Tuesday, March 22, 2011

You’ve read the books, now watch the film version!

Based on Lester Brown’s Plan B book series, this 90-minute film—Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization—airing on PBS Wednesday, March 30 in the United States (see listings for time in your area) follows Lester as he speaks in Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, New Delhi, Rome, Istanbul, Ankara, and Washington, DC, and visits with world leaders to discuss ways to respond to the challenges of climate change.

The film begins with a dramatic portrayal of a world where there is a mounting tide of public concern about melting glaciers and sea level rise and a growing sense that we need to change course in how we react to emerging economic and social pressures. The film also spotlights a world where ocean resources are becoming scarce, croplands are eroding, and harvests are shrinking.

But what makes Plan B significant and timely is that it provides hopeful solutions—a road map that will help eradicate poverty, stabilize population, and protect and restore our planet’s fisheries, forests, aquifers, soil, grasslands, and biological diversity.

Along with Lester Brown, you will hear from notable scholars and scientists including Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman, Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, and former Governor and Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt.

Narrated by Matt Damon, well-known for his work raising environmental awareness. Produced by Emmy-Award winning filmmakers Marilyn and Hal Weiner.

See a clip. 

And for anyone in the Washington, D.C. area, you can see a shorter version of the film at the DC Environmental Film Festival at 3 pm on Sunday, March 27, at the Baird Auditorium in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History.

Sincerely,

Reah Janise Kauffman
Vice President

P.S. To our friends living outside of the United States, home viewing DVDs can be ordered at the following after the air date, March 30:
     SCETV Marketing
     1101 George Rogers Blvd.
     Columbia, SC 29201 USA
     Telephone: +803.737.3200
     email [email protected]
     http://ETVstore.org (PLEASE NOTE: The film will be available on this site on March 30, 2011.)
     The DVD of Plan B costs $29.95 plus shipping and handling.

For educators and conferences, order performance copies of the film, which also includes an Educator’s Guide.

Thursday, March 03, 2011

Today’s news and opinions seem to be increasingly mixed. What is news? What is opinion? Where are the facts? The data?

We at the Earth Policy Institute are keenly aware of the need to back up everything we say with real data. In fact, while our books have relatively few graphs or tables, we post online all of the supporting data available for all to use.

Our newest book, World on the Edge, is a shorter book than the last three editions in the Plan B series. One might think, therefore, that we would have less data. In fact, the opposite is true. Our indefatigable research team has compiled even more data sets.

Over the next few months, we’ll be highlighting some of this data. Last week, for instance, we released our first set looking at
  • gross world product,
  • the number of undernourished people in the world,
  • the grains price index (check out the graph that shows the recent price spike—one that is likely to climb),
  • the number of high-ranking failing states,
  • budgets for meeting social and earth restoration goals compared to the global military budget (a chart that should cause alarm everywhere on how much we spend for military purposes compared with the future of our planet and people),
  • world energy growth rates by source (a surprising shift toward renewable energy), and
  • Plan B carbon dioxide emissions goals by 2020 (it can be done; we need leadership and public support).

A few weeks ago we released a PowerPoint presentation highlighting a few of the most urgent threats to our global food supply and the trends that created them.

This week, we released a PowerPoint presentation that is basically a summary in slide version of World on the Edge. It explains the threats facing our civilization and how we got to this point, and it presents a plan for how to get out of this dangerous situation. It’s a great supplement for educators. (See our Action Center for examples of how people are using our research.)

We encourage you to view the presentations and data to gain a basic understanding of the issues at hand and how a new “Plan B” strategy can address them. We have also designed them to be shared. So please feel free to use them in your own presentations in the classroom, on the lecture circuit, and to whatever group you believe is appropriate.

Meanwhile, we are keeping track of the trends, both positive and negative, and will keep reporting on them.

Sincerely,

Reah Janise Kauffman
Vice President