Lester Brown

IDENTIFICATION: American environmentalist, agricultural scientist, and author

Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental think tank the mission of which is to analyze the state of the earth and to act as “a global early warning system.”

Lester Brown was raised on a small tomato farm in Bridgeton, New Jersey. He joined the 4-H Club and the Future Farmers of America at his local school. When he was fourteen, he and his brother purchased a used tractor and a small plot of land to grow tomatoes. Within a brief time, they became two of the most successful tomato farmers on the East Coast. Brown graduated from Rutgers University in 1955 with a degree in agricultural science and immediately put his education to practical use. He worked for six months in a small farming community in India, becoming intimately acquainted with hunger problems created by population growth and unsustainable agricultural practices.

In 1959 Brown earned a master’s degree in agricultural economics and soon after joined the US Department of Agriculture as an international agricultural analyst. After leaving that post in 1969, he helped organize the Overseas Development Council, a private group devoted to analyzing issues relevant to relations between the United States and developing countries.

Brown’s educational and career background prepared him well for his work and leadership in the Worldwatch Institute. While living and working in developing nations, he became acutely aware of such problems as the extensive poverty caused by economic systems dependent on cash crops for export to wealthy industrial countries and the use of agricultural practices that cause deforestation and desertification. He realized that food security could replace military security as the major concern of governments in the twenty-first century.

Shortly after Brown established the Worldwatch Institute in 1974, he and other staff members initiated the Worldwatch Papers, which focus on population growth and the resulting stress on natural resources, transportation trends, and the human and environmental impact of urbanization. In 1984 Brown established the institute’s annual report, State of the World, a comprehensive overview of specific global environmental issues. This publication, eventually available in more than twenty-five languages, is used by political leaders, educators, and citizens as a resource for information on environmental problems and ways to address them. In 1992 Brown inaugurated the publication of Vital Signs: The Trends That Are Shaping Our Future. This annual handbook features environmental, economic, and social statistical indicators on trends likely to influence the world’s future.

In Brown’s view, global environmental problems should be addressed through international efforts funded by taxes on currency exchanges, taxes for pollution emissions, and a greater involvement by the United Nations. He has advocated a shift away from national spending on unsustainable economic growth and toward investing in research and development that enhances environmental quality and protection of natural resources.

Brown published numerous books, some in partnership with the Worldwatch Institute and some published by the Earth Policy Institute, which Brown founded in 2001 to raise awareness of environmental issues. His books include In the Human Interest: A Strategy to Stabilize World Population (1974), Building a Sustainable Society (1981), Who Will Feed China? Wake-Up Call for a Small Planet (1995), and Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble (2003). In these and other writings, Brown warns about the ecological dangers of over-exploiting the earth’s resources and urges those in the world’s developed nations to change their lifestyles. He also advised governments and scientists to cooperate in finding solutions to environmental problems. In 2012 Brown was inducted into the Earth Hall of Fame, located in Kyoto, Japan. His autobiography, Breaking New Ground: A Personal History, was released in 2013.

In 2015 Brown published another book, The Great Transition: Shifting from Fossil Fuels to Solar and Wind Energy. Brown officially retired in June of that year, at the age of eighty-one. The Earth Policy Institute also closed upon his stepping down as president. The Worldwatch Institute closed two years later.

Bibliography

Sheppard, Kate. "Lester Brown Reflects On His Remarkable Life As An Environmental Leader." Huffington Post, 21 Oct. 2013, www.huffpost.com/entry/lester-brown-autobiography‗n‗4124707. Accessed 15 July 2024.

Brown, Lester. Breaking New Ground: A Personal History. W. W. Norton, 2013.

Brown, Lester. “Worldwatch.” In Life Stories: World-Renowned Scientists Reflect on Their Lives and on the Future of Life on Earth, edited by Heather Newbold. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.

"The Lester R. Brown Reading Room." Rutgers University, 2024, execdeanagriculture.rutgers.edu/lester-brown-reading-room/. Accessed 15 July 2024.

Nelson, David E. “In Praise of Lester Brown.” Futurist 42, no. 6 (2008).

Wallis, Victor. “Lester Brown, the Worldwatch Institute, and the Dilemmas of Technocratic Revolution.” Organization and Environment 10, no. 2 (1997): 109-125.