Me and Lester Brown

Posted by David Roberts at 11:09 AM on 08 Feb 2006

Read more about: Lester Brown

Early tomorrow morning, I'm interviewing Lester Brown. What should I ask him?

Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, where he now serves as president. He's the author of the recently released Plan B 2.0, which is, as I said yesterday, the best big-picture summary of our environmental situation -- both the problems and the solutions -- I've ever read. (All in a slim 266 pages, not including the copious footnotes.)

The entire book is online in both HTML and PDF form. But you should buy it anyway, just to toss a couple bucks EPI's way.

Anyway, Brown is a legend in environmental circles; the Washington Post called him "one of the world's most influential thinkers." And I'm just some blogger.

So what should I ask him?

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Try these on for size

Large shipments of low-cost biodiesel from South America have already begun to show up in Florida ports. Brazil has plans to build a biofuel pipeline capable of transporting a billion gallons of ethanol a year. Brazil has also lost 10,000 square miles of rainforest in the last two years. Indonesia has plans for a gigantic palm oil plantation half the size of the Netherlands.

In light of these developments, how can we discourage other countries from converting their rainforests into farms to provide fuel for the industrialized nations?

Do biofuels have the potential to devastate the planet's remaining biodiversity?

I know he does not have any magical solutions, but the questions will bring some visibility to the issue. My answer to those questions would be to come up with technology that would make it economically uncompetitive to convert their rainforests into fuel. For example, alga farms in desserts, electric cars, solar, wind and even ethanol made form switchgrass (if it can really be grown in a manner that enhances natural ecosystems rather than consume them).

In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world

by biodiversivist at 1:05 PM on 08 Feb 2006

sustainable agriculture

LB sometimes seems to measure food security purely in terms of grain output, and endorse industrial-style no-till agriculture, which involves lashing of natural-gas-based fertilizers and herbicides. In 2004, the National Corn Growers Assoc. reports, US farmers produced 11.8 bushels of corn and managed to find buyers--for uses ranging from animal feed to ethanol to high-fructose corn syrup--for just 10.8 billion bushels of it. To perform this grand feat of overproduction, they used some 10 billion tons of nitrogen fertilizer. Does this make any sense at all? Remember, the government paid corn farmers $4.5 billion in subsidies that year (see: http://www.ewg.org/farm/progdetail.php?fips=00000&progcode=corn)

Rather than maximizing grain yields, shouldn't efforts to "feed the world" involve building and promoting local food systems?

Victual Reality

by Tom Philpott at 4:29 PM on 08 Feb 2006

correction!

That's 10 billion pounds of fertilizer, not tons.

Victual Reality

by Tom Philpott at 4:33 PM on 08 Feb 2006

Don't buy the book

But you should buy it anyway, just to toss a couple bucks EPI's way.

No, you should download it, read it on your computer, and make a donation to Earth Policy Institute. Make sure all the $ goes to EPI (and not middlemen) and save the trees and all that goes along with printing the physical book.

by greenfish at 6:00 AM on 10 Feb 2006

But then, Greenfish,

you'll end up spending all your money on glasses or LASIK surgery, because let me tell you, it ain't easy reading a 266-page book on your computer screen.

Compromise: Buy it, but then recycle it by making sure all your friends and family read it too.

grist.org

by David Roberts at 8:28 AM on 10 Feb 2006

ADVERTISING POLICY

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