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Welcome to Earth Policy Institute, dedicated to providing a vision of
an environmentally sustainable economyan eco-economyas well
as a roadmap of how to get from here to there.
Lester Brown, President
Video
clips of Lester Brown on an eco-economy.
Our twenty-first century global civilization is not the first to face the prospect of environmentally induced economic decline. The question is how we will respond. We do have one unique asset at our commandan archeological record that shows us what happened to earlier civilizations that got into environmental trouble and failed to respond.
Lester Brown, Plan B 2.0
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AVAILABLE NOW!
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2 February 2006 |
Bottled Water:
Pouring Resources Down the Drain
The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier. Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing—producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more. At as much as $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline. Read more...
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5 January 2006 |
China Forcing World to Rethink its Economic Future
Our global economy is on an environmental path that the earth cannot sustain. While this has long been clear to ecologists, what is happening in China is now making it clear to economists as well. What we need is a plan to rescue civilization. Plan B has three components—(1) a restructuring of the global economy so that it can sustain civilization; (2) an all-out effort to eradicate poverty, stabilize population, and restore hope in order to elicit participation of the developing countries; and (3) a systematic effort to restore natural systems. Read more...
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13 December 2005 |
Bicycle Production Remains Strong Worldwide
In 2003, global production of bicycles hit 105 million—two-and-a-half times the record 42 million cars produced. During the 1950s and 1960s, bicycle and automobile production were nearly equal. In the decades following, however, bike output soared, reaching 91 million in 1990, when car production totaled 36 million.
Read more...
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7 December 2005 |
Empty Skies: World's Birds at Risk
Even before canaries were brought into coal mines to alert miners to the presence of poisonous gas, birds were giving us early warning calls signaling the earth’s deteriorating environmental health. Worldwide, some 1,212 of 9,775 bird species—one out of every eight—are threatened with extinction. Read
more...
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29 June 2005 |
Ethanol's Potential: Looking Beyond Corn
At the fuel pumps in São Paulo, customers have a choice: gas or alcohol? Since the mid-1970s, Brazil has worked to replace imported gasoline with ethanol, an alcohol distilled from locally grown sugarcane. Today ethanol accounts for 40 percent of the fuel sold in Brazil. Read more...
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22 June 2005 |
Wild Fish Catch
Hits Limits-
Future Growth to Come from Farmed Fish
After decades of growth, the reported global wild fish catch peaked
in 2000 at 96 million tons and fell to 90 million tons in 2003,
the last year for which worldwide data are available. The catch
per person dropped from an average of 17 kilograms in the late 1980s
to 14 kilograms in 2003—the lowest figure since 1965. As fishing
fleets expanded through the late 1980s and as fish-finding and harvesting
technologies became more efficient, the world’s fishers have
systematically gone after their catch at greater depths and in more
remote waters. Read more...
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14 June 2005 |
Population, Land,
and Conflict
As land and water become scarce and as competition for these vital
resources intensifies, we can expect mounting social tensions within
societies, particularly between those who are poor and dispossessed
and those who are wealthy, as well as among ethnic and religious
groups. Population growth brings with it a steady shrinkage of life-supporting
resources per person. That decline, which is threatening to drop
the living standards of more and more people below survival level,
could lead to unmanageable social tensions that will translate into
broad-based conflicts. Read
more...
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9 May 2005 |
Oil and Food: A Rising Security
Challenge
From farm to plate, the modern food system relies heavily on cheap
oil. Threats to our oil supply are also threats to our food supply.
As food undergoes more processing and travels farther, the food
system consumes ever more energy each year. Read
more...
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19 April 2005 |
World Economic Growth Fastest
in Nearly Three Decades
The year 2004 was a milestone for the world economy, which grew
by 5.1 percent—the fastest in nearly three decades. Among
the leaders were China, expanding at 9.5 percent, Argentina at
9 percent, and India at 7.3 percent. World output of goods and
services increased from $7 trillion in 1950 to $56 trillion in
2004, while annual income per person grew from $2,835 to $8,753
during this time. Read
more...
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