January 20, 2004
Contact: George Yatchisin
(805) 893-3494
e-mail: yatchisin-g@ sa.ucsb.edu
Leading proponent for an environmentally sustainable economy Lester Brown delivers the lecture Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
Summary Facts:
- Lester Brown
- Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble
- Lester Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute and currently heads Earth Policy Institute
- Brown’s talk will discuss strategies to stave off environmental disaster
- The Inaugural Barry Schuyler Lecture
- Saturday, February 21
- 2 pm / UCSB Campbell Hall
- Free event
- Information: UCSB Arts & Lectures at 893-3535
Hailed as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers” by the Washington Post, Lester Brown will present the lecture Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble on Saturday, February 21 at 2 pm at UCSB Campbell Hall. Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute, which since 1974 has been a leading source of information on the interactions among key environmental, social and economic trends. He currently heads Earth Policy Institute, dedicated to providing a vision of an environmentally sustainable economy—an eco-economy—as well as a roadmap of how to get from here to there. His latest book, and this lecture, puts forth a bold and urgent plan to save the globe from environmental disaster. This free event, the Inaugural Barry Schuyler Lecture, is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures and the UCSB Environmental Studies Program.
Lester Brown has been awarded over 20 honorary degrees along with a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. His other many prizes and awards include the 1987 United Nations’ Environment Prize, the 1989 World Wide Fund for Nature Gold Medal, and the 1994 Blue Planet Prize for his “exceptional contributions to solving global environmental problems.” In 1986, the Library of Congress requested his papers, noting that his writings “have already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources.”
Brown’s efforts began in 1974 when he founded the Worldwatch Institute, the first research institute devoted to the analysis of global environmental issues. In 1984, Brown launched the State of the World reports. These annual assessments, translated into 30 languages, were keystones of the early global environmental movement.
Brown’s lecture at UCSB is based on his book Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble, released in paperback by W.W. Norton & Co. in September 2003. In the book Brown argues that if the environmental trends of recent decades continue, the global economy will soon begin to unravel. The food sector, he believes, is the most vulnerable. Record-high temperatures and falling water tables are already taking the edge off grain harvests in some countries, including China, the world’s largest grain producer. The wake-up call will come, Brown believes, when 1.3 billion Chinese consumers with an $80 billion trade surplus start competing with Americans for U.S. grain, driving up food prices. Rising food prices could create political instability in low-income countries, disrupting global economic progress. At that point, it will be clear that business as usual—Plan A—is not working. In Plan B, Brown outlines a World War II-type mobilization to stabilize climate by restructuring the global energy economy and to stabilize population by investing heavily in health care, family planning and education in developing countries.
This event is the UCSB Environmental Studies Program’s Inaugural Barry Schuyler Lecture. Schuyler, a UCSB Environmental Studies lecturer emeritus, helped found the Santa Barbara Maritime Museum. He and his wife Jean are also winners of the Santa Barbara News-Press Lifetime Achievement Award and trustees of The UCSB Foundation.
In Arts & Lectures’ on-going effort to make our events accessible to all who wish to enjoy them, this lecture will be signed. American Sign Language interpretation is made possible by the California Arts Council in collaboration with the National Arts and Disability Center and by the Santa Barbara Foundation’s Access Theatre Endowment Fund.
Courtesy of the UCSB Bookstore, books by Lester Brown will be available for purchase and signing at the event. They can also be purchased in advance online at www.bookstore.ucsb.edu by clicking on “General Books.”
For tickets or more information,
call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535.
Editor: For photos, please call
George Yatchisin at (805) 893-3494.