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Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto

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An icon of the environmental movement outlines a provocative approach for reclaiming our planet.

According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are underway on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization--half the world's population now lives in cities, and eighty percent will by midcentury--is altering humanity's land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the world's dominant engineering tool. In light of these changes, Brand suggests that environmentalists are going to have to reverse some longheld opinions and embrace tools that they have traditionally distrusted. Only a radical rethinking of traditional green pieties will allow us to forestall the cataclysmic deterioration of the earth's resources.

Whole Earth Discipline shatters a number of myths and presents counterintuitive observations on why cities are actually greener than the countryside, how nuclear power is the future of energy, and why genetic engineering is the key to crop and land management. With a combination of scientific rigour and passionate advocacy, Brand shows us exactly where the sources of our dilemmas lie and offer a bold and inventive set of policies and solutions for creating a more sustainable society.

In the end, says Brand, the environmental movement must become newly responsive to fast-moving science and take up the tools and discipline of engineering. We have to learn how to manage the planet's global-scale natural infrastructure with as light a touch as possible and as much intervention as necessary.

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

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About the author

Stewart Brand

63 books270 followers
Stewart Brand was a pioneer in the environmental movement in the 60s – his Whole Earth Catalog became the Bible for sustainable living, selling more than 10 million copies worldwide. Brand is President of The Long Now Foundation and chairs the foundation's Seminars About Long-term Thinking.

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 186 reviews
Profile Image for Mario the lone bookwolf.
805 reviews4,705 followers
May 15, 2021
Brand offers realistic solutions, focuses on hard science without fatalism or downplaying, shows how to optimize cities with the main focus on technology, alternative tax and subsidy models, and the 2 most essential parts of biotechnology and nuclear energy. Not to forget geoengineering aka terraforming.

He is pro nuclear power and GM crops, 2 topics avoided and hated by the green movement, but essential for a change. Until sustainable energy can produce enough ultimate power, nuclear is needed and much less problematic regarding climate change than fossil energy like coal and being against genetic engineering is so stubborn and ignorant that there is no adjective to describe it. Both topics are reasons why I switched to a more a neutral position (don´t worry, I am still a leftist), am just pushing ideas of great thinkers such as Brand and promoting activism, but warning everyone of participating in the wisdom castrating and mindcrippling stupidity of any political ideology.

The green politicians make no difference between extremely safe, modern reactors with permanent repository sites such as the ones build in Scandinavia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onkalo_... and just keep repeating how nasty anything nuclear is. Do they think a few toxic wastelands are worse than a runaway greenhouse effect that makes the majority of the landmasses uninhabitable or aquatic? The worse problem is that they, just like the ones who use faith as an argument, are against any unnatural genetic engineering, delaying one of the most important technological innovations, the ultimate milestone for all life sciences, the key to stopping world hunger, possible immortality. They think that because it feels unnatural to them, they have the legitimation to delay the development of crops that could save hundreds of millions of people from malnutrition, starvation, and death.

Of course, there is still much more unbelievable destructive potential in the neoliberal form of how international energy companies and agro conglomerates operate and a change to a sustainable ecosocial business model with a Keynesian post scarcity economic model has to come as soon as possible, but with demonizing the 2 key technologies to make such jumps possible, no consensus can be made. Why should companies try to adapt to such unrealistic, for everyone counterproductive, dangerous ideas that worsen the whole situation for everybody with less food and no electricity?

I can meanwhile fully agree with everyone who is bashing the green parties, as they could have found strong partners in the nuclear lobby, food giants,… who would be very interested in greenwashing themselves and showing that they are really willing to change to a more sustainable business model. If they would have been courted with Brands´ logical, intelligent, and realistic arguments, a solution could have already been found, but instead, the pseudo alternatives are as ignorant and stubborn as the conservatives they are bashing all the time and do as much or even more harm than the companies could do.

And yes, I am so arrogant as to say that I have certain N word privileges
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
because I have seen and experienced the idiocy of these wannabe hippies live as part of the movement for nearly 2 decades until much reading made me see their mentality as so destructive that I couldn´t bear it anymore, resigned with the insight that everything coming out of politics is poisoned and run by bigots, and changed to NGOs and activism instead. I guess Brand must have had a similar epiphany before deciding to write this book.

What shocked me the most is that, the more books I read and the more I realized that leading politicians are unable to build wisdom by just absorbing the essentials of a few dozens of books with ideas worth spreading and having the courage to not be opportunistic yes-men, they aren´t even realizing how onesided, antiquated, and anachronistic they have become. Yes, companies are greedy, but at least they are not that unable to adapt to new circumstances and meanwhile I see more hope coming out of the economic sector and the civil society than anything out of this pseudo democratic farce.

This is one of the best collections of ideas for sustainable change, if it would be used as a blueprint for future politics, many problems could easily be solved.

A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_E...
Profile Image for Mike.
Author 31 books91 followers
December 3, 2011
This book represents Stewart Brand's monumental rethinking of what it means to be an environmentalist, in the face of the challenges facing the 21st century--in particular, global warming and agricultural supply. As such, it is heroic. I don't think I've ever seen anyone say, in print, that while he's been working on the right problems, he had the wrong solutions. I'm not entirely in agreement with his rejection of the environmentalist orthodoxy of the past 50 years, but to see him rethink it is just breathtaking.

However, there are a number of things I find deeply troubling about his rethinking. There's a lot devoted to nuclear power, which may save us from the problems of global warming. I've long thought environmentalists' opposition to nuclear power was poorly thought out; we know how to make nuclear power a safe technology. However, building safe reactors is only part of the problem. The bigger problem is operating safe reactors in a safe way. And that's where it gets sticky. If we had a corporate environment in which the owners of a reactor felt morally obliged to commit ritual suicide if a major disaster occurred (or at least could look forward to a stiff prison sentence), we'd be able to operate reactors safely. But we don't; we have an environment in which management views the regulators as opposition, tries to see how close they can get to the edge without falling over, defers maintenance, takes shortcuts, and so on. If a disaster occurs, you know what will happen: stonewalling, denials, a few resignations, and then the former CEOs will reappear as lobbyists, consultants, or even CEOs of other energy companies making even more than they were before. As long as the sole criterion by which a corporation operates is profit, rather than the public good, and as long as the executives are virtually unaccountable for the actions of their corporations, we are in dangerous territory. The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster is a parable of what the nuclear industry might be. [[I wrote this a few months before the tsunami that destroyed Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant, which gave us a good look at how industry responds to a disaster.]]


I found it deeply disappointing that Brand didn't address this side of the issue. I don't object to him championing nuclear power; I think it's a necessary part of the future. But there will have to be a massive change in corporate culture before it can be considered safe, and Brand missed that entirely. He could have addressed the problem; this book would have been an excellent platform for addressing the problem; but he didn't.


This isn't just a criticism of one point; the same thing happens repeatedly. There's a similar argument about the food industry. I tend to agree: though I prefer locally grown food, I believe that fear of genetically modified food is overblown. Brand is right on that. He's right to point out that the "family farm" is a myth that's used to justify awful legislation. However, he ignores the cultural issues: is Big Agriculture concerned with maximizing profit for shareholders, or with ensuring a safe and healthy food supply? You tell me. What happens when profit and safety come into conflict? They can't not come into conflict.


When Brand thinks something is good, he thinks it's very very good. And his excitement is catching, and engaging. His description of the vibrant slums in India and South America was thrilling. But it's too one-sided. I'm not asking for a dispassionate, even handed assessment; that's not what Brand wanted to write, and it's not what he should have written. This book is a manifesto, not policy analysis. But a manifesto, of all books, really needs to discuss the cultural changes, the management changes, that are absolutely essential if we're going to move forward on this planet.

Profile Image for Tim.
Author 70 books2,671 followers
September 12, 2009
This book is a tour-de-force of persuasion, using the urgency of climate change to re-examine environmental orthodoxy. Stewart's conclusion: there is no “natural.” Cities are green, nuclear power is green, genetically modified crops are green. “Never mind terraforming Mars,” he says, “We’ve already terraformed earth.” We're just doing it badly. Now, we are faced with a series of planetary-scale engineering problems. Our only way out is forward.

I had already heard the arguments for cities and for nuclear power; what was most revelatory to me was how wrong most of us have been about genetically modified foods. I was convinced by all three of his arguments. I think you will be too.

Even if you disagree with Stewart’s conclusions, though, you will be far smarter by the time you finish the book. It is a backstage tour of a remarkable mind, fifty plus years of reading and the equivalent of decades of TED talks compressed into 300 pages. Read it, pass it on, act on it.

P.S. What a great reading list. I came away from this book with a list of at least a dozen other books I want to read.
Profile Image for Gordon.
219 reviews48 followers
May 15, 2019
Yes, this is the same Stewart Brand who published the Whole Earth Catalog back in 1968. At 70, he’s still going very strong with the work of saving the planet.

I bought this book because I went to hear the author speak, and he was low-key but somehow spell-binding – sort of like the performance that Al Gore pulled off with An Inconvenient Truth. Brand's book is no less impressive than his lecture.

His themes are big:
• The Green movement has become stuck in hopeless romanticism and excessive pessimism. Brand thinks only science and technology can provide the building blocks of the solutions to the catastrophic environment problems facing the planet – first and foremost, global warming. He says: “The romantics distrust engineers – sometimes correctly – for their hubris and are uncomfortable with the prospect of fixing things because the essence of tragedy is that it can’t be fixed. Romantics love problems; scientists discover and analyze problems; engineers solve problems.”

• The trajectory of rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere can’t be reversed in time to save us from catastrophic warming. We are going to have to geo-engineer the planet to save our butts from frying. Think sci-fi literature and the concept of terra-forming, and you pretty much have what he is recommending. He doesn’t know which solution is the right one, but advances a few likely candidates: pumping sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to increase its reflectivity (when the eruption of Mt Pinatubo did this for us in 1991, it dropped the earth’s temperature by half a degree Celsius); using a fleet of ocean-going robotic ships to atomize seawater, spray it into the air and increase cloud formation; dump lots of iron flakes into the sea to encourage algal blooms so that the algae fix lots of carbon; and a few more ideas that are equally exotic, though even less probable. Conventional solutions to reducing global warming will cost trillions, take many decades to implement and require perhaps more than a century to have much effect. Geo-engineering solutions might cost one hundredth or one thousandth of this amount, be implemented much faster, and halt global warming that much more quickly.

• We need to attack the global warming problem on many fronts. One of these is coming up with new energy sources that don’t depend on fossil fuels, especially COAL. Renewables like solar and wind power are great and must be increased as fast as possible, but both have all kinds of drawbacks: they only work in places blessed with the right environment of sun and wind, only provide intermittent or daylight hour energy, they’re expensive …. The only technology alternative to coal that can scale massively, adds virtually no carbon to the atmosphere, is affordable, runs 24 x 7, can be deployed today, and is safe, is nuclear power. Coal plants, when they work as they’re supposed to, kill a few hundred thousand (or perhaps a few million) people around the planet every year – through mining accidents, transportation accidents, air pollution, heavy metal contamination of ground and water etc. Nuclear plants, when they work as they’re supposed to, kill essentially nobody – and when they do go disastrously wrong, as Chernobyl did, they kill hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands. As he points out, the area around Chernobyl, 20-odd years after the accident in 1986, is today a de facto nature preserve, with thriving forests filled with game that has largely vanished from the rest of Europe. It seems that even the worst of nuclear accidents is not as bad for the environment as a small-medium sized city.

• One symptom of global warming will be increasing drought. Darfur and Australia are good examples of this. Things will get much worse, especially in some of the most densely populated parts of the world, especially China and the Indian sub-continent, where the crops that feed billions of people depend on glacial meltwater runoff from the Himalayas. As this storage system disappears over the next 25 years or so, floods will get worse, and droughts will get worse too – the worst of both worlds. To mitigate the effects of this, the plants that make up most of the world’s food crops will need to be systematically genetically re-engineered to use less water, less fertilizer and fewer herbicides. A large part of the Green movement in Europe and North America is opposed to this kind of genetic engineering. Brand thinks those that think this way are both seriously un-scientific and callously indifferent to the suffering that will hit the 3rd world much harder than the 1st world.

So I think you get the idea of the book: big problems, big thoughts, big solutions. In addition to his own original contributions, he happily quotes from vast numbers of other thinkers in the various fields he touches on, which is either stimulating or irritating depending on your tastes. Personally, I loved it. He makes his case both entertainingly and compellingly -- this is a terrific book. He sub-titles this work as "An Eco-pragmatist Manifesto", and I predict it will change your mind about many an environmental issue.
Profile Image for Teresa.
317 reviews10 followers
October 3, 2012
This manifesto is a call for environmentalists to leave behind their romantic ideals and move into the 21st Century. Stewart Brand's zeal and enthusiasm make most of this book a joy to read, and he is the first to admit his past mistakes in his efforts to serve the earth. In particular, he urges rethinking opposition to nuclear power, urbanization, and genetic engineering.

I haven't thought much about urbanization as an environmental boon before this book. I personally am not a fan of the city, despite living in the middle of one, and would love to return to rural areas. Brand makes a very compelling argument for the healthy urban environment and how it can help clean up a lot of the poverty, pollution, and waste that we are now experiencing. This was an eye-opening section for me, and I will likely do further reading on the topic.

Brand was preaching to the choir on the next section. I have been staunchly pro-nuclear for years. Especially updating and expanding with new, updated tech (using Chernobyl or Fukushima as a boogeyman is disingenuous in my opinion, but that's a topic for another day)can be a huge difference in our CO2 levels and provide a low-risk, high-output, and largely clean alternative to fossil fuels and other alternatives we have at the moment. I do think that Brand glossed over the human component here, but I expect that if the book were written after Fukushima, instead of directly before, that component would have been more extensive.

I was really grooving on this book, enjoying every bit even when I disagreed with him, but then I got to the genetic modification bits. And here I ran into trouble, and stalled reading it for quite some time. He does not give his opponents a fair hearing in this section, probably because he has done time as a nuclear detractor and an opponent of urbanization. He doesn't seem to understand the valid concerns of those who urge caution and oppose genetic modification, and therefore doesn't adequately address those concerns. He condescendingly suggests that these people are simply fearful of science and innovation. He's clearly dazzled by genetic science, and thinks it is super cool, and anyone who doesn't see it that way is just an old fogey.

The rest of the book, he goes back to being more fair minded and even handed. He suggests that political divisiveness and single-minded all-or-nothing thinking does more harm than good. While he clearly on the left side of the political spectrum, and can't resist quite a few digs at the Republican party along the way, he also takes a few jabs at Al Gore. It's apparent that he thinks Jerry Brown is the cat's meow, though.

He discusses human intervention on the planet, and how little we know and how much we're learning daily. He suggests that North America was destroyed by the white man, not by raping and pillaging the pristine wilderness, but by destroying elaborate terraforming projects by wiping out (mostly via germs) the gardeners of two continents.

In the last chapter, he talks in great detail about geological engineering, and some possible worst-case scenario solutions if global warming keeps up to predictions. They are all incredibly interesting and I can't even scratch the surface of all the amazing ideas he brings to the table in the last few chapters. They all bear further investigation. As this is a manifesto, his aim isn't to delve deeply, but just suggest that there are solutions, if we are pragmatic and open to them, but balancing that openness with being appropriately critical and wary.

Brand's writing style is enthusiastic and clean. He is frank; even when he's using a metaphor that he knows is imperfect he admits it. He owns up to past mistakes, and suggests that he could very well be wrong about many things he is writing about now. He suggests his readers be open and reasonable, rather than intractable and stubborn, to go about taking care of the planet we all call home. He appeals to all of us to be intellectually honest and curious and hopeful, rather than despairing and quibbling over details.

His love of science, humanity, and the world are all apparent, and even though there is much in the book I disagree with, it opens up the question of a greater dialog and research to such a degree that on the whole, I am thrilled that I read it. It has opened me up to many possibilities and ways of thinking about the planet that I hadn't considered before, and I would suggest anyone interested in these issues, no matter what their stance, would get a great deal out of hearing Stewart Brand out.
Profile Image for Matus.
17 reviews4 followers
March 22, 2018
This book will be hard to read for any sane person.
If you have high tolerance to opposite opinions some parts could be considered as thought-provoking such as parts discussing
solar vs nuclear power, or cities as perfect and only solution for sustainable future.

But I couldn't continue after author has referred to glyphosate herbicide as to 'magical substance' with no impact on human's health and environment
Profile Image for Drtaxsacto.
599 reviews50 followers
July 14, 2018
Brand does indeed suggest that he was wrong on several environmental ideas he pushed in the last few decades. What he does not do is consider whether some of his basic concepts are mistaken. For example, beginning with people like Paul Ehrlich we’ve had decades of discussion about the earth’s “carrying capacity”. But each time we surpass the “limit” in population the argument gets reset.

Brand also points out that linear math does not fit the model of the earth but then goes on to argue his points using linear logic.

Ultimately his thinking is based on two false premises. First that life is a zero sum game and second that mankind is the base of the environmental problem. Neither is borne out in reality. Should we be concerned with climate change? Of course, as stewards of the planet that should be a key job. Should we be pleased that Brand finally recognizes that nuclear power is an alternative. Yes. But for me these mea culpas do not outweigh the fundamentally flawed approach to thinking about these issues.
Profile Image for Denis Vasilev.
681 reviews97 followers
November 13, 2022
Почему нужны города, ядерная энергия, геномодифицированные растения и организмы и многое другое, для спасения планеты и человечества
Profile Image for Leland Beaumont.
Author 5 books31 followers
December 16, 2012
Many of us who grew up with the Whole Earth Catalog hold a special reverence for its founder and editor Steward Brand. Trained as an ecologist, this book is his Ecopragmatist Manifesto. He takes surprising positions on several issues long considered sacred to environmentalists. These well-researched and well-presented ideas include:

+ Climate change is happening faster than previously predicted. Bolder solutions are required encompassing mitigation, adaptation, and amelioration.
+ Cities are Green: “you need a little bit less of everything for each person.” Compact and dense habitation decreases commuting distances, infrastructure size, and resources required for living. Cities significantly increase the carrying capacity of the world. Squatters live in vibrant communities; they walk everywhere, obtain food locally, and recycle everything
+ “Cities accelerate innovation; they cure overpopulation, and while they are becoming the Greenest thing that humanity does for the planet, they have a long way to go.” Increasing cell phone use connects people instantly across strata. Urban living leads families to plan for fewer children.
+ “Coal plants are factories of death. Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as all the other fossil fuels combined.” OK, no surprises there, but Brand goes on to advocate “New Nukes” as the solution: “Nukes are Green; new Nukes are even more so.”
+ Nuclear waste can be safely handled, stored and disposed of. Consider a 175-year long planning horizon initially, and expect replanning during that time. Nuclear waste is minuscule in size—one Coke-can’s worth per person-lifetime of nuclear generated electricity. Coal waste is massive—68 tons of solids and 77 tons of carbon dioxide per person-life of coal-generated electric. Use the WIPP, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant as a model for nuclear waste disposal.
+ “Opposition to nuclear energy is based on irrational fear fed by Hollywood-style fiction.” Shift thinking from the Absolute Evils of: safety, cost, waste storage, and proliferation, to considering alternatives measured by: baseload, footprint, portfolio, and government-scale. “Reactor safety is a problem already solved.”
+ “Nuclear energy has done more to eliminate existing nuclear weapons from the world than any other activity.” Create an international fuel bank to safely provide nuclear fuel to countries so they have no need to develop nuclear-refining capabilities. Move forward with the GNEP, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
+ “The problem is not that nuclear is expensive. The problem is that coal is cheap.” Tax carbon, rationalize subsidies, and streamline licensing for Nuclear Power. Develop microreactors to reduce capital costs and locate generation near consumers.
+ “I daresay the environmental movement has done more harm with its opposition to genetic engineering that with any other thing we’ve been wrong about. We’ve starved people, hindered science, hurt the natural environment, and denied our own practitioners a crucial tool.” Genetic Engineering provides a safe and laser-focused tool to: increase crop yield, increase nutritional value, increase shelf-life, reduce the need for pesticides, and reduce toxins.
+ “Microbes run the world, it’s that simple.”
+ “Ecological balance is too important for sentiment. It requires science.”

Because these ideas represent the best and most recent thinking from Stewart Brand they deserve our attention. Because they represent significant shifts from traditional environmental thinking, they deserve our scrutiny.
Profile Image for Heidi.
450 reviews31 followers
April 9, 2010
I loved this book. Some of the things he said I started off agreeing with (re: nuclear power), some of the things I started off greatly disagreeing with (re: genetic engineering) but he said a lot of things worth considering. I will definitely regard the issue of GE differently, and think of his points, even if I still end up disagreeing. He makes a great argument for rethinking some of environmentalists long-held positions.

The book is placed as an engineers approach to climate-change - the crisis as a solvable problem. He doesn't propose concrete answers but instead he proposes a tool-box of methods. I enjoyed the anecdotes about the progression of science and approaches to local challenges around the world. I was amazed at the number and breadth of sources he cites and examples of work being done. From Indonesian rice-patties to African staple crops and personal work against invasive weeds in the Bay Area his knowledge of the challenges facing human habitats is informative.

I am not convinced that these methods are all perfect, I am convinced they deserve another look by environmentalists rather than being dismissed out of hand.

The major technologies/concepts he pushes to help the environment are: urbanization, nuclear power, genetic engineering, and investigating geo-engineering.
242 reviews5 followers
October 31, 2009
Despite a general sympathy for most green endeavor, I've long felt there was some kind of evangelistic sickness as an undercurrent to a lot of what I see. A spread-the-guilt motivation to tell other people what to do (making your guests recycle their paper plates, Mayor Nickles bag tax, etc.). Here is a really exciting book that gives me hope. Stewart Brand has the training, the connections, and the experience to be worth listening to.

Brand points out the inversion of the appropriate Green agenda: we've gone from saving "natural systems from civilization" to "saving civilization from from a natural system--climate dynamics."

Nuclear is good (least polluting), Frankenfoods and franken forests can be good. Urbanization is good (solves overpopulation), villages and small towns are ecologically unsound and reduce freedom. Nevertheless, Brand is consistent with other heroes such as Michael Pollan and Gary Snyder.

Ecological diversity is making great strides around Chernobyl and in the DMZ between North and South Korea.

I'll have to rethink some things, but Brand makes me want to join up and do something.
Profile Image for Ryan.
1,042 reviews
March 12, 2019
I mostly loved Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline, so let me note its imperfections right off the bat. First, its footnotes are posted on a website, which irritates me. Second, he tends to describe ideas and terms as "delicious" and "delectable," which I also dislike. Finally, this book, which was written at the end of the 2010s, expresses a jaunty tech optimism that I find grating. Brand is enthusiastic about social media, cell phones, and he predicts that our global population will level off around 8 billion (last I'd heard, we'll be lucky to stop at 10). Sometimes I was skeptical of the arguments in this book, but it would be wrong to ignore it on those grounds. I enjoyed this book, learned a lot, and generally managed to find an interesting idea on every page.

The first section is on cities, including cities with slums. Although slums are clearly bad, they're also sort of amazing in ways that are not as clear until one reads this book about them. Brand sees slums as a gateway out of poverty and as places of innovative efficiency. I wondered if these slums are dependent on borders, which, since the Syrian refugee crisis, have gone from being this idea that people understand but don't think about to an idea that people think about so much that it's already become stably partisan. It's almost as though there is this notion that tech and climate change will cause us to realize we're all one people on one planet, but what we've learned in the last few years makes us realize that a lot of people find that idea threatening, perhaps even disgusting.

Relatedly, here is Brand on cosmopolitan pluralism: "if [growing cities] are overall a net good for the people who move there, it is because cities offer more than just job opportunity. They are transformative. In the slums as well as the office towers and leafy suburbs, the progress is from hick to metropolitan to cosmopolitan, and everything the dictionary says that cosmopolitan means: multicultural, multiracial, global, worldly-wise, well traveled, experienced, unprovincial, cultivated, cultured, sophisticated, suave, urbane." If you'd shown me this passage just three years ago, I would have been nodding happily along--I still find much of this idea of cities convincing--but the recent reaction to the ideas Brand is expressing here in 2009, especially among young males but also other groups, has often been harsher than I ever would have predicted. It's often seemed odd to me how automatically and how passionately conservatives will speak against any sort of environmental idea, but this passage shows why they so often view climate change and any attempt to react to it as an existential threat.

Brand also does not adequately predict how expensive it is to live in cities. Vancouver gets a lot of love, but many teachers are quitting their jobs because they can no longer afford to live there on a middle class, or even upper middle class, salary. It's interesting to me how often Brand will say "if this trend continues," if only because most trends will introduce a mitigating reaction.

It's also amazing to me that in my lifetime, we have changed from viewing cities as ecological wastelands (as in the Sam Roberts song "Chemical City" or the Joni Mitchell song "Big Yellow Taxi") to seeing them as the greenest thing since sliced bread. Skyscrapers are not eyesores; they vertically house many people without taking up a lot of land. I wonder if what we're realizing in this shift is that people should be managed and the environment will largely take care of itself (though Brand will endorse a sort of managed environment by the end of the book).

It occurs to me that one reason environmentalists should focus on cities is that they activate a sort of NIMBY, but maybe in a good way. At a national or international level, it's difficult for many people to care about quite a few issues--and I think especially climate change, pollution, and energy efficiency. Most Americans, for example, don't seem to care at all about unclean water in Flint, Michigan, unless they're from Flint, Michigan. But I suspect most of them care a lot about water purification in their own cities. It may be that the reason we see so much effective environmental activism at the urban level is that it allows NIMBY to overcome indifference.

One thing I like about this book is how open it is, even if the tone that accompanies that openness can be annoying. I really like, for example, how Brand responds to Peter Erlich's population bomb prediction (massive famines by the 1980s). Rather than dismissing Erlich's work, Brand partially credits him with helping to encourage a lot of policies that contributed to reducing reproduction to more manageable levels. It's odd to me how easily many can completely ignore concerns by dismissing them alongside a "never cry wolf" argument. Also, in this chapter I learned that the average Russian woman has eight abortions over the course of her lifetime.

What has happened to the positive feedback loop concern? Briefly, this is the idea that as we melt Arctic ice, less sunlight is reflected and more absorbed. The more this happens, the faster we heat up. The only signs I see about this concern consist of Russia, the USA, Denmark, and Canada hoping to make money from new shipping lanes and an anticipated availability of oil and gas deposits--in other words, major countries and corporations don't seem concerned but are instead betting on it. Of those countries, so far as I have read in Sea Power, Russia is way in the lead with more ports and more ice breakers than their rivals.

On energy. Brand explains why he has switched positions to endorse nuclear energy as a viable alternative to coal and natural gas. More and more, I see green writers taking this position. I think the switch has a lot to do with learning more about nuclear waste management. This prediction seems to underestimate the rise of natural gas, by the way. Space-based solar power--how is it possible that I never heard of this?

Genetically modified foods. Borlaug gets some props here. Brand likes GMOs though he prefers "genetically engineered" as almost all foods are modified, and have been for centuries. (Is this wrangling over phrasing the most annoying aspect of climate science?) Brand points out that these crops are more productive/ acre and that they allow farmers to use fewer sprays. He points out that 40% of the planet's land is already used for agriculture, which is quite a lot, really, especially when one starts to think about the weaknesses of monocultures. I honestly think the bugaboo when it comes to GMOs is 1) Monsanto and 2) patented genes. I also dislike the terminus gene--oh wait, he addresses these concerns. Even though I'm broadly sympathetic with this section, I don't agree with all of it. I don't, for example, want to eat pork that is modified to provide Omega 3s, and I'm still with Pollan on the idea that one should default to mistrusting food labels that promise miracles. Sometimes, less is more.

I'm a little fonder of the precautionary principle than Brand is, but maybe that's because I've lived in a world of cell phones longer than he did when he wrote this. Having said that, I'm not going to stop using my cell phone, so maybe I'm less consistent than I realize.

The "Romanticism, Science, Engineering" chapter is possibly the most important in the book. There are a few fun concepts that were new to me here. He relies on Herman's distinction between historical pessimism (which "sees civilization's virtues as under attack from malign and destructive forces it cannot overcome") from cultural pessimism (which "claims that those [destructive] forces form the civilizing process from the start"). The former worries that "society is about to destroy itself" while the latter "concludes that it needs to be destroyed." (These quotes are from Herman.) He also distinguishes "hedgehogs," thinkers who pursue one big idea passionately, from "foxes," thinkers who tend to be less outspoken because they're open to changing their minds (these ideas appear to come from Tetlock). Brand favors foxes, though he wants them to shout their ideas more. The point of the chapter is to encourage environmentalists to be more like engineers, which he broadly describes as pragmatic problem solvers (as opposed to romantic worriers or calculating analyzers).

More and more it seems that prominent intellectuals are settling on geoengineering as the way forward. Sometimes, it seems like they like it simply because everything else has failed. I worry over geoengineering, if only because zebra mussels were a toxic invasive species but now they're viewed as the savior of the Great Lakes. In other words, it is very tricky to predict the consequences of tinkering, (something economists often say about government intervention in the market but which they don't seem to care at all about when it comes to the environment). Still, I can understand how a group of prominent international scientists, who have busted their collective ass to put together convincing science about how to combat climate change, and who have watched Republicans gut or put down their ideas for decades, might come to embrace this notion. What's tricky here, aside from the consequences of geoengineering for much of the world (see Klein's book), is that only one or two states seem to be necessary to begin geoengineering. Without international cooperation, it could happen. The chapter on geoengineering starts with this line from Marshall McLuhan, which I'll paraphrase: "after Sputnik, there is no nature, only art." The geoengineers seem to feel the solutions are either one global agency or else diplomacy, but scientists always seem to bet on these ideas no matter how often they lose.

On longterm planning. Brand argues that it's best to remain flexible and adaptable. So one plans for longer than four to eight years but less than 10 000 years.

What is the stack that this book belongs to? The environmental writers I associate with eco-modernism are Steven Pinker and Charles C. Mann. I would not immediately align Brand with McKibben and Klein. I'm not sure where Paul Hawken and Hal Harvey would fall, but they both seem pragmatic. Vaclav Smil is still on my to-read list.

When I look at how Whole Earth Discipline ranks on Listopia (not very high), I wonder if what I'm seeing is the ongoing romanticism of nature in the environmental movement. It's obvious to me that we should make time to smell the roses, and perhaps also that many will not care about roses until they make time to smell them, but it's not obvious to me that the movement can be limited to smelling the roses. So, I find this book mostly convincing in its call for ecopragmatism.

This is one of the three best books I've read in the last twelve months. I read well over 100 books in that time. In other words, I can't recommend it enough.
Profile Image for Shannon.
167 reviews17 followers
March 11, 2019
Brand is an ecologist and a kind of reformed super-hippie with deep roots in the environmental movement (and in Jerry Brown's administrations). This book is his attempt to persuade his peers in the environmental community that they've got some things wrong; namely, he argues that nuclear power is good and safe and necessary to address climate change, that genetic engineering is also safe and will save millions of people from starvation while reducing our agricultural footprint, that cities are "green" and should be championed, and (most interesting to this English teacher) that Romantic and Transcendentalist ideas about "unspoiled nature" are hogwash. He argues that Native Americans had farmed two-thirds of North America before European settlers brought diseases that decimated Native populations, thus leaving much of that farmed land to return to its wild state. So, when the Puritans (and, later, the Romantics and Transcendentalists) thought they were looking out over a completely "wild" landscape, never before traversed by people, they were entirely wrong. He makes this point as part of a broader argument that we shouldn't aim to simply "leave nature alone" but recognize that humans are a part of the natural world and must engage in responsible management of the environment rather than simply see ourselves as a threat to "unspoiled nature." So much interesting stuff in this text - a must-read as we consider how to address climate change effectively.
135 reviews3 followers
May 2, 2018
I have always leaned a bit towards the doubting side on the environmentalist political and economical philosophy, so of course I relished reading this book. Anything written by someone with a history of environmental support and activism writing a book that, heaven forbid, goes against the grain and points out flaws in what's been the traditional view of the environment and it's place in the economy makes me smile a bit.

I think there is a lot of material in here that helps the book be a bit of a guide to a certain point in time about 10 years ago and brings on many great case studies of things that could have been advocated for better in the past. The first chapter indicates the scale and scope of the then understood climate change outcomes and it seems really freaking scary. Going beyond this frightening estimation of the future of the planet and our place on it to take on nuclear energy, genetically modified agriculture, dense cities and other interesting things such as geo-engineering the planet, this book was quite enjoyable to read.

For anyone who wants to become a bit more pro-science in their view of the environment and what's to be done should read this. I think I'll also use this as some motivation to increase my own knowledge of what's happening in the current world of science.
Profile Image for Anu.
391 reviews64 followers
June 15, 2020
You can either love Stewart Brand or hate him, but you can't ignore him. I am very much in the ❤️camp - he is a tree-loving, science-embracing curmudgeon after my own heart. Though the book is over a decade old, it is a study in how to apply critical thinking to impassioned subjects. A movement needs to be more correct than consistent - when the facts change, what is correct changes. And Stewart Brand lists a number of areas where he was wrong and the facts that he learned that changed his mind. We need more of this in the ecological conservation world.
The three much-maligned topics that Stewart talks about - nuclear energy, cities and genetic engineering, are now partially redeemed, thanks to efforts like this. Even though it is not brand new information, the historical evolution and Stewart's method of thinking is a joy to read about.
4 reviews
September 26, 2017
Was a very good read. Written in an engaging tone and both informative and easy-to-follow. Some of the evidence underlying Brand's views may have been surpassed or revised since its original printing, but the overall thread of his argument and his treatise to reframe our current tactics for combatting climate change appear to remain sound.

Would recommend as a great book to be included as part of a wider reading list on the role of science in the present-day. Provides some heterodox, yet reasonably grounded, perspectives on the best methods to tackle out environmental challenges that would augment information on more convention approaches.
Profile Image for Dana Larose.
396 reviews15 followers
January 2, 2015
This is more or less the best book I've read in ages. Brand is an old-guard environmentalist and in Whole Earth Discipline, he is calling out the Green/environmental movement on topics they've been (in his opinion) very, very wrong about. The other theme is practical measures that we can take to stave of climate change.

What's great about the book is that it challenged my thinking on a bunch of different topics. Climate change is a danger of the utmost urgency to Brand (and it should be for all of us) but he seems quite optimistic through the book.

The three big Green myths discussed:

1) Cities are polluted and bad. In fact, cities are so densely packed with people that they are very energy efficient. Manhattan is one of the greenest habitations on the planet. People who live in the country and suburbs drive everywhere and use way more energy than their urban counterparts. When people move from the countryside, even into slums, they have fewer children. The mass exodus from rural to slums going on in the world has so effectively diffused the population bomb that some countries (like Mexico and China) face declining populations in the next few decades, which is going to cause serious economic problems. Cities are good and we should encourage people to live as densely as we can.

If I have a criticism of this section, it's that he seems to nearly glorify life in the slums.

2) Nuclear power. This book came out I think about a year or so before the Fukushima. I'm curious if that's changed his mind. But nuclear power is presented as the best, cheapest, cleanest, most environmentally friendly way for us to generate power. Especially given how horribly reliant so many places are on burning coal. He discusses the Chernobyl disaster and it turns out the effects were far, far less dire than everyone expected. Cancer rates in the vicinity are virtually indistinguishable from anywhere else. Somewhat perversely, because people are scared to live there, it's effectively become a massive nature preserve. The animals are thriving and showing little or no effects from higher background radiation.

3) GMO plants. This might be section that upsets people the most, but he makes the claim that genetic engineering is nothing more than a finer-tuned, more useful, more effective version of the cross-breeding we've been doing for centuries. After a couple of decades of intense scrutiny, there is no evidence that GE crops pose any health or environmental risks.

In fact, because we can so carefully modify genomes, GMO plants are better for the environment because strains can be produced that are much more resistant to floods, droughts and pests and thus be farmed with far less strain on the soil than organic crops.

Those are the main topics of the book. He goes on to discuss geoengineering -- very massive scale projects we can undertake to cool the atmosphere if/when things get desperate.

I think this is a book everyone should read, even if you're prepared to be really, really angry at it.
Profile Image for Doug.
23 reviews32 followers
January 28, 2011
This book was a revelation. While I am familiar with the nuclear controversy and geo-engineering and climate change, he did a very good job of simplifying the current knowledge and debunking many misconceptions. I agree with his major conclusions here. His information on genetic engineering was very new to me, and his background as a biologist in touch with the latest leading researchers was very helpful in dispelling unfounded fears, while being honest about founded fears and issues (I need independent verification on this subject, as I am a neophyte here). The section on the benefits of urbanisation to quality of life, to efficiencies of scale, and to the surrounding rural areas was revelatory.

Some major advantages to this book are its clarity, the good referencing of the science that backs it up, the people consulted, and the way the book was baldly cast as a position piece, encouraging you to make up your own mind. This worked because he has referenced it well, and does address opposing views, while strongly arguing for his own. This helps you to find the information and previous arguments to make up your own mind, which is very refreshing. While I don't agree with everything claimed, and think some of the initiatives proposed are overly idealistic, in the main I thought his conclusions were well realised and realistic. It suggests many realistic ways (political and scientific) that are attainable and possible in the current political environment.

This is cool and refreshing!

Profile Image for Melody.
2,649 reviews287 followers
November 15, 2014
I loved this book for a lot of reasons, but perhaps the thing I loved best about it is how Brand examined his convictions and compared them to the latest and best factual evidence he could find and changed his mind. And that's what science means to me, that continual re-evaluation of things we think we know. The ability to change one's belief system so profoundly at Brand's age is a thing of beauty, and I admire him for it.

I found the subjects he covers in this book to be very interesting. His arguments are convincing. I was already pretty pro-gene manipulation before reading this, but I had retained my knee-jerk 1970s ere bias against nuclear power. It's one of those perception bending books. No doubt some of Brand's positions will need to be re-thought in the future, but he's up for that. I had never really thought about cities and how they work, so that part was fresh for me, too.

I loved the concept that we really don't need to plan for things that last a thousand thousand years (nuclear waste storage, f'rinstance), but rather we should trust future generations a little more. We need to come up with a perfectly safe and doable hundred year plan, and let engineers engineer new and better solutions between now and then. Technology will step up to that plate. It's hubris to think that we know better than our children's children's children will.

The more you know, the less you fear. Highly recommended.
Profile Image for Ben.
133 reviews23 followers
February 4, 2016
This changed the way I think about important issues. This assumes that our carbon output is linked to global warming, and that we're at a point where we almost cannot stop major bad things from happening. In it, cities, nuclear, GMO and GE are the good guys. I was very hesitant about even listening to the argument for GMO, but it was well thought out. There are a few holes, but it's mostly good - as long as it's used for the right reasons. I'm not convinced that we won't use GMO and GE for things like curing baldness and impotence in old men (who have no business in making babies) instead of where we actually need medicine (snake anti-venom, STD vaccines, etc). Designer crops != a good use of GMO.

Counter to this, I had already thought nuclear was part of a better solution to our energy issues. I agree even more wholeheartedly now. Cities... are GREEN!!! Well, in Brand's world they are. And I agree. He discusses a bit about squatter cities, which I had previously dismissed as a smug 1st world brat. Now I think that's the way to future progress.

The last thing to note from this book is a new term Brand attempts to coin: "Turquoises". This is the Green that has some science to back it up. They focus on resolving similar issues as Greens, but by using methods based in science, not in group think and hippie logic. I'll be voting to let the Turqs make the decisions, just like China does.
Profile Image for Eduardo Santiago.
676 reviews39 followers
January 10, 2010
Nukes are good, GM is good. Yeah, I was already sold on that. But slums, a Good Thing? Who knew?!

This is an important book. Let me repeat: this is an important book. Brand takes on sacred cows in a way that almost makes me, a hacker by nature, weep with joy. The ecological movement is depressingly shrill on all sides, (much) more heat than light. Brand sheds much-needed light on the topic by being realistic, being open to new data, being willing to admit one's past errors and move on based on new evidence. You know, science.

Life can progress only if we shake our assumptions. This book does that, sometimes gently and sometimes not. It offers some real answers, but more importantly offers direction -- ways to proceed in the short term, from which we can learn how to (or how not to) proceed longer term. You know, science. Have I harped on that enough? Brand is a true seeker, an inspiration: he fosters curiosity, openness, self-reflection, and enthusiasm. To me, a hacker and Open Source aficionado, his attitude is a refreshing and even realistic view of how we can get our planet back.
Profile Image for Jamie Maltman.
Author 4 books27 followers
March 6, 2015
This is a spectacular book from an ecologist who loves our Earth very much and wants to see us face global warming head on, using every tool at our disposal.

But he doesn't approach it as a Green ideologue, instead offering the subtitle: an ecopragmatist approach. We can't afford ideology anymore (if we ever could). We have to find cost-effective holistic solutions or we face catastrophic repurcussions. The Earth can deal with it, but it will be tough on humanity.

Whatever your thoughts on urbanization, nuclear power, genetic engineering of food and other species, and ecosystem management and engineering (or even terraforming), he gives you hard science, studies, stories, ideas and trade-offs to think about. It might even be enough to change your mind, like it did the author's over the course of his many decades of involvement in the environmental movement. At the very least it will dispel many of the myths and half-truths about these various technologies that too many Greens use as rallying cries, while ignoring reality.

A must read book, given the scale of the endeavor that faces us all.
Profile Image for Pat.
22 reviews
September 9, 2010
Excellent book by Stewart Brand, which confronts (in large part) the Environmental Movement's stance on (1) nuclear power, (2) genetically modified food/crops, (3) urbanization, and (4) geoengineering. At the outset, I only really agreed with his perspectives on nuclear power (that it is a good thing). However, after reading his sections, which were heavily laden with footnotes, references, and figures, I started to realize that the blind reaction to GM foods, urbanization and geoengineering were knee-jerk reactions, and that my perspectives were not grounded in reason.

If you are interested, at all, in the topics listed above, read this book. If you are still involved, engage your fellow interested humans in conversation about the topics. If they are interested, they are probably left-leaning greens. Furthermore they are probably basing their opinions and assumptions on several decades worth of Green Info/Propaganda.

If you like Brand's work, check out his free seminar series on Long Term thinking and planning: http://www.longnow.org/seminars/

Profile Image for Steve.
36 reviews36 followers
February 17, 2010
Stewart Brand, of Whole Earth Catalog fame, takes on global warming, poverty, the irrationalities of the green movement, and a whole lot more. As always, he's thought-provoking and persuasive. I especially loved his defense of genetically modified crops. The green movement's opposition to GM foods is scientifically ridiculous, morally inexcusable, and blocks a potent weapon in the fight against poverty and hunger around the world. Brand makes a very good case for all of that here. I wanted to cheer.

I listened to the Audible version, and the narrator could have used some coaching on pronunciation of scientific terms. Especially (shades of George W. Bush), why didn't his producer tell him that "nuclear" is not pronounced "nuke-you-ler"? Good lord. To hear that word mispronounced again and again felt like fingernails on a blackboard. He had trouble with Latin science terms, too, but that's a bit more understandable. Still, getting the pronunciation of his material right seems like a basic element of the narrator's art.
Profile Image for s.
113 reviews
March 28, 2011
I'm part of the choir, so his basic message (science is good, engineering is necessary, humans are part of nature, and our current methods are unsustainable) appeals.

However, his approach turns me off. The book appears to be written for business types -- VCs, donors, etc -- and is structured as a big aggregation of short snippets of observation, advertisement, and debate. This means the numbers float by out of context without being unified into a rigorously structured argument. Moreover, some of his facts are wrong: most inexplicably, he claims that square walls more efficiently enclose a structure than circular. These sorts of minor (but astonishing) errors seriously undermine my confidence in his other material.

Brand seems like a really nice guy, and I like his attitude. But I was hoping for a scientific exploration of environmental policy, and this felt more like a book-length flyer for a nonprofit group.
30 reviews3 followers
November 20, 2009
Influenced by Ayn Rand - something I didn’t know until after I finished the book. He offers a non-conformist view of environmentalists. His ideas are thought provoking.

“As for footprint, Gwyneth Cravens points out that ‘A nuclear plant producing 1,000 megawatts takes up a third of a square mile. A wind farm would have to cover 200 square miles to obtain the same result, and a solar array over 50 square miles’....

“Nuclear waste is miniscule in size--one coke can’s worth per person-lifetime of electricity if it was all nuclear.... Coal is massive--68 tns of solid stuff and 77 tons of carbon dioxide per person-lifetime of strictly coal electricity” (81).


42 reviews2 followers
July 11, 2012
Stewart Brand has an important message for the environmental movement -- a message founded in science and engineering and that I agree with. However, he ruins his prose with hyperbole and slapdash referencing. To be fair, I tried and failed to verify some of his extraordinary claims. This makes "Whole Earth Discipline" more tabloid than academic: generally an exciting read, but sometimes repetitive and annoying. Nonetheless, his core message is an important one, and so Brand is worth reading for anybody interested in environmentalism.
11 reviews
December 6, 2011
This is a MUST READ for anyone who considers themselves an environmentalist. Brand, a veteran of the birth of the modern movement of the early 70s, breaks down all preconceptions about what it's going to take to keep our post-climate change earth liveable. Controversial issues are illuminated with precision; myths are addressed and then dismissed in favor of good science and smart solutions. Seriously, this book could save the world.
Profile Image for Jim Wilson.
136 reviews1 follower
February 11, 2013
Stewart Brand at his most controversial and provacative. One of the original green thinkers who in this book talks about the value of nuclear energy, gmo architecture and urban slums as a driver for creativity and economic development. Inteeresting take on population growth and a nice explanation of geo-engineering. Agree or disagree it causes the reader to examine his/her own ideas.
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