Many Countries Reaching Diminishing Returns in Fertilizer Use
By Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
For the world as a whole, the era of rapidly growing fertilizer use is now history.
Peak Water: What Happens When the Wells Go Dry?
By Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
Peak oil has generated headlines in recent years, but the real threat to our future is peak water.
Our Global Ponzi Scheme
By Lester Brown, Post Carbon Institute/Foundation for Deep Ecology
Since the principal advisors to government are economists, we need either economists who can think like ecologists or more ecological advisors. Otherwise, market behavior—including its failure to include the indirect costs of goods and services, to value nature’s services, and to respect sustainable-yield thresholds—will cause the destruction of the economy’s natural support systems, and our global Ponzi scheme will fall apart.
New era of food scarcity echoes collapsed civilizations
By Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one of scarcity. Over the last decade, world grain reserves have fallen by one third. World food prices have more than doubled, triggering a worldwide land rush and ushering in a new geopolitics of food. Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.
Q&A: Lester Brown, Author – Full Planet, Empty Plates
By Terrence McNally, Lester Brown, Terrence McNally podcast
In his newest book, Full Planet, Empty Plates, Lester Brown writes..."The U.S. Great Drought of 2012 has raised corn prices to the highest level in history. The world price of food, which has already doubled over the last decade, is slated to climb higher, ushering in a new wave of food unrest...."
The Great Transition, Part II: Building a wind-centered economy
By Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
In the race to transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy and avoid runaway climate change, wind has opened a wide lead on both solar and geothermal energy.
By the Numbers – Data Highlights from Full Planet, Empty Plates
By Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
As farmers struggle to keep up with soaring demand for grain and soybeans, this ratcheting upward of food prices ensures that many of the 219,000 new guests at the global dinner table each night are facing empty plates.
Full planet, empty plates: The new geopolitics of food scarcity (new book chapter)
By Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute
The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one of scarcity. Over the last decade, world grain reserves have fallen by one third. World food prices have more than doubled, triggering a worldwide land rush and ushering in a new geopolitics of food. Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold.