Economic Threat From Environmental Problems Is Subject of Next Year’s ‘Book in Common’
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 3, 2004
CONTACT: Joe Wills
Tel: 530-898-4143
Jim Pushnik, Biology
898-6362
Mark Stemen, Geography and Planning
898-5428
Economic Threat From Environmental Problems Is Subject of Next Year’s ‘Book in Common’
According to award-winning author Lester Brown, “The world needs a new plan. Plan A, the status quo of over consumption of the world’s natural capital, can not continue. What we need is a major shift in our priorities toward environmental securities, and we need to do it fast at wartime speed.”
So what is Plan B?
In California State University, Chico’s Book in Common for 2004-2005: “Plan B, Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble,” Lester Brown outlines how the environmental problems of today are beginning to have economic consequences. He finds, when viewing the economy through an environmental lens, that we are creating a bubble economy that will ultimately lead to a crash as we continue to liquidate our natural capital at unprecedented rates.
The Book in Common is a CSU, Chico program where a selected book is read and studied in a number of classes across different disciplines and departments over the course of an academic year.
The Book in Common was initiated in fall 1998, when a committee was formed and charged by Scott McNall, provost and vice president for academic affairs, to develop a common reading experience for the entering freshman class of 2000. Previous annual selections for Book In Common have been “The Moon by Whale Light and Other Adventures Among Bats, Penguins, Crocodilians, and Whales,” by Diane Ackerman; “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down,” by Anne Fadiman; “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal,” by Eric Schlosser; and “The American Soul,” by Jacob Needleman.
Lester Brown has been referred to by the Washington Post as “one of the world’s most influential thinkers.” The Telegraph of Calcutta calls him “the guru of the environmental movement.” The United States Library of Congress in 1986 requested his personal papers, noting that his writings “have already strongly affected thinking about problems of world population and resources.” In 1974, Lester Brown founded the Worldwatch Institute. And in 1984, Brown initiated the “State of the World” reports, considered by many the bible of the global environmental movement.
The Rawlins Professor of Environmental Literacy and the Bidwell Environmental Institute at CSU, Chico are assembling materials (additional readings, videos and Web sites) for faculty to use in support of the Book in Common. Efforts are underway to bring Lester Brown himself to campus.
Brown started his career as a farmer, growing tomatoes in southern New Jersey. He has received degrees from Rutgers University (B.S. in agricultural science), an M.S. from University of Maryland (agricultural economics) and a M.P.A. from Harvard University (public administration). One of the world’s most widely published authors, Brown has authored or co-authored 49 books. His books have appeared in approximately 40 languages.
Brown is the recipient of many prizes and awards, including more than 20 honorary degrees, a MacArthur Fellowship, 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.”
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