Earth Policy Institute books

We are facing issues of near-overwhelming complexity and unprecedented urgency. Our challenge is to think globally and develop policies to counteract environmental decline and economic collapse. The question is: Can we change direction before we go over the edge?

Lester Brown looks at our economic future through an environmental lens to develop a plan that will sustain civilization. He concentrates on four major components that will head us towards a brighter future: a massive cut in

We are creating a bubble economy an economy whose output is artificially inflated by drawing down the earth`s natural capital.

Each year the bubble grows larger as our demands on the earth expand. The challenge for our generation is to deflate the global economic bubble before it bursts.

Throughout most of human history, we lived on the earth`s sustainable yield - interest from its natural endowment. But now we are consuming the endowment itself. Our existing economic output i

In recent months, rising oil prices have focused the world’s attention on the depletion of oil reserves. But the depletion of underground water resources from overpumping is a far more serious issue. Excessive pumping for irrigation to satisfy food needs today almost guarantees a decline in food production tomorrow.

There are substitutes for oil, but there are no substitutes for water.

The growth in world population since 1950 exceeds that during the preceding 4 million

If we have learned anything over the past year, it is that accounting systems that do not tell the truth can be costly. Faulty accounting systems have driven some of the world`s largest corporations into bankruptcy, costing millions of people their lifetime savings, retirement income, and jobs.

In The Earth Policy Reader, coauthored with Janet Larsen and Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts, Brown says the global economic accounting system is misleading us too, but with potentially more serious