President Obama announced executive actions in July of 2013 to combat global climate change. Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants New York City to spend $20 billion to prepare for global warming-related dangers. The vast majority of climate scientists agree that human activity is contributing to changing climate, but polls still find large percentages of Americans don’t believe that climate change is real.
These concerns were answered by noted environmentalist Lester Brown at a luncheon.
Lester Brown started his career as a farmer, growing tomatoes in southern New Jersey with his younger brother during high school and college. Shortly after earning a degree in agricultural science from Rutgers University in 1955, he spent six months living in rural India where he became intimately familiar with the food/population issue. In 1959, Brown joined the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service as an international analyst. In 1964, he became an adviser to Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman on foreign agricultural policy. In 1966, the Secretary appointed him Administrator of the department’s International Agricultural Development Service. In early 1969, he left government to help establish the Overseas Development Council.
