Lester Brown

Earth Policy Institute, President / Washington, DC

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.

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  Meat Consumption in China Now Double That in the United States

  China’s annual meat consumption of 71 million tons is more than double that in the United States.

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  Getting the Market to Tell the Truth

  If the world is to move onto a sustainable path we need the market to tell the truth, through full cost pricing.

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  Growth in World Contraceptive Use Stalling; 215 Million Women’s Needs Still Unmet

  Satisfying the world’s unmet need for contraception would dramatically reduce population growth, easing pressure on natural resources.

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  How Much Will it Cost to Save Our Economy’s Foundation?

  Many will ask, "Can the world afford these investments?" But the only appropriate question is, "Can the world afford the consequences of not making these investments?"

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  World Wind Power Climbs to New Record in 2011

  With its long list of attractive attributes—widespread and abundant, quick to scale, climate-benign, and zero fuel cost—wind power is driving the transition to a new energy economy.

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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.