REACHING OUT


As a small organization trying to change the world, we are grateful to the many individuals who are helping to institute Plan B. The following is just a sampling of some of the many people who have inspired us.

Are you involved in disseminating the Plan B vision? We'd love to hear from you. Please write us at epi@earthpolicy.org.

In the Classroom
Teachers and professors use EPI materials in classrooms throughout the world. In the United States, EPI books have been adopted as a textbook in more than 750 college and university courses.

Plan B 2.0 inspired Michigan State University’s Land Policy Institute to entitle its new lectures series, “A New Hope,” and invited Lester to give the kickoff lecture.

A professor at Ahfad University in the Sudan compiled EPI materials into a textbook for post-graduate students.

Plan B 2.0 was required reading the the Honors Colloquium at South Dakota State University.

A professor at Jacksonville University used Plan B 2.0 in his Sociology of the Future class. "The approach of Dr. Brown in Plan B is so useful in teaching about global warming while giving positive choices which can be made and even with the costs of those choices. It was a pleasure to teach what could have been a depressing subject and leave my students with hope and a plan to pursue."

California State University at Chico adopted Plan B as a “book in common,” making it required reading for incoming freshmen and using it as a text in a number of classes.

Sustainable Population Australia distributes Eco-Economy Updates to teachers directly and via e-mail.

A high school teacher in California had her students use the Eco-Economy Updates as part of a newsletter design project. They learned about design and the environment.

A high school teacher in Virginia uses The Earth Policy Reader in his AP Ecology class because it provides them with a broad understanding of global environmental issues.

An Assistant Professor at the Kumaraguru College of Technology in Tamil Nadu, India, uses EPI materials in his classes as well as environmental seminars.

On the Lecture Circuit
People often base lectures on EPI research and others set up lectures specifically for EPI speakers.

Al and Anne Mielen established an organization, Save Our Ship Environmental Institute, specifically to give presentations to local groups and on cruise ships about Plan B. Although they had never been involved in environmental work, after reading Plan B 2.0, they were inspired to help get the message out to build a better future.

Inspired by Plan B 2.0, Quiet Riot developed a new performance entitled "One Home, One Family, One Future," This performing partnership uses story, physical comedy, sound effects, music and audience interaction to awaken communities and organizations to the opportunities, benefits and increased quality of life of the new eco-economy. Along with their performance, they sell copies of Plan B 2.0. Most recently they are involved in created a Green Community powered primarily by solar energy.

Inspired by our call for action, Francis Vanek wrote a column for The Ithaca Journal about Plan B 2.0.

David Paxson, head of World Population Balance in Minnesota, has turned his population lectures into Plan B lectures where he distributes copies of the book.

Tom Brayford in Missouri was so motivated by Plan B that he developed a lecture based on it, which he presents to local groups, where he also sells copies of the book.

Jo Hayward-Haines gave a presentation on how Plan B changed her life and then started a group to study and act on the issues of the book.

Carolyn Hansen was so moved by Plan B that she set up three lectures for Lester Brown in the Hudson Valley.

Soki Oda regularly arranges lectures in Japan for Lester Brown to share EPI’s message with business and academic leaders.

The agenda for a United Nations Environment Programme meeting in Mexico was based on Plan B.

GreenAccord, an Italian environmental NGO, developed a conference based on Eco-Economy.

In the Political Arena
EPI publications are read by political leaders at all levels, often incorporating EPI research findings into policy initiatives.

Inspired by EPI, in late 2007, E-Square, Inc., working with the Shiga prefectural government in Japan and major companies in the area, launched the Shiga Eco-Economy Project. This broad collaborative effort is dedicated to making Shiga carbon neutral by 2030, creating a "green Silicon Valley," and launching a set of sustainability indicators to measure progress.

Ted Turner distributed copies of Plan B 2.0 to heads of state and ministers of environment, energy, and agriculture in some 50 countries.

After a discussion on global warming, using examples from Plan B 2.0, Utah's governor appointed 15 high-level leaders to a Blue Ribbon Advisory Committee to come up with ways to implement Plan B at the state level.

The president of Romania, Ion Iliescu, personally oversees publication of EPI books in his country.

The government of China uses Eco-Economy to train provincial officials on environmental issues.

Iran’s Ministry of the Environment distributed copies of Eco-Economy to 1,000 environmental NGOs.

Iran's Ministry of Natural Resources purchased 500 copies of the Farsi edition of Outgrowing the Earth for distribution throughout the Ministry and to NGOs.

After reading Plan B, the Minister of Water Resources in China invited Lester Brown to talk about the issues, which they did in Beijing. The Minister is also developing a "Plan C" (C for China) based on Plan B.

The Green Party in Canada used EPI research in formulating policy.

The Information for Action web site, a free automated lobbying service focusing on the environment in Australia, posts EPI materials.

EPI research prompted a Canadian reader to write to prominent politicians and media representatives, sending either a copy of Plan B or a reference to it online so that they could download the book. He wrote, “Having the books available on-line has been great for this.”

On the Internet
There are over 60,000 links to EPI’s site. Many website have more than one link and some translate EPI material and post it.

Alternative Planetaire is a French NGO and website that was inspired by EPI's work, specifically on Plan B. They were also instrumental in getting Plan B 2.0 published in France.

Kathryn Grace built a “lens” on Plan B 2.0 at http://www.squidoo.com/About/PlanB/ “to introduce folks to, and stimulate interest in, the book and learning more about how we can all become part of the solution.”

BookProject.org, a website working "to cultivate a fresh awareness of the profound moral challenges of our day" circulates Plan B 2.0.

abc-clio.com has a website centered around current social issues, including those covered by EPI.

In Canada, New Society Strategist created a web site using the data tables from EPI’s publications. It is also using the information to develop proposals for a number of impending Canadian Federal initiatives.

BetterWorld Telecom, a long distance service provider, features EPI on its website and distributes copies of Plan B 2.0 to its customers.

Friends of Nature in Beijing posts translations of some of the Eco-Economy Updates “to let more people know what’s happening to our globe.”

In Print
EPI’s research is reprinted in many formats ranging from chapters in books to articles in newsletters. What follows is just a small sample.Other examples may be found on our Who's Using Plan B ... & How page.

The Albanian Ecological Club regularly adapts and translates the Eco-Economy Updates for use in its environmental magazine for children.

The CEO of a print company writes columns for an industry publication using information from Eco-Economy Updates. His mission is "to drive our industry to better environmental practices."

An Iranian engineer, Ahmad Aleyasin, compiled materials from EPI’s website into a book entitled, Under Our Planet’s Sky. He has just completed a second book using much of the material from Plan B.

A Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia has translated Eco-Economy Updates into an environmental book.

A Finnish forestry organization published an Update in a booklet that was handed out the Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol in Buenos Aires. It also published the Update in a Finnish ecological magazine called Elonkeha.

Poovulagin Nanbargal, an environmental NGO in India, distributes booklets of EPI material translated into Tamil.

Translations
EPI publications are published in all the world’s major languages and a number of minor ones. A number of remarkable people voluntarily translate these publications, such as Lin Zixin (Chinese), Jacques Bougie (French), Gianfranco Bologna (Italian), Soki Oda (Japanese), Eduardo Athayde (Portuguese), Joseph Robertson (Spanish), Leif Ohlsson (Swedish), and Pacific Environment (Russian).

EPI’s books are published in 21 languages. In the major languages (spoken by more than 50 million) they include Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Marathi (India), Persian, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Spanish, Turkish, and Ukrainian, and several minor languages including Catalan, Danish, Polish, Romanian, and Swedish. There are three English-language publishers, W.W. Norton & Company in the United States, Orient Longman in India, and Earthscan in the United Kingdom. For more details on the publishers go to our International publishers page.

Other Uses
The ways EPI publications motivate people to take action are as varied as the individuals themselves. Churches use them in study groups. They are the book of the month in book clubs. Some distribute Eco-Economy Updates on their listservs or print them in newsletters.

Les Robertson in Texas is setting up a nonprofit to develop activities on what it can do to implement a local version of Plan B. For instance, upgrading low-income housing to make it more energy efficient, including replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescents. The purpose of the organization will be education and implementation.

Richard Worden, the clean energy coordinator for Move-On in Arlington, Virginia, hosted a Live Earth event at which he sold copies of Plan B 2.0 and distributed information on Earth Policy Institute.

In March 2007, the First Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Ann Arbor pledged to a two-year effort to mobilize members on “Celebrating the Planet” through a series of study/discussion/action teams that would read Plan B 2.0 and listen to one of Lester’s talks on Plan B 2.0. They would then develop ways that members could “produce measurable efforts and visible results” that “act for the greater good of the larger community.”

An industrial electrician made Plan B 2.0 the focus of a church-related dinner then distributed copies of the chapters at work (a large pulp and paper mill in Washington State). He’d never had an interest in ecology, but said he “tenaciously opposed any ideology that appeared to threaten the livelihood of my industry and profession. Plan B 2.0 has drastically altered for me the effects of a lifetime’s worth of ‘look-out-for-number-one’.”

A 73-year old woman in Oregon purchased 22 copies of Plan B 2.0, half of which went to her library because when she went to check out the book she found there were 11 other people ahead of her in line. She didn't want people to wait to read this important book. She also goes into schools and local stores and posts EPI's brochure on their bulletin boards.

The CEO of a major communications service provider in Italy distributed 500 copies of Plan B 2.0 to its business contacts.

An Iranian businessman purchased 2,000 copies of the Farsi edition of Outgrowing the Earth and is sponsoring briefings to promote the book.

NHK television in Japan planned and filmed a two-day environmental class taught by Lester Brown. This documentary aired in China, Japan, India, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand.

Stimulated by the work of EPI, Junko Edahiro in Japan founded Japan for Sustainability, an environmental NGO whose mission is to disseminate information on how Japanese companies and the government are working to build an eco-economy.

Mississippi 2020, an environmental NGO whose goal is to make Mississippi the first environmentally sustainable state economy, distributed copies of Eco-Economy to local and state political leaders and organized a conference for Lester Brown where copies of the book were distributed for free.

The Center for Ecological Living and Learning (CELL), based in Maine, is developing course work based on Plan B for use in their college abroad programs. The president of CELL recommended Plan B to the Alternative Energy Institute (AEI), based in California. AEI has incorporated the Plan B message into its work, making it the foundation for its sustainable energy model.

In Israel a reader distributed copies of Eco-Economy to “local experts dealing with environmental issues.”

A retired professor of electrical engineering in Colorado uses EPI material as part of his “advocacy and information dissemination regarding stewardship of the planet to secular and religious communities.”