Wednesday, December 23, 2009

This has been a busy year.

Our research staff worked heroically during the first part of this year to produce a new edition of Plan B—Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester Brown, which was released on September 29. If you haven’t yet had a chance to see the book yet, check out chapters 1 and 5, “Selling Our Future” and “Stabilizing Climate: Shifting to Renewable Energy.” You can also listen to radio interviews about the book and also watch lectures by Lester.

In March the team released a Plan B 3.0 presentation (PowerPoint and PDF) that has been downloaded over 10,000 times and translated into French and Spanish. An updated version using the new data in Plan B 4.0 was released in early November.

One of the more satisfying things this year has been seeing our early work calling for an 80 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020 gaining traction with other organizations and some national governments.

The May issue of Scientific American featured an article by Lester entitled “Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization?” where he revealed that the biggest threat to global political stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse. Food shortages could be the weak link that brings down civilization.

COP15: Janet Larsen, our Director of Research, was a speaker at an NGO-sponsored event at the UN Conference on Climate Change as well as an observer. She wrote several articles for National Journal’s COP15 blog that we also posted on our blog. Lester weighed in early with a number of articles, including two features in the Washington Post and one in the Guardian.

Meanwhile, Lester launched the Portuguese edition in of Plan B 4.0 in São Paulo and the English edition in London. He also went on a two week book tour in the United States. (See our Events page.) Other translations are in the works and Lester will be launching a number of them next year.  Our EPI in the News section gives you access to webcasts of some of the lectures, radio interviews, and more. 

This year we totally revamped our website. One big change is our Data Center that allows for easy access to this wealth of information.  Our publications are all available for free downloading, including our books. We’ve even included all of the data behind the numbers in Plan B 4.0. You can receive our podcasts and releases via RSS, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook.

EPI’s success to date is due not only to the quality of its research but also because we provide an overall plan of what can be done. In addition, our uniquely global vision often allows us to see trends that more specialized organizations cannot. In short, our research generates attention.

The Institute recognizes that it will take an enormous dissemination effort to guide the global transition to a Plan B economy. The stakes in the battle to save the planet are high. Saving civilization is not a spectator sport.

Our thanks to all of you for helping in this global effort.  As a small organization of eight people, we count on you to help make Plan B a reality. Let’s make 2010 the year we get Plan B on everyone’s agenda.

Sincerely,

Reah Janise Kauffman
Vice President


P.S. If you’ve appreciated receiving our releases and news, searching for data, watching the videos of Lester Brown or listening to our podcasts, please consider a tax-deductible donation. Your support is essential.