EPIBuilding a Sustainable Future
Books

Released 2015

The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy

Lester R. Brown, with Janet Larsen, J. Matthew Roney, and Emily E. Adams

The great energy transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is under way. As oil insecurity deepens, the extraction risks of fossil fuels rise, and concerns about climate instability cast a shadow over the future of coal, a new world energy economy is emerging.

Released 2013

Breaking New Ground: A Personal History

Lester R. Brown

Lester Brown traces his life from a small farm in rural southern New Jersey through his personal evolution into the world's foremost authority on global environmental issues. The first in his family to graduate from elementary school, he reveals what inspired him—and the millions of those who have read his books—to become environmentally active.

Released 2012

Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity

Lester R. Brown

With food scarcity driven by falling water tables, eroding soils, and rising temperatures, control of arable land and water resources is moving to center stage in the global struggle for food security. In this era of tightening world food supplies, the ability to grow food is fast becoming a new form of geopolitical leverage. What will the geopolitics of food look like in a new era dominated by scarcity and food nationalism?

Released 2011

World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse

Lester R. Brown

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?

Released 2009

Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

Lester R. Brown

Brown argues that food may be the issue that convinces the world of the need to cut carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020. Every major environmental trend from climate change to deforestation and water scarcity affect food supplies. In this completely revised edition, Brown focuses on details of the plan and how it is already emerging in the energy economy.

Released 2008

Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization

Lester R. Brown

In this greatly revised edition, Brown outlines a survival strategy for our early twenty-first century civilization. The scale and complexity of the issues facing our fast-forward world have no precedent. Brown outlines an ambitious plan that includes cutting carbon emissions 80 percent by 2020, achievable with existing technologies. The choice is yours and mine.

Released 2006

Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

Lester R. Brown

An expansion and update to Brown's best-selling Plan B. Here he outlines a plan, a budget, and a timetable for rescuing our twenty-first century civilization. The plan includes eradicating poverty and stabilizing population, protecting and restoring soils, forests, rangelands, and fisheries, and conserving the earth's biological diversity.

Released 2004

Outgrowing the Earth: The Food Security Challenge in an Age of Falling Water Tables and Rising Temperatures

Lester R. Brown

In this groundbreaking work, Lester Brown documents the ways that human demands are outstripping the earth's natural capacities-and how the resulting environmental damage is undermining food production. In Outgrowing the Earth, Brown investigates these issues and outlines the steps needed to secure future food supplies.

Released 2003

Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

Lester R. Brown

Rated one of the Top Ten Books of 2003 by the Globalist and winner of the National Library Wen-Jin Book Award (Chinese edition), Plan B calls for a worldwide mobilization to stabilize population and climate before they spiral out of control. It provides a plan for sustaining economic progress worldwide.

Released 2002

The Earth Policy Reader

Lester R. Brown, Janet Larsen, and Bernie Fischlowitz-Roberts

In scores of countries, converging ecological deficits are undermining local economies on a scale that has no precedent. In The Reader, the authors examine the economic costs of these ecological deficits.

Released 2001

Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth

Lester R. Brown

Eco-Economy provides a vision of an environmentally sustainable economy along with a roadmap on how to get from here to there. Farsi edition awarded Best Nonfiction book by the Peka Institute (Iran). Japanese edition rated the #1 translation by Asahi Shimbun.