Outgrowing the Earth Cl

by Brown,Lester

• ISBN13: 9780393060706
• ISBN10: 0393060705
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2005-02-17
• Publisher: W W NORTON

Summary

How human demands are outstripping the earth's capacitiesand what we need to do about it. Ever since 9/11, many have considered al Queda to be the leading threat to global security, but falling water tables in countries that contain more than half the world's people and rising temperatures worldwide pose a far more serious threat. Spreading water shortages and crop-withering heat waves are shrinking grain harvests in more and more countries, making it difficult for the world's farmers to feed 70 million more people each year. The risk is that tightening food supplies could drive up food prices, destabilizing governments in low-income grain-importing countries and disrupting global economic progress. Future security, Brown says, now depends on raising water productivity, stabilizing climate by moving beyond fossil fuels, and stabilizing population by filling the family planning gap and educating young people everywhere. If Osama bin Laden and his colleagues succeed in diverting our attention from the real threats to our future security, they may reach their goals for reasons that even they have not imagined.

Author Biography

Lester R. Brown is president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit environmental research organization based in Washington, D.C., which he founded in May 2001.

Table of Contents

Pushing beyond the earth's limits	p. 3
Stopping at seven billion	p. 22
Moving up the food chain efficiently	p. 40
Raising the earth's productivity	p. 59
Protecting cropland	p. 80
Stabilizing water tables	p. 99
Stabilizing climate	p. 118
Reversing China's harvest decline	p. 133
The Brazilian dilemma	p. 156
Redefining security	p. 177
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