Skip to content
Grist home
All donations DOUBLED

Articles by Lester Brown

Lester R. Brown is founder and president of Earth Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. Follow EPI: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn

All Articles

  • The Return of the Bicycle

    The bicycle has many attractions as a form of personal transportation. It alleviates congestion, lowers air pollution, reduces obesity, increases physical fitness, does not emit climate-disrupting carbon dioxide, and is priced within the reach of the billions of people who cannot afford a car. Bicycles increase mobility while reducing congestion and the area of land […]

  • The Population-Poverty Connection

    The 21st century began on an inspiring note: The United Nations set a goal of reducing the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty by half by 2015. By early 2007, the world looked to be on track to meet this goal, but as the economic crisis unfolds and the outlook darkens, the […]

  • Raising water productivity to increase food security

    Drip irrigation is a simple and easy way to reduce water use.Photo courtesy of photofarmer via flickr With water shortages constraining food production growth, the world needs an effort to raise water productivity similar to the one that nearly tripled land productivity over the last half-century. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce […]

  • How many energy-efficient light bulbs does it take to close 705 coal plants?

    The lighting sector is on the edge of a spectacular revolution, a shift from the century-old, inefficient incandescent light bulb to far more efficient technologies. Perhaps the quickest, most profitable way to reduce electricity use worldwide -- thus cut