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“The Brown Agenda is the story of an important humanitarian cause revealed in
clear and concise prose that is at once deeply necessary and deeply satisfying.”
—David Biello, Editor, Environment & Energy, Scientific American
Richard Fuller is the
founder and president of
Pure Earth (formerly the
Blacksmith Institute).
Considered the world’s
leading expert on toxic
issues, Pure Earth works
closely with governments, local stakeholders, and international
organizations around the
world to combat the
proliferation of toxic pollution in forty-five
countries. In 2012, Fuller also led the formation of the Global Alliance on Health and
Pollution, a collaborative body tasked with coordinating resources and activities to clean up
chemicals, waste, and toxic pollution in lowand middle-income countries. The GAHP
currently has thirty-two members, including
many affected countries, UN agencies, and
bilateral and multilateral donors such as the
World Bank.
Damon DiMarco is the author of the oral
histories Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11
and Heart of War: Soldiers’ Voices from the Front
Lines in Iraq. With Baiqiao Tang, he wrote My
Two Chinas: The Memoir of a Chinese Counter-Revolutionary, which won the endorsement
of His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. A classically trained actor, DiMarco also co-wrote The
Actor’s Art and Craft and The Actor’s Guide to
Creating a Character with William Esper.
Bryan Walsh (Foreword) is the foreign editor
and senior writer on energy and the environment for Time magazine.
“Fuller’s memoir isn’t some kind of moralizing lecture; it’s more like a romp.
Who knew cleaning up toxic waste could be the stuff of Indiana Jones-style
adventure?”
—Bradford Wieners, Executive Editor, Bloomberg Businessweek
“This isn’t glamorous environmentalism; there are no poster-worthy polar bears
or ice caps involved. Fuller’s work is carried out in slums and broken villages like
Rudnaya Pristan, where he is demonstrating how we can save millions of the
world’s poorest people from long-term health problems and early death.”
—Bryan Walsh, Foreign Editor and Senior Writer
on Energy and the Environment, Time Magazine
“Richard Fuller has been the driving force behind two huge environmental agendas: corporate sustainability and pollution in the developing world. He’s the
Elon Musk of the environment.”
—Hon Nereus Acosta, Presidential Advisor for the Environment,
Office of the President, Government of the Philippines
“It takes a particular kind of environmentalist to make his life’s mission ‘brown’
problems in the global south, rather than ‘green’ ones in the north. Glamorous
work it isn’t, but the impact of the author, and those whom he has inspired, on
some of the world’s worst pollution problems has been simply incredible. . . .
This is a captivating story of just how much difference one person can make.”
—Gareth Evans, Foreign Minister of Australia 1988–1996,
President of the International Crisis Group 2000–2009,
Chancellor of the Australian National University
For more information about Pure Earth,
please visit www.pureearth.org
ISBN-13 978-1-59580-083-1
www.santamonicapress.com
Environment / Science
$24.95 U.S. / $30.99 Canada
P
ollution is the single largest cause of
death in the developing world. One in
seven people in low- and middle-income
countries die as a result of it. Simply put,
pollution is now the world’s most prevalent health risk.
And yet, while most everyone has heard
about “going green,” few are aware of the
more dire and sinister “brown” pollution—
places where man-made toxic pollutants
have taken root and spread. Brown sites poison millions of people every year, causing
needless suffering and death.
After witnessing several brown sites
firsthand and meeting families trapped by
poverty in these toxic hot spots, environmentalist Richard Fuller founded the Blacksmith
Institute, now renamed Pure Earth, a global
nonprofit that initiates large-scale cleanups
of some of the most polluted places on earth.
The Brown Agenda details Fuller’s inspirational journey—from his dangerous yet
ultimately successful fight to save hundreds
of thousands of acres in the Amazon rain forest, to establishing Great Forest Inc., one of
the leading sustainability consultancies in the
United States, to his creation of Pure Earth.
To date, Fuller and his Pure Earth team
have remediated more than seventy-five
toxic sites worldwide, changing the lives of
over four million people, including a million children. They are currently working to
clean up twenty-four additional toxic sites,
which will improve the lives of another three
million individuals.
In this vivid account of his perilous
travels to the earth’s most toxic locations,
Fuller introduces readers to the plight of the
“poisoned poor,” and suggests specific ways
people everywhere can help combat pollution all over the world.