Lester R. Brown Book order

Historically, food security was the responsibility of ministries of agriculture but today that has changed: decisions made in ministries of energy may instead have the greatest effect on the food situation. Recent research reporting that a one degree Celsius rise in temperature can reduce grain yields by 10 per cent means that energy policy is now directly affecting crop production. Agriculture is a water-intensive activity and, while public attention has focused on oil depletion, it is aquifer depletion that poses the more serious threat. There are substitutes for oil, but none for water and the link between our fossil fuel addiction, climate change and food security is now clear. While population growth has slowed over the past three decades, we are still adding 76 million people per year. In a world where the historical rise in land productivity has slowed by half since 1990, eradicating hunger may depend as much on family planners as on farmers. The bottom line is that future food security depends not only on efforts within agriculture but also on energy policies that stabilize climate, a worldwide effort to raise water productivity, the evolution of land-efficient transport systems, and population policies that seek a humane balance between population and food. Outgrowing the Earth advances our thinking on food security issues that the world will be wrestling with for years to come.

The great energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is under way.

The author draws on his childhood experiences on a small farm to explore global environmental issues. His early entrepreneurial spirit is highlighted by a successful tomato-growing venture he started with his brother, which flourished into a significant operation producing 1.5 million pounds of tomatoes by 1958. Brown’s practical background informs his influential insights into sustainability and environmental challenges, making him a notable voice in the discourse on these critical topics.

The book addresses the alarming decline in global food security, highlighting critically low grain stocks and a significant increase in the World Food Price Index over the past decade. It explores the growing number of people facing hunger and the consequent rise in political unrest, emphasizing the urgent need for solutions to this escalating crisis.

First Published in 2011. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Provides alternative solutions to such global problems as population control, emerging water shortages, eroding soil, and global warming, outlining a detailed survival strategy for the civilization of the future.

"How to build a more just world and save the planet....We should all heed Brown's advice."―Bill ClintonIn this updated edition of the landmark Plan B, Lester Brown outlines a survival strategy for our early twenty-first-century civilization. The world faces many environmental trends of disruption and decline, including rising temperatures and spreading water shortage. In addition to these looming threats, we face the peaking of oil, annual population growth of 70 million, a widening global economic divide, and a growing list of failing states. The scale and complexity of issues facing our fast-forward world have no precedentWith Plan A, business as usual, we have neglected these issues overly long. In Plan B 3.0 , Lester R. Brown warns that the only effective response now is a World War II-type mobilization like that in the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Award-winning environmental analyst Lester R. Brown and his colleagues chart progress in building the eco-economy, an economy that is compatible with the earth's ecosystem. Brown explains, for example, why wind-generated electricity with its abundance and falling cost is emerging as the foundation of the new post-fossil fuel energy economy: now cheaper than electricity from coal, oil, or natural gas, it can be used to electrolyze water and produce hydrogen, the fuel of choice for the new fuel cell engines that every major automobile manufacturer is working on. And since an eco-economy relies heavily on recycling materials already in the system, such as steel and aluminum, we learn how, in this new economy, recycling industries will largely replace mining industries. Bringing together in one volume the essential Eco-Economy Updates that are distributed worldwide over the Internet and published in the world's leading newspapers, The Earth Policy Reader monitors the shift from the old economy to the new.

Argues that, like Sumerian and Mayan civilization, the world economy is fast destroying its environmental support, threatening future generations. Outlines the author's vision of a new environmentally sustainable economy .

Focusing on the urgent need for environmental reform, this volume highlights the detrimental impact of our current consumption-driven economy on ecosystems. It emphasizes the transition to a sustainable economy that prioritizes renewable energy and resource recycling. The authors present this challenge as not only vital for ecological preservation but also as a significant investment opportunity. With accessible language and informative charts, it serves as a crucial resource for leaders and citizens engaged in the global environmental movement.