Rating: 
Summary: A Universal Must-Read
Review: 'Eco-Economy' is a masterpiece of research, exposition, and invaluable problem-solving proposals. In this work, we are provided with the essential opportunity to face the nature of our civilization, the full scope of its known reach into the life-sustaining systems that fuel our natural environment, and to discover the most intelligent and responsible solutions to global crises in the biosphere.'Eco-Economy' goes much further than many works which proclaim the imminent failure of natural systems: it poses an examination of how we contribute to crisis, through exhaustive research from the most relevant sources, and illustrates how we can contribute effectively to emerging from it. It broadens the scope of economic theory in a way that corrects many of the failed assumptions of pre-twentieth-century scientific inquiry. This book is a true contribution to the history (and the future) of thought, science, and humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Visionary and Timely
Review: An important environmental and economic wake-up call, full of current research and data (with citations). Brown delivers a vision for the world that is both ecologically and economically prosperous, but only if we start restructuring our economies quickly. Broad in scope and well-written, this book takes the reader around the world for a look at the big picture. Read this book!
Rating:
Summary: The best environmental book of the year
Review: Eco-Economy is one of the most significant environmental books of the past several years. Brown clearly describes the damage we are doing to the environment, paints a picture of what a more sustainable economy would look like, then explains how we can get there. Most useful is the discussion of tax shifting. I bought a case to give away as Christmas presents! Buy one for yourself, and one for each of your legislators.
Rating: 
Summary: Eco-Economy
Review: Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth by Lester Brown is a novel that discusses the relationship of economics and the environment. Brown examines how we must achieve an environmentally sound economic system for which mutualism can occur. This mutualism is a very important concept for if we expect to use our resources wisely, we need to benefit both the economic and environmental aspects of the equation. In the first section of the book, Brown relays the message of how people are ruining the environment through the idea of maximizing profits and trying to clean up after them instead of just avoiding the degradation of the environment all together. Secondly, Brown interprets how an eco-economy would benefit as well as work in our world today. This makes me think of the billions of dollars Bush just proposed to spend on the study of hydrogen-powered cars of the future. Of course Bush's reasons were of different origin for doing this, but that's another story. With this grant directed toward hydrogen powered cars, our ecosystem can sigh a little relief for this is a good way for people to recognize the problem who were not formerly aware of it. The third section of the book touches on how we as a society are to take the first step in turning our economy into an eco-economy. He highlights this by declaring that the tax system needs a makeover. This basically means that taxes must be raised on those activities that harm the environment substantially. This is a great way to send a message to polluters that change is in need, and that our world needs help before it is too late. My interpretation of this book is that we need an economic system that is able to conserve/protect our depleting natural resources while at the same time solve the problem of our economy loosing precious biodiversity and resources. There obviously is not a reasonable solution our there yet that we can agree on. There are many ideas, but no solutions as of now. If we ever intend to change this environmental crisis as well as fix the recession, change is in need, and fast.
Rating:
Summary: Eco-Economy
Review: Eco-Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth by Lester Brown is a novel that discusses the relationship of economics and the environment. Brown examines how we must achieve an environmentally sound economic system for which mutualism can occur. This mutualism is a very important concept for if we expect to use our resources wisely, we need to benefit both the economic and environmental aspects of the equation. In the first section of the book, Brown relays the message of how people are ruining the environment through the idea of maximizing profits and trying to clean up after them instead of just avoiding the degradation of the environment all together. Secondly, Brown interprets how an eco-economy would benefit as well as work in our world today. This makes me think of the billions of dollars Bush just proposed to spend on the study of hydrogen-powered cars of the future. Of course Bush's reasons were of different origin for doing this, but that's another story. With this grant directed toward hydrogen powered cars, our ecosystem can sigh a little relief for this is a good way for people to recognize the problem who were not formerly aware of it. The third section of the book touches on how we as a society are to take the first step in turning our economy into an eco-economy. He highlights this by declaring that the tax system needs a makeover. This basically means that taxes must be raised on those activities that harm the environment substantially. This is a great way to send a message to polluters that change is in need, and that our world needs help before it is too late. My interpretation of this book is that we need an economic system that is able to conserve/protect our depleting natural resources while at the same time solve the problem of our economy loosing precious biodiversity and resources. There obviously is not a reasonable solution our there yet that we can agree on. There are many ideas, but no solutions as of now. If we ever intend to change this environmental crisis as well as fix the recession, change is in need, and fast.
Rating: 
Summary: Read "The Skeptical Environmentalist" instead
Review: I had thought Brown's book was a good read until reading Bjorn Lomborg's recent book, "The Skeptical Environmentalist," which points holes in so many of Brown's statistics, the foundation for his work, that he is now nearly completely discredited in my mind. If you do read Brown's book (and I would not recommend it), be sure to check out Lomborg's as well. Read the Skeptical Environmentalist instead.
Rating:
Summary: Long range thinker
Review: I really enjoyed reading this book. I only wish more people did and became aware of problems that are brewing right now and may affect them in the near future or their children's future. Sure statistics can be fudge to prove two total different points and they often are, it depends on whose providing them. I wouldn't let anything discourage me from reading this very informative book. It is a must for an Economics or Business major, since this is can serve as a good introduction to the newest branch of Economics emerging in several Universities.
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly Important Book
Review: If money were no object, I would mail copies of Lester Brown's "Eco-Economy" and Paul Hawken's "Natural Capitalism" to every CEO, country leader, and business school dean on the planet. Eco-Economy is a well-researched, balanced, detailed portrayal of where the world is today ecologically, and where the world could be in the future, depending on the choices we make (or fail to make) when it comes to managing our fragile and taxed natural environmnent.
Brown makes his case clear: it is now time for ecologists to team up with economists to ensure that the prices we pay for all goods and services "tell the ecological truth". One of the most critical examples is the price we pay in North America for gasoline: the pump price has never reflected the total true costs that are borne by members of society and by the natutal environment. Until governments impose gasoline taxes that reflect those total true costs, the fossil fuel resource will continue to be undervalued and wasted.
To read Eco-Economy is to go on an emotional roller coaster ride. The earlier chapters accurately describe the perilous state of many ecological systems, such as life-sustaining aquifers being depleted or contaminated, and irreversible soil erosion due to the removal of trees. I found these chapters well worth reading, but very disturbing. What is good news for the reader and, more important, good news for the planet, is that Brown offers numerous examples of how we can (technically, at least; if we could now just muster the required political will) stop or even reverse our erstwhile environmentally damaging behaviour -- in other words, "how to get there from here".
Brown identifies sustainability-related opportunities and responsibilities for all key sectors of the human race: government leaders, business CEOs, NGOs, academics. Further, Brown reminds us that lone individuals can make a difference, too: the publishing of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring represented a much-needed "threshold" that prompted the world to re-think its use of DDT. Thus, for those of us who do not run a government or a company, we have the power of the pen on our side, and we can choose to exercise that power.
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly Important Book
Review: If money were no object, I would mail copies of Lester Brown's "Eco-Economy" and Paul Hawken's "Natural Capitalism" to every CEO, country leader, and business school dean on the planet. Eco-Economy is a well-researched, balanced, detailed portrayal of where the world is today ecologically, and where the world could be in the future, depending on the choices we make (or fail to make) when it comes to managing our fragile and taxed natural environmnent.
Brown makes his case clear: it is now time for ecologists to team up with economists to ensure that the prices we pay for all goods and services "tell the ecological truth". One of the most critical examples is the price we pay in North America for gasoline: the pump price has never reflected the total true costs that are borne by members of society and by the natutal environment. Until governments impose gasoline taxes that reflect those total true costs, the fossil fuel resource will continue to be undervalued and wasted.
To read Eco-Economy is to go on an emotional roller coaster ride. The earlier chapters accurately describe the perilous state of many ecological systems, such as life-sustaining aquifers being depleted or contaminated, and irreversible soil erosion due to the removal of trees. I found these chapters well worth reading, but very disturbing. What is good news for the reader and, more important, good news for the planet, is that Brown offers numerous examples of how we can (technically, at least; if we could now just muster the required political will) stop or even reverse our erstwhile environmentally damaging behaviour -- in other words, "how to get there from here".
Brown identifies sustainability-related opportunities and responsibilities for all key sectors of the human race: government leaders, business CEOs, NGOs, academics. Further, Brown reminds us that lone individuals can make a difference, too: the publishing of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring represented a much-needed "threshold" that prompted the world to re-think its use of DDT. Thus, for those of us who do not run a government or a company, we have the power of the pen on our side, and we can choose to exercise that power.
Rating: 
Summary: Eco-Economy
Review: In Eco-Economy, Lester R. Brown first details the current state of the Earth and the economy that operates on it and utilizes its resources. Brown explains the current economic processes and trends, and presents an initial justification for integrating the world's economy into the ecological processes of natural systems, while providing economic security through the protection of these natural systems. Brown asserts, "...[T]he only formulation of economic policy that will succeed is one that respects the principles of ecology" (6). Next, Brown cites the threats and burdens humans have imposed on the environment, including effects on land, climate, water, natural ecosystems, and plant and animal species utilized for human needs, all in justification for his "eco-economy." A transition to an "eco-economy" will allow for a more efficient and sustainable use of resources, and will result in a great reduction in environmental threats posed by humans and an investment into the future perpetuity of the world's ecological systems and resources that provide for economic goods and services.
Finally, Brown details the structure and intricacies of his proposed "eco-economy," one in which solar and wind power would be at the base of an economy that operates with the hydrogen fuel cell, and in which economic processes are cyclical, instead of linear. The eco-economy's cyclical process would channel production and consumer waste outputs back into the system as inputs to be reused. In the eco-economy, cities will be redesigned to become more conducive for people with less congestion and traffic, more mass rail transport systems, and intricate and usable bike transport systems. New industries will be created in the eco-economy to build hydrogen fuel cells and to build and maintain wind energy systems, among others, and a new approach to material usage, production, and consumption will be incorporated to reduce and reuse waste.
Furthermore, Brown details the eco-economy's restructuring of food and water production and distribution systems to increase efficiency, as well as the need for reduced fertility to control population growth. Finally, Brown explains what must be done to allow for the existence of an eco-economy and cites steps and incentives to facilitate the transition from the current conventional economic situation. He summarizes this approach when he writes, "If we use fiscal policy to encourage environmentally constructive activities and to discourage destructive ones, we can steer the economy in a sustainable direction" (235).
Although Lester R. Brown presents insightful and logical solutions to the world's depreciating economic practices in their use of natural resources, current economic situations and the ease of transition to an "eco-economy" is greatly oversimplified. An economy that uses resources sustainable, in a cyclical manner is a noble proposition, but one must be realistic in portraying the ease and likelihood of a switch. Initially, for example, there is a problem with Brown's touting of the cultivation of wind energy as the energy basis of the new eco-economy. He asserts "Millions of turbines soon will be converting wind into electricity, becoming part of the global landscape" (87). Although wind energy production possesses much potential for reducing the current use of fossil fuels for energy, transition to a wind-based energy economy is not quite as simple as Brown advertises. Wind turbines are very large and very expensive, and much public criticism has recently occurred over the production of turbines in natural areas where residents do not want to be degraded or dominated by these massive structures. Such controversy has occurred in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, with residents denouncing a proposal to build a wind farm on a nearby offshore site. For wind energy to become the basis of our economy, as Brown asserts, this public perception and backlash must be overcome. Also, creative manipulation of legislative and economic practices that have an inherent financial interest in maintaining the current fossil fuel economy must occur. The oil and other energy and fossil fuel-based industries have much incentive to remain in business, and possess tremendous economic and political influence.
Appropriately, Brown proposes creating an economy which "tells the ecological truth," (234) one in which companies will be forced to bear the costs of production, instead of merely imposing these costs onto the environment and society as externalities. However, although Brown notes that "some companies will be winner and some will be losers" (95) in the new eco-economy, he fails to solidify the point that in order to facilitate economic change to benefit the environment, new environmentally-friendly industries must be made profitable. Not only must tax disincentives be applied to discourage destructive, as well as subsidies to encourage constructive practices, but a full-scale restructuring of the economy must be had for destructive industries to be replaced by constructive ones. Again, this point is dangerously oversimplified, at the expense of portraying the misconception that the current economy's industries can easily be replaced by new constructive industries like wind energy and hydrogen fuel cell production.
Brown writes, "Investments in the infrastructure for the new energy economy, which would eventually have to be made as fossil fuels are depleted..." (94). The environment cannot afford to wait around until "fossil fuels are depleted" as Brown asserts, and since there is much financial incentive to maintain the current fossil fuel economy, immediate and ongoing government monetary and research support must be made to make these constructive industries viable and profitable, to ease and facilitate the ongoing transition to an eco-economy. This switch will not be made overnight as Brown seems to assert, but will be a gradual undertaking.
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