Word: worldwatch
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...himself at a crucial turning point: the actions of those now living will determine the future, and possibly the very survival, of the species. "We do not have generations, we only have years, in which to attempt to turn things around," warns Lester Brown, president of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute. Every individual on the planet must be made aware of its vulnerability and of the urgent need to preserve it. No attempt to protect the environment will be successful in the long run unless ordinary people -- the California housewife, the Mexican peasant, the Soviet factory worker, the Chinese farmer...
Prospects are so dire that some environmentalists urge the world to adopt the goal of cutting in half the earth's population growth rate during the next decade. "That means a call for a two-child family for the world as a whole," explained Lester Brown, president of the Worldwatch Institute. "In some countries there may be a need to set a goal of one child per family." That is a daunting challenge. During the past decade, many of the world's poor nations condemned the notion of family planning as an imperialist and racist scheme touted by the developed...
...Persistent drought has laid waste to America's agricultural midsection. Damaged grain harvests in the U.S., Canada and China will result in the sharpest ever one-year drop in world grain stocks, Worldwatch Institute reported last week...
Brown has an imposing record as a prophet. He foresaw the food crisis in India when he worked for John Kennedy's Department of Agriculture. Worldwatch, founded ten years ago with the help of the Rockefeller brothers, predicted the current African famines. Brown and his dozen diligent helpers claim no special powers, only a willingness to mine other people's statistics. Worldwatch is plugged into 70 research institutes around the globe and has access to computer data from the United Nations, World Bank and the U.S. Government...
Most impressive is Brown's growing audience, estimated in the hundreds of millions. The report is sold, not given away (in the U.S., the tab is $9.95), the income from it and other publications paying more than half of Worldwatch's expenses. State of the World will be printed in nine languages, total 150,000 copies by year's end and find its way into 122 nations. The Chinese produce three different versions (John Naisbitt's Megatrends rates only two versions). Interestingly, China has mounted a campaign to shrink the percentage of its budget spent on defense and spur economic...