Each summer, for example, nitrogen and phosphate washing from farmlands in the Mississippi Valley enter the Gulf of Mexico, creating a massive algal bloom covering some 16,000 square kilometers. As the blooms die off, this area-roughly the size of New… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
Another agricultural trend of growing concern is the increased nutrient content of coastal waters resulting from fertilizer runoff in agricultural regions. Augmented by urban sewage discharge in some situations, this results in huge algal blooms, which, as they die and… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
The challenge is either to build an economy that is sustainable or to stay with our unsustainable economy until it declines. It is not… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
A sustainable economy represents nothing less than a higher social order one as concerned with future generations as with our own, and more focused… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
The problem with water, though, is that the shortfalls don't show up until the very end. You can go on pumping unsustainably until the… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
In Mexico City, Tehran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Shanghai, and hundreds of other cities, the air is no longer safe to breathe. In some cities, the… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
We can build an economy that does not destroy its natural support systems, a global community where the basic needs of all the Earth's… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
The throwaway economy that has been evolving over the last half-century is an aberration, now itself headed for the junk heap of history. — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
One way or another, the choice will be made by our generation, but it will affect life on earth for all generations to come — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
Yet, most of the readily accessible reserves of oil formed over hundreds of millions of years will be consumed within a single generation, spanning… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
Our early 21st century civilization is in trouble. We need not go beyond the world food economy to see this. Over the last few… — Lester R. Brown Copy Share Image
