Outgrowing the Earth

by Lester R. Brown

Historically, food security was the responsibility of ministries of agriculture but today that has changed: decisions made in ministries of energy may instead have the greatest effect on the food situation. Recent research reporting that a one degree Celsius rise in temperature can reduce grain yields by 10 per cent means that energy policy is now directly affecting crop production. Agriculture is a water-intensive activity and, while public attention has focused on oil depletion, it is aquifer depletion that poses the more serious threat. There are substitutes for oil, but none for water and the link between our fossil fuel addiction, climate change and food security is now clear. While population growth has slowed over the past three decades, we are still adding 76 million people per year. In a world where the historical rise in land productivity has slowed by half since 1990, eradicating hunger may depend as much on family planners as on farmers. The bottom line is that future food security depends not only on efforts within agriculture but also on energy policies that stabilize climate, a worldwide effort to raise water productivity, the evolution of land-efficient transport systems, and population policies that seek a humane balance between population and food. Outgrowing the Earth advances our thinking on food security issues that the world will be wrestling with for years to come.

Genres: Nonfiction, Environment, Climate Change, Food

Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Lester Russel Brown is an American environmentalist, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, and founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C. BBC Radio commentator Peter Day calls him "one of the great pioneer environmentalists."

In the mid-1970s, Brown helped pioneer the concept of sustainable development, during a career that started with farming. As early as 1978, in his book The Twenty-Ninth Day, he was already warning of "the various dangers arising out of our manhandling of nature...by overfishing the oceans, stripping the forests, turning land into desert." In 1986, the Library of Congress requested his personal papers noting that his writings “have already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources.”

He has been the recipient of many prizes and awards, including, the 1987 United Nations Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his "contributions to solving global environmental problems."

Excerpted from Wikipedia.

Reviews

[Aaron Redman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lester Brown's books are chock full of data and graphs. Outgrowing the Earth gives a good overview of the current (depending on edition) situation for food and the various threats to our capacity to feed ourselves. Yet I feel that Lester Brown has called "wolf" a few too many times for his warnings to be credible. He has for decades been suggesting we are on the edge of a food crisis which has yet to really emerge. I think the challenges to our food system are real and critical for our future, but there is a lot of unappreciated flexibility, adaptability and resilience even in the current, deeply flawed system.

Check out my reviews of Sustainability books

[The Capital Institute · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brown writes in this book that the economy is growing far too quickly for our planet to meet the economy’s natural resource demands. Most prominently, climate change coupled with unprecedented and unsustainable consumption of resources is a serious threat to food security. Brown presents three steps needed to correct this problem: raise water productivity, cut carbon emissions and stabilize the population.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Includes a smattering of statistics, which may require one to stop and process all the numbers into context but, it was educational. Bottom line: food shortage crisis is impending! He provides some of his ideas on solutions.

[Crystal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though this book is now a couple years old (2004 I think)I still found it to be vitally important to understanding the economic impact of climate change, growing population and falling water tables. Lester Brown writes like a teacher, and he teaches well.

[Tom Gauthier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of statistics about conventional food production world-wide, exposing some very worrisome trends.

[Joel Roberts · Rating 3 out of 5]

chock full of troubling stats. a little repetitive, but an informative read.