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Lester R. Brown Biography

Lester R. Brown

Lester Russel Brown (born March 28, 1934) is a United States environmental analyst, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and former president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC Radio commentator Peter Day referred to him as "one of the great pioneer environmentalists."

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Lester R. Brown Quotes

Farmers. . . can no longer keep up with rising demand; thus the outlook is for chronic scarcities and rising prices.

Environmental, Keep, Outlook, Prices, Rising Prices, Scarcity

The throwaway economy that has been evolving over the last half-century is an aberration, now itself headed for the junk heap of history.

Aberration, Evolving, Half, Junk, Throwaway

Socialism failed because it couldn't tell the economic truth. Capitalism may fail because it couldn't tell the ecological truth.

Capitalism, Ecological, Environmental, Failing, May, Tell

Our numbers expand, but Earth's natural systems do not.

Earth, Expand, Natural, Numbers

The 20th century was the time when the world turned to use of fossil fuels and the 21st century will be the century of the renewables.

21St, Fuel, Fuels, Use, World

The problem with water, though, is that the shortfalls don't show up until the very end. You can go on pumping unsustainably until the day you run out. Then all you have is the recharge flow, which comes from precipitation. This is not decades away, this is years away. We're already seeing huge shortages in China, where the Yellow River runs dry for part of each year. The Yellow River is the cradle of Chinese civilization. It first failed to reach the sea in 1972, and since 1985 it's run dry for part of each year. For 1997 it was dry for 226 days.

1985, Cradle, Day, Rivers, Running, Yellow

Yet, most of the readily accessible reserves of oil formed over hundreds of millions of years will be consumed within a single generation, spanning the years from 1960 to 1995.

1960, Environmental, Oil, Single, Years

The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse.

Biggest, Cause, Causes, Country, Government, Threat

In Mexico City, Tehran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Shanghai, and hundreds of other cities, the air is no longer safe to breathe. In some cities, the air is so polluted that breathing is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day.

Air, Breathing, Cigarettes, Cities, Kolkata, Longer

The challenge is either to build an economy that is sustainable or to stay with our unsustainable economy until it declines. It is not a goal that can be compromised. One way or another, the choice will be made by our generation, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to come.

Build, Choice, Choices, Come, Goal, Our Generation

Nations are in effect ceding portions of their sovereignty to the international community and beginning to create a new system of international environmental governance.

Ceding, Community, Effect, Environmental, Global Warming

Global food insecurity is increasing. . . the slim excess of growth in food production over population is narrowing.

Environmental, Global, Growth, Insecurity, Population

A sustainable economy represents nothing less than a higher social order one as concerned with future generations as with our own, and more focused on the health of the planet and the poor than on material acquisitions and military might. While it is a fundamentally new endeavor, with many uncertainties, it is far less risky than continuing with business as usual.

Acquisitions, Environmental, Military, Order, Uncertainties, Usual

Saving Greenland is both a metaphor and a precondition for saving civilization. If its ice sheet melts, sea levels will rise 23 feet. Hundreds of coastal cities will be abandoned. The rice growing river deltas of Asia will be under water. There will be hundreds of millions of rising-sea refuges. The word that comes to mind is chaos. If we cannot mobilize to save the Greenland ice sheet; we probably cannot save civilization as we know it.

Asia, Civilization, Ice, Mobilize, Save, Sea

Our early 21st century civilization is in trouble. We need not go beyond the world food economy to see this. Over the last few decades we have created a food production bubble-one based on environmental trends that cannot be sustained, including overpumping aquifers, overplowing land, and overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.

Aquifers, Atmosphere, Civilization, Decades, Land, Overplowing

The foundation is being laid for the emergence of both wind and solar cells as cornerstones of the new energy economy. World wind generating capacity grew from 7,600 megawatts in 1997 to 9,600 in 1998, an expansion of 26 percent. At a national level, Germany led the way, adding 790 megawatts of capacity, followed by Spain with 380 megawatts, and the United States with 226 megawatts. In the past, U. S. wind generating capacity was concentrated in California, but in 1998, wind farms began generating electricity in Minnesota, Oregon, and Wyoming, broadening the new industry's geographical base.

Adding, Megawatts, Oregon, Past, Solar, Wind

In the Middle East, where populations are growing fast, the world is seeing the first collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them.

East, Fast, People, Region, Sight, Water

In this era of tightening world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage, and countries are scrambling to secure their own parochial interests at the expense of the common good.

Food, Geopolitical, Gold, Land, Oil, World

Nuclear power, once regarded as petroleum's natural heir, has become less and less attractive as its numerous drawbacks come to light. Coal, the other fossil fuel, is ultimately as exhaustible as oil.

Drawbacks, Environmental, Light, Numerous, Oil, Power

They have also been adopting fuel efficiency standards for automobiles in China.

Adopting, Automobiles, China, Efficiency, Fuel

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