MISSION

During the 40 years since the publication of Silent Spring and the birth of the modern environmental movement, the environmental community has worked hard to arrest the deterioration of the Earth’s health. Many battles have been won, but we are losing the war. The Earth’s capacity to support the economy continues to deteriorate. The gap between what we need to do to arrest the deterioration of the Earth and what we are doing continues to widen.



Somehow we have to turn the tide. There is a need for a new initiative, a new organization, and a new organizational model, one engaged in a research program and research products that are designed for use by the media and that are directed at policymakers. The goal of the Earth Policy Institute is to raise public awareness to the point where it will support an effective public response to the threats posed by continuing population growth, rising CO2 emissions, the loss of plant and animal species, and the many other trends that are adversely affecting the Earth. The dissemination of information from the Institute is designed to help set the public agenda.



While the environmental community has gained a well-deserved reputation for successfully opposing certain policies or initiatives that it is against, it is less clear what the community is for. Without a vision, without a sense of where we want to go, it will be very difficult to get there. The purpose of the Earth Policy Institute is to provide a vision of what an environmentally sustainable economy will look like, a roadmap of how to get from here to there, and an ongoing assessment of this effort, of where progress is being made and where it is not.