Corn-based ethanol is an environmentally friendly solution to our reliance on oil, right? Not if it creates food shortages in the world's poorest countries.

Founder of the Earth Policy Institute, Lester Brown, has been saying for years that the global economy is being hobbled by man-made environmental trends: “shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, eroding soils, collapsing fisheries, rising temperatures, melting ice, rising seas, and increasingly destructive storms.” In his book, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, Brown looks at the way the growth of the developing world will vastly accelerate these trends.