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[January 11, 2006]

CORRECTED: U.S. eco-author Brown sounds alarm over China's consumption growth+

(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)BEIJING, Jan. 11_(Kyodo) _ American environmental policy researcher Lester Brown has released a new book this month saying China's fast economic growth will speed deterioration of the world's environment.

In his book titled "Plan B 2.0," the founder and president of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute says surges in consumption have made China the world's top consumer of all basic commodities but oil.

China's consumption will contribute to environmental depletion, which will stunt poverty eradication efforts, he indicates in the book.

"Plan A, business-as-usual, has the world on an environmental path that is leading toward economic decline and eventual collapse," Brown argues in his book preface.

If China grows at 8 percent per year, he says, by 2031 the country will match U.S. per capita consumption, consume a quantity of grain equal to two-thirds of the current world harvest, use twice the amount of paper produced worldwide and require 99 million barrels of oil per day, up from the world production of 84 million barrels.

"The Western economic model is not going to work for China," Brown argues. "The days of the fossil-fuel-based, automobile-centered, throwaway economy are numbered."

"Plan B 2.0" elaborates on Brown's 2003 book Plan B and advocates use of cleaner fuels to keep the environment intact. The 13-chapter book is one of more than 50 books that Brown has written.

Brown also raised questions about China's growing consumption in the 1995 book "Who Will Feed China? Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet," in which he predicted that China would find it hard to feed its increasingly affluent population for lack of agricultural production capacity, necessitating grain imports that could deplete supplies for other developing countries.

Chinese government officials have taken note of Brown's book and insisted that China can feed itself with more intensive and scientific grain cultivation.

In a white paper last month, the State Council said it has taken 90 percent of its energy resources from domestic sources since the 1990s. The paper adds that China feeds 22 percent of the world's population on only 10 percent of the world's land.

It says that since the 1990s, China has found 90 percent of its energy domestically.

In March, Brown visited Beijing to receive an honorary professor title from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and spoke at roundtable discussions for the academy and the Institute of World Development, which is under the State Council.

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