Ecological Tower
Earth Policy Institute
The Earth Policy Institute (EPI), founded in 2001, is dedicated to providing a vision of a sustainable global economy and a roadmap of how to get from here to there, what we call Plan B, the alternative to business as usual. EPI works at the global level simply because no country acting alone can stabilize climate or preserve the earth’s biological diversity. EPI’s unique global vision often allows it to see trends that more specialized organizations cannot, its research generates attention.
Plan B is a comprehensive global strategy for reversing the trends that are fast undermining our future. It aims to stabilize climate, stabilize population, eradicate poverty, and restore the economy’s natural support systems. It prescribes a worldwide cut in net carbon emissions of 80 percent by 2020 to stop atmospheric CO2 concentrations from exceeding 400 parts per million, thus keeping the future global temperature rise to a minimum. Failure to reach any one of these goals will likely mean failure to reach the others as well.
Their founder, Lester Brown, was called “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” by the Washington Post. The Telegraph of Calcutta refers to him as the “guru of the environmental movement.” 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.”
In 1974, with support of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Lester Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute, the first research institute devoted to the analysis of global environmental issues. While there he launched the Worldwatch Papers, the annual State of the World reports, World Watch magazine, a second annual entitled Vital Signs: The Trends That are Shaping Our Future, and the Environmental Alert book series.
In May 2001, he founded the Earth Policy Institute to provide solutions through its publications—books, Plan B Updates, Eco-Economy Indicators, and Book Bytes. In November 2001, he published Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth, which was hailed by E.O. Wilson as “an instant classic.” The most recent book is Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization. David Roberts of Grist said, “It’s the best summation of humanity’s converging ecological problems and the best roadmap to solving them, all in one compact package.” All of their publications are available online for free downloading—a phenomenal bargain—along with supporting data.
According to their website, EPI’s goals are
- To provide a global plan (Plan B) for moving the world onto an environmentally and economically sustainable path.
- To provide examples demonstrating how the plan would work.
- To keep the media, policymakers, academics, environmentalists, and other decision-makers focused on the process of building a Plan B economy.
People can help by getting involved. Depending on the person, that can mean a lot of things. Some people simply give money; others only give time, by writing elected officials on critical issues, helping out with mailings, tree plantings or whatever urgent matter needs our attention that day.
Earth Policy Institute is an independent, nonprofit environmental research organization supported by financial contributions from foundations and individuals, along with internal sources of income such as publication sales. Therefore your support is invaluable to our efforts. Please consider making a donation.
Click here for their donation page. (A contribution to the Earth Policy Institute goes a long way. Less than two percent of our income is used for fundraising; the rest supports program activities.)
Click here for how you can get involved with the EPI.
