 'one of the greatest opportunities and one of the gravest threats.' Just these two countries are prominent enough on the world stage to present a future beset by abundant environmental and political instabilities, or a form of sustainable development based on environmental underpinnings of every sort. Already China's world-leading solar industry provides water heating for 35 million buildings, and India's pioneering use of rainwater harvesting brings clean water to tens of thousands of homes. Thus China and India are poised to leapfrog today's industrial nations and become world leaders in sustainable energy and agriculture within just one decade. Coal provides half of India's energy and two-thirds of China's, meaning that both countries are crucial as the world attempts to stem climate change. Already China ranks as the world's second largest source of carbon dioxide, and India is fourth.
If China's per caput grain consumption were to double to more or less match Europe's consumption, China alone would need the equivalent of almost 40% of today's global grain harvest. India is the fourth largest generator of wind power, while China and India together are the third and fourth largest ethanol producers. China has an ecological footprint of 1.6 global ha (GH), while India's footprint is 0.8 GH, both in...