Lester R. Brown Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Our Generation, Choices, Generations

  Lester R. Brown (2013). “Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth”, p.276, Routledge

  50 Copy quote

• Saving civilization is not a spectator sport.

  Lester R. Brown

  Sports, Civilization, Saving

  Lester R. Brown (2008). “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)”, p.13, W. W. Norton & Company

  50 Copy quote

• Among the environmental trends undermining our future are shrinking forests, expanding deserts, falling water tables, collapsing fisheries, disappearing species, and rising temperatures. The temperature increases bring crop-withering heat waves, more-destructive storms, more-intense droughts, more forest fires, and, of course, ice melting. We are crossing natural thresholds that we cannot see and violating deadlines that we do not recognize.

  Lester R. Brown

  Fall, Ice, Fire

  41 Copy quote

• No civilization has survived the ongoing destruction of its natural support systems. Nor will ours.

  Lester R. Brown

  Civilization, Support Systems, Growth

  28 Copy quote

• Today, more than ever, we need political leaders who can see the big picture, who understand the relationship between the economy and its environmental support systems.

  Lester R. Brown

  Support Systems, Leader, Political

  Lester R. Brown (2008). “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)”, p.8, W. W. Norton & Company

  27 Copy quote

• Our numbers expand, but Earth's natural systems do not.

  Lester R. Brown

  Numbers, Earth, Natural

  22 Copy quote

• 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 people are satisfied, and a world that will allow us to think of ourselves as civilized. This is entirely doable.

  Lester R. Brown

  Inspiring, Thinking, Support Systems

  23 Copy quote

• Socialism failed because it couldn't tell the economic truth. Capitalism may fail because it couldn't tell the ecological truth.

  Lester R. Brown

  Environmental, May, Failing

  13 Copy quote

• The choice is ours-yours and mine. We can stay with business as usual and preside over a global bubble economy that keeps expanding until it bursts, leading to economic decline. Or we can adopt Plan B and be the generation that stabilizes population, eradicates poverty, and stabilizes climate. Historians will record the choice, but it is ours to make.

  Lester R. Brown

  Choices, Generations, Records

  8 Copy quote

• It takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain. As water becomes scarce and countries are forced to divert irrigation water to cities and industry, they will import more grain. As they do so, water scarcity will be transmitted across national borders via the grain trade. Aquifer depletion is a largely invisible threat, but that does not make it any less real.

  Lester R. Brown

  Country, Real, Aquifers

  12 Copy quote

• A sustainable economy represents nothing less than a higher social order one as concerned with future generations as with our own, and more focused on the health of the planet and the poor than on material acquisitions and military might. While it is a fundamentally new endeavor, with many uncertainties, it is far less risky than continuing with business as usual.

  Lester R. Brown

  Military, Order, Environmental

  11 Copy quote

• If an economy is to sustain progress, it must satisfy the basic principles of ecology. If it does not, it will decline and eventually collapse. There is no middle ground

  Lester R. Brown

  Progress, Principles, Doe

  Lester R. Brown (2013). “Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth”, p.77, Routledge

  4 Copy quote

• In Mexico City, Tehran, Kolkata, Bangkok, Shanghai, and hundreds of other cities, the air is no longer safe to breathe. In some cities, the air is so polluted that breathing is equivalent to smoking two packs of cigarettes per day.

  Lester R. Brown

  Air, Breathing, Cities

  Lester R. Brown (2008). “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)”, p.193, W. W. Norton & Company

  22 Copy quote

• The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse.

  Lester R. Brown

  Country, Government, Causes

  "Could Food Shortages Bring Down Civilization" by Lester R. Brown, www.scientificamerican.com. May 2009.

  13 Copy quote

• Rising oil prices have focused the world's attention on the depletion of oil reserves. But the depletion of underground water resources from overpumping is a far more serious issue. Excessive pumping for irrigation to satisfy food needs today almost guarantees a decline in food production tomorrow.

  Lester R. Brown

  Oil, Issues, Water

  20 Copy quote

• The foundation is being laid for the emergence of both wind and solar cells as cornerstones of the new energy economy.

  Lester R. Brown

  Cells, Wind, Foundation

  Lester R. Brown, Michael Renner (2014). “Vital Signs 1999-2000: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future”, p.16, Routledge

  21 Copy quote

• 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

  Junk, Aberration, Half

  Lester R. Brown (2008). “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (Substantially Revised)”, p.229, W. W. Norton & Company

  19 Copy quote

• Population growth is exceeding farmers' ability to keep up...Our oldest enemy, hunger, is again at the door.

  Lester R. Brown

  Doors, Growth, Enemy

  16 Copy quote

• We know what we have to do. And we know how to do it. If we fail to convert our self-destructing economy into one that is environmentally sustainable, future generations will be overwhelmed by environmental degradation and social disintegration. Simply stated, if our generation does not turn things around, our children may not have the option of doing so.

  Lester R. Brown

  Children, Our Generation, Self

  15 Copy quote

• The 20th century was the time when the world turned to use of fossil fuels and the 21st century will be the century of the renewables.

  Lester R. Brown

  Use, Fuel, World

  4 Copy quote

• The transition from coal, oil, and gas to wind, solar, and geothermal energy is well under way. In the old economy, energy was produced by burning something - oil, coal, or natural gas - leading to the carbon emissions that have come to define our economy. The new energy economy harnesses the energy in wind, the energy coming from the sun, and heat from within the earth itself.

  Lester R. Brown

  Oil, Carbon Emissions, Wind

  "Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization". Book by Lester R. Brown, October 5, 2009.

  17 Copy quote

• Humanity's greatest challenge may soon be just making it to the next harvest.

  Lester R. Brown

  Challenges, Humanity, Environmental

  15 Copy quote

• Global food insecurity is increasing...the slim excess of growth in food production over population is narrowing.

  Lester R. Brown

  Insecurity, Growth, Environmental

  5 Copy quote

• Our early 21st century civilization is in trouble. We need not go beyond the world food economy to see this. Over the last few decades we have created a food production bubble-one based on environmental trends that cannot be sustained, including overpumping aquifers, overplowing land, and overloading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.

  Lester R. Brown

  Aquifers, Land, Civilization

  6 Copy quote

• We are witnessing the beginning of one of the great tragedies of history. The United States, in a misguided effort to reduce its oil insecurity by converting grain into fuel for cars, is generating global food insecurity on a scale never seen before.

  Lester R. Brown

  Oil, Car, Effort

  4 Copy quote

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