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 8
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Shrinking Forests: The Many Costs
In early December 2004, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo "ordered the military and police to crack down on illegal logging, after flash floods and
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Closing The Door On Building New Coal-Fired Power Plants In America
Recently Jonathan G. Dorn, my colleague at Earth Policy Institute, released a report on how community
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Slide Show For Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing To Save Civilization
For those of you who would like to get Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization in summary, my colleagues at Earth Policy Institute have put together a PowerPoint slide show.
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Better Health For All: Critical To Reduce Population Growth & Poverty
Ensuring basic health care for people in low-income countries is critical to the Plan B goal of eradicating poverty and stabilizing population.At the Earth
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Public Health Challenges Growing, World Wide
Health challenges are becoming more numerous as new infectious diseases such as SARS, West Nile virus, and avian flu emerge. In addition, the accumulation of chemical pollutants in the environment is
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When Population Growth And Resource Availability Collide
As land and water become scarce, competition for these vital resources intensifies within societies, particularly between the wealthy and those who are poor and dispossessed. The
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Realizing The Potential of High-Speed Rail: For Climate Protection; Business Productivity; and Security
Aside from the overriding need to stabilize atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels to stabilize climate, there are several other compelling reasons for countries everywhere to restructure their transport systems,
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Moving To A Stable World Population
The excitement of this week's inauguration of President Barack Obama still lingers in the air. He has hit the ground running and so too must we.
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Plan B Efficiency And Conservation Measures Drop Energy Demand By 2020
Projections from the International Energy Agency show global energy demand growing by close to 30 percent by 2020, setting the stage for massive growth in the carbon dioxide emissions that are warming our planet.
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Creating New Jobs by Investing in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency
At a time when major U.S. companies are announcing job layoffs almost daily, the renewable energy industry is hiring new workers every day to build wind farms, install rooftop solar arrays, and build solar thermal and
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Run Cars on Green Electricity, Not Natural Gas
With the dramatic increase in oil prices earlier this year
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New Energy Economy Emerging in the United States
A new energy economy is emerging in the United States. As I note in a recent Plan B Update, the old energy economy, fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas, is being replaced by one powered by wind, solar, and geothermal
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Rising Seas and Powerful Storms Threaten Global Security
While many of us are focused on the global economic woes, my colleague Janet Larsen, Director of Research at the Earth Policy Institute has written about some natural forces threatening our global security. Her piece, "Rising Seas and Powerful Storms
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Increasing Equality By Educating Every Child
The social and economic gap between the world's richest 1 billion people and its poorest 1 billion has no historical precedent. Not only is this gap wide, it is widening. As I write in Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization, the poorest billion
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Want A Better Way To Power Your Car? It's A Breeze
Legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens is half right. We do need to harness this country's wind resources for a homegrown source of electricity, as he has been urging this summer in expensive television ads. And we do need to reduce the $700 billion
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Raising Energy Efficiency In A New Materials Economy - Part II
Last week in this column, I talked about several ways for raising energy efficiency mainly through recycling. Raising the energy efficiency of the materials we use commensurately cuts carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. (You may want to see our overall plan
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Raising Energy Efficiency in a New Materials Economy, Part I
This is the first of a two-part column on solutions for raising energy efficiency. As I note in http://www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/Contents.htm">Plan B 3.0, the production, processing, and disposal of material in our modern throwaway economy wastes
