The Worldwatch Institute, founded and led by Lester Brown, is the world's preeminent authority on environmental issues. This article, taking off from an in-depth examination of its publications, weighs the institute's achievements and shortcomings. Positive features are the quality of its research, the range of topics it covers, its imaginative technological proposals, and its ability to popularize. The principal (but critical) negative trait is its failure to address the structural obstacles to the transformation it calls for Worldwatch largely ignores the environmental practices of particular transnational corporations. It tends to favor "market environmentalism " but does not examine the actual workings of this approach. Both in Brown's philosophy and in the institute's funding connections, the influence of corporate capital is evident. An alternative direction for ecological educators is suggested by the environmental justice movement.
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