Lester Brown, Guest Writer
Lester R. Brown is president of Earth Policy Institute, an organization dedicated to building a sustainable future. Described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers," Brown started his career as a tomato farmer. Shortly after earning a degree in agricultural science, he spent six months living in rural India, where he became intimately familiar with the food/population issue. Brown later became head of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's International Agricultural Development Service. In 1974 he founded the Worldwatch Institute, leaving in 2001 to found the Earth Policy Institute. He has authored or co-authored over 50 books, the most recent of which is World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, and has received 24 honorary degrees and numerous awards, including the 1987 United Nations Environment Prize, a MacArthur Foundation "genius award," and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize. He lives in Washington, D.C.
Latest Stories from Lester Brown, Guest Writer - Page 3
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Peak Meat: US Meat Consumption Falling
For a society that lives high on the food chain, this new trend could signal the end of meat’s mealtime dominance.
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Global Economy Expanded More Slowly Than Expected in 2011
Without a more comprehensive vision of economic health and better ways to measure it, we are flying blind on a path to economic decline and collapse.
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2011 Was A Year of Weather Extremes, With More to Come
Even without fully incorporating such climate feedback, models show that continued reliance on fossil fuels could raise the global temperature by up to 7 degrees Celsius by the end of this century.
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Governments Spend $1.4 Billion Per Day to Destabilize Climate
A world facing economically disruptive climate change can no longer justify subsidies to expand the burning of coal and oil. Governments are shelling out nearly $1.4 billion per day to further destabilize the earth’s climate.
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Bumper 2011 Grain Harvest Fails to Rebuild Global Stocks
With little arable land around the world left unfarmed and with ever more mouths to feed, farmers face an uphill climb in their efforts to feed the world’s people.
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Harnessing the Sun's Energy for Water and Space Heating
The pace of solar energy development is accelerating as the installation of rooftop solar water heaters takes off.
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Rising Meat Consumption Takes Big Bite out of Grain Harvest
World consumption of animal protein is everywhere on the rise. Wherever incomes rise, so does meat consumption.
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Troubling Health Trends Hold Back Progress on Life Expectancy
Although average life expectancy worldwide continues to increase, gains have come more slowly in the last few decades.
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Demographics Loom Large in State Failure
As the number of failing states grows, treating the causes of state failure is increasingly urgent.
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The Steady Rise of the Solar PV Manufacturing Industry Signals a Bright Future
Solar companies manufactured more than twice as many panels in 2010 as they did in 2009. That's very good news.
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What Will Happen When the World's Population Hits 7 Billion?
The number of people in the world is expected to reach 7 billion by the end of October 2011. Our rate of
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If US Gasoline Use is Declining, is the Keystone XL Pipeline Needed?
As the debate unfolds about whether to build a 1,711-mile pipeline to carry crude oil from the tar sands in Canada to refineries in Texas, the focus is on the oil spills and carbon emissions that inevitably come with it.
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Two Stories of Disease: Smallpox and Polio
Smallpox plagued humanity for thousands of years. In the 18th century, smallpox killed one out of every ten children in France and Sweden. Over the 20th century, the virus caused between 300 and 500 million deaths worldwide.
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Why Current Economic Models Can't Scale With China
For almost as long as I can remember we have been saying that the United States, with 5 percent of the world's people, consumes a third or more of the earth's resources. That was true. It is no longer true. Today
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Expanding Desert, Falling Water Tables, and Toxic Pollutants Driving People From Their Homes
People do not normally leave their homes, their families, and their communities unless they have no other option. Yet as environmental stresses mount, we can expect to see a growing number of environmental
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Raging Storms and Rising Seas Swelling the Ranks of Climate Refugees
In late August 2005, as Hurricane Katrina approached the U.S. Gulf Coast, more than 1 million people were evacuated from New Orleans and the small towns and rural communities along the coast. Once the storm
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Has Coal Reached the Fifty Million Dollar Tipping Point?
At a press conference on July 21, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that he was contributing $50 million to the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign. Michael Brune, head of the Sierra
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Grain Production Falling as Soil Erosion Continues
The thin layer of topsoil that covers much of the earth's land surface is the foundation of civilization. As long as soil erosion on cropland does not exceed new soil formation, all is well. But once it does,
