Whole Earth Discipline: Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, and Geoengineering Are Necessary

By David Tribe * February 19, 2010 [Edit] Reposted From Biofortified blog [...] It has been obvious to any independant clear-thinking observer that the environmental movement is in need of a reformation. As with Christianity over the centuries, over the last 50 years environmentalism' s done an enormous amount of good. Christianity needed some 1500 years before it's wake-up call came on 31 October 1517 when Martin Luther nailed 95 theses on the door of the castle church in Wittenberg . These are fast moving times, and environmentalism's changed much faster than Christianity did. Forty-seven years after the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring , the corresponding key date to 10/31/1517 in the reformation of environmentalism, is the day in 2009 when Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline: an Ecopragmatist Manifesto reached the bookstores. It's not what Stewart Brand says that important (and there is quite a bit I disagree with in the book). It is the open-minded and pragmatic way he goes about questioning the down-side of the romanticism that has dominated the environmentalist movement of the last 48 years. He points out where scientific environmental pragmatism and scepticism had been submerged by quasi-religious faith in big ideas that are often wrong. It is these wrong big ideas are now both harming people, and harming the reputation of environmentalism. Environmentalism needs a Martin Luther to rescue it's reputation. As he rightly says "it's fortunate that there are so many romantics in the movement, because they are the ones who inspired the majority in most developed societies to see themselves as environmentalists. But that also means that scientists and their perceptions are always in the minority; they are easily ignored, suppressed, or demonised when their views don't fit the consensus storyline." That's the problem. This reflexive almost paranoid suppression of critical views comes through of the environmental hierarchy's common portrayal of those who stray from the party line as being evil or in the pay of vile multinational corporations (or both). This dogmatism is preventing environmentalists from working out themselves where they are wrong. Brand refreshingly and frankly states that he is willing to change his mind when he realises that the evidence shows his own opinion is wrong. He even gives examples of his own big mistakes. Such intellectual honesty is the way scientists work, as that's the way science is successful. Science gains by throwing out false opinion. The opinions of science are always subject to change, and scepticism should be, and usually is, welcome. Not only welcome, it is absolutely necessary. Sadly, we are a very rarely see this in environmentalist "advocacy" groups, at least in their public statements. They seem to think that being an advocate means they can forget about scientific due process (although they are happy to claim the credibility of being supported by science). As the recent Glaciergate and e-mailgate scandals about the IPCC demonstrate, we sorely need evidence-based environmentalism to restore full credibility to environmental policies. I hope that Brand's wake-up call for greater respect for sceptical hardheaded science is heeded by the various environmentalist lobby groups, because as Brand demonstrates , the issues on which it needs to be brought to bear are important. Brand's discussion of genetic engineering of crops and food production is perhaps the best single exposition for the intelligent general reader why genetic engineering is needed for pragmatic solutions of important environmental challenges, such as reducing the amount of nitrogen fertiliser used in agriculture, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions caused by the use of this fertiliser. As Brand has credentials in organic farming, he may finally get through to the great bulk of organic farming community who seem to be the dominant sources of resistance to genetic modification in agriculture. If they took Brand's advice, they would finally realise that the organic way and genetic engineering are very compatible: "I have a history with organic farming-more than I realised. Reading The Omnivore's Dilemma (2007), Michael Pollan's natural history of American agriculture, I was surprised by this passage: Organic Gardening and Farming struggled along in obscurity until 1969, when an ecstatic review in the Whole Earth Catalog [famously written by Brand] brought it to the attention of hippies trying to figure out how to grow vegetables without patronising the military-industrial complex. Within two years Organic Gardening and Farming's circulation climbed from 400,000 to 700,000." To give a further taste of flavour of the book: "In 2000 project called BioCassava Plus, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, undertook to engineer a radically improved cassava. It had eight goals for the new cultivar. In terms of nutrition, a daily diet should provide all a person needs of bioavailable protein, vitamin A, vitamin E, iron, and zinc. In addition, the new cassava should be free of cyanide, should be storable for two weeks instead of one day, and should be resistant to the viruses that afflict the crop. Each trait would be engineered separately and then stacked into a single all-purpose crop plant. "This is the single most ambitious plant genetic engineering project ever attempted," says the project leader, plant biologist Richard Sayre from a Ohio State... when all these traits get stacked into what will be a farmer-preferred cultivar from Africa, this work will be done by African scientists in African laboratories. We're developing the tools mostly in the United States and Europe but once these tools are in place, it becomes an African-owned and developed project." Field trials have begun in Kenya and Nigeria... .. another venture of the Gates foundation is the African biofortified sorghum project, with Florence Wanbugu's Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation leading a consortium of nine institutions, including DuPont-Pioneer. Sorghum is a drought-tolerant staple for 500 million worldwide. The GE version will improve digestibility and vitamin K and E, iron and zinc, and three amino acids. Greenhouse trials are under way in South Africa. (Vitamin A, incidentally, is currently distributed to the developing world in the form of 500 million capsules costing about a dollar apiece. Getting the same amount of vitamin A from a fortified crop will cost about a fifth of a cent.) GE bananas are also being developed to provide a full allowances of vitamins A and E and iron for countries like Uganda, that rely on bananas as their major food source. "Greenpeace will fight to keep GE bananas, cassava, and sorghum from poor countries' fields, just as it will keep opposing golden rice, says Janet Cotter of Greenpeace's Science Unit in London." That quote was in an April 2008 issue of Science. Because the story is being told by an environmentalist with irrefutable Green credentials, the environmental movement will at last wake up to the cruel injustice being inflicted on the world's poor by well-meaning, well-fed, rich Green romanticists from the developed world. These well-meaning romanticists are currently able to justify to themselves deliberately impeding the delivery of beneficial genetically engineered food crops to the people who can most benefit from them -- the rural poor of the third world, as has just happened in India with insect protected genetically engineered eggplant, banned because of environmentalist activism. Fortunately Brand's wonderful book will not be ignored because it makes its statements in a highly direct controversial fashion. He delivers only three short but lethal bullets, unlike the first Martin Luther's list of 95 theses nailed to the door of the Schlosskirke in 1517. "Cities are green. Nuclear energy is Green. Genetic engineering is Green" is unavoidable clarity from the new Martin Luther. So look out for them when they arrive in a Penguin paperback edition, due in March, my local bookstore tells me. Posted by David Tribe

Stewart Brand's beliefs, bona fides, and biases derive from being a Stanford graduate biologist, an Army paratrooper and infantry instructor, the co-founder, editor and publisher of Whole Earth Catalogs over a thirty-year period as well as CoEvolution Quarterly, founder of The Well, the Global Business Network, the Long Now Foundation, and a lifelong environmentalist. These activities have put him in contact with a wide and diverse legion of intellectuals, scientists, historians, writers, teachers, business people, politicians. He served on the staff of the first Jerry Brown administration. He is also a product of having lived primarily in the San Francisco Bay Area (he lives on a tugboat in Sausalito) but has spent many summers living with various Native American tribes. This book is about the dangers to humans from global warming and climate change and what we can do to handle it. I find the most important chapters to be about urbanization, nuclear power, and genetic engineering. A theme throughout the book is that we must control irrational fear and rely on scientists to show us the challenges, and engineers to design the solutions. There is also the acknowledgement that only government has the power to mandate necessary changes. Global warming and climate change is controversial with the mainstream public but less so in the scientific community. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated in 2001 that the world is warming and that most of the warming over the previous fifty years is attributable to human activities. No scientific body of national or international standing has dissented. URBANIZATION Brand is an urban enthusiast--the world is urbanizing at a rapid rate and this is very good. Urbanization offers more efficient use of resources and infrastructure costs. He sees great hope for urbanization, including huge, fast-growing slums whose inhabitants pragmatically solve social problems. He notes that Mumbai, seventeen million people, half slums, creates one-sixth of India's gross domestic product. He visualizes city farms, thirty-story buildings on a city block, the upper stories growing hydroponic veggies, the lower levels with fish and chickens eating the plant waste. The infrastructure efficiencies of urban density are irrefutable. Soon, eighty percent of humans will live on three percent of the land. NUCLEAR ENERGY Chapter Four, New Nukes, opens with a quote: "With climate change, those who know the most are the most frightened. With nuclear power, those who know the most are the least frightened." Brand is in both groups. His epiphany on nuclear power happened because of a visit to Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository. He and his Long Now Foundation cohorts discussed the whys: why should we store nuclear waste in a place designed for ten thousand years when we will likely be finding new ways to use that waste for energy within a hundred? Why should we assume that humans will stay the same for the next ten thousand years? Brand and physicist friend, Amory Lovins, disagree on almost all of the nuclear issues but he thinks Amory will come around when local mini-reactors are available, negating the need for long transmission lines. The grid requires baseload, dependable, substantial power. Wind and solar generation are presently only intermittent, so cannot dependably contribute to baseload. But the sun is much more intense up high and orbiting solar stations could contribute to baseload. Power will be microwaved down to rectennas. Japan is planning a one-gigawatt space solar reactor. A California utility claims it will have a twenty-megawatt solar farm in orbit in 2016. The next issue is footprint. Land-based solar and wind power require huge spaces, fifty to two hundred square miles to produce as much power as a nuclear plant that needs about a third of a square mile. To baseload and footprint, he adds portfolio, the premise that climate change is so serious we must do all we can to minimize its impact. Regarding energy efficiency and conservation, Brand and Lovins are on the same page. Efficiency and conservation provide the greatest benefit at the least cost at the fastest speed. A fourth primary consideration is government. "You can't get decent grid power without decent government power." Fourth generation nuclear power is cleaner and it is safer. There are reactor designs in the works and some are being built that are far advanced from those in use today. As far as cost, Brand notes that "the problem is not that nuclear is expensive. The problem is that coal is cheap." James Lovelock, the ninety-one year old scientist who gave us the Gaia hypothesis, presents the paradox of energy policy: "We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilization is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear--the one safe, available energy source--now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet." But, wait. In an interview dated 1-26-09 with Democratic Underground, Lovelock was asked: Do you still advocate nuclear power as a solution to climate change? His answer: "It is a way for the UK to solve its energy problems, but it is not a global cure for climate change. It is too late for emissions reduction measures." Brand's final point on the nuclear issue is that five out of six people live in countries now fast developing, nearly six billion poor people who will demand grid electricity--and where that power comes from will decide the climate. GENETIC ENGINEERING Genetic engineering is a way to combat food shortages and climate change. It allows leaving more land natural. Brand offers as proof of the safety of GE foods "the most massive dietary experiment in history," the fact that since1996 nearly everyone in the USA, "the test group," has eaten vast quantities of GE corn, canola and soybeans while Europeans, "the control group," have refrained from eating any at all. The proof is that there is no discernible health difference between the test group and the control group. Peter Ravens, one of the world's leading botanists, says that nothing has so hurt our world, causing more extinction of species and more instability of ecological systems than the agriculture system that feeds over six billion humans. I am skeptical of Brand's assertion that gmo farmers practice no-till, while organic farmers plow. I don't know any big organic farmers but all the little guys I know do not plow. As much as possible, they respect the soil community, disrupt it minimally, use previous plant residue and mulch to build soil and reduce weeds. From Edward Faulkner's book, Plowman's Folly, to Rodale, to the present, the trend in organic circles has been to let the soil community do the heavy lifting. FINAL THOUGHTS The future of our species is in question. Our instincts have served us well but now threaten the livability of our planet-home. It is too easy to stay stuck in yesterday's priorities. We better figure out--unemotionally--what we should do if we are to survive the next fifty years. This is not a dress rehearsal. This could in fact be our final performance if we do it wrong. Warning: reading this book may cause you to find most of the hot issues of the day to be really petty.

'Global warming' is a hot subject these days. For many decades the environmentalists more well known as the 'Greens' were ridiculed as 'anti progress' and leftists. Now when they have been finally proved right, the Greens seem to have lost their way. As a well known environmentalist, Stewart Brand explores where the Greens are going wrong and why they should trust Science more. Brand is keen to show us how Urbanization is Green, Nuclear Power is Green and Genetic Engineering is Green. This is the focus of the first part of the book. The book also traces the Green movement and is filled with references to various publications over the last three decades. The second part of the book explores how we can take care of the Earth and examines possible global scale nature infrastructure initiatives that can reverse global warming.Brand is ready to acknowledge his mistakes and would like the rest of the Greens also to do so. If not he would like to see some of the Greens split away to become Green-Blues and develop the Green movement in a different direction. The book was interesting and thought provoking. I was impressed with the coverage on the benefits of Genetically Engineered plants and the various measures that can be taken to improve the conditions on Earth. He exposes the damage caused by the fears of the traditional Greens in opposing genetic engineering. But I would have liked to see a more deeper analysis of some of the conclusions - especially the safety aspects and waste clean up of Nuclear Energy. Brand seems to rely too much of quotes and references and avoid science fundamentals in this case. I liked the author's summary at the end: "Ecological balance is too important for sentiment. It requires Science. The health of natural infrastructure is too compromised for passivity. It requires Engineering. What we call natural and what we call human are inseparable. We live one life."

A Readers Digest - condensed edition - on the topic of sustainability, not a coherent depiction, this book represents collected knowledge of the authors's "long now foundation" in 2008. Very mind altering and helpful, a real update to what I meant to know before I read this book. Although I am not of his opinion in some respects, I am 100% congruent with his perspective which was my own long before I found the "long now foundation": Sustainability means to alter one's behavior to sustain human life on this planet for - say - another 10.000 years. Example: If you want electric power for everyone there seems to be no way but to replace coal fired plants by Thorium fired plants. Why? In 200 years all fossile energy sources including Uranium will be depleted and we will very possible see a catastrophic climate change induced by human activity long before that date if we really burn all of these. Renewables are very fine and we should use the maximum amount of these. But: 1) wind and solar are and will be much more expensive than coal and not everyone will be able to afford these 2) wind and solar need a lot of space such that they cannot be applied to every usage scenario 3) even if we start investing into wind and solar we will never cover all energy needs of 9 Billion people in 2050 4) wind energy depends on wind blowing, solar depends on sun shining. That is why they need complimentary power which can not be fossile in the long run. As water power or biogas is not available in most places and not in the necessary amount, there will never be enough complimentary. Alternative will be Electricity storage which is roughly 20 Cent per Kilowatt hour at its cheapest, adding again to the cost 5) Complete failure of Germany to pull that thing off is proof enough for the rest of the World: at a projected cost of more 1.000 Billion Euros in subsidies promised by current law they did manage actually increase the spillout of CO2! Burning Thorium is the one solution that will power our world for the next 20.000 years, based on the knowledge of today.

Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline" was a revelation for me. Over the years I have become increasingly disillusioned with the entire debate over environmental degradation. The environmentalists have convinced me that we have a real problem, but any attempt to come up with a reasonable solution is rejected out of hand. For example, it is obvious that coal is the number one culprit, not only because it is the major cause of the increase in green house gases, but also because the current methods of extracting coal are devastating to the environment. However, the coal miners have a strong union, and no liberal would ever consider going against their wishes. Another example is the debate over biofuels. Corn is not an environmentally safe method for making gasohol but sugar is. Furthermore, Brazil has developed an efficient method for making gasohol out of sugar and is selling it cheap. However, you guessed it, the corn farmers want to sell their corn and the sugar farmers won't allow us to import any foreign sugar products. Where are the liberals in these discussions? And, finally, there is wind power, a clean method for sure. However, the bird lovers detest it, and the Kennedy family has made it clear that they don't want it in their backyard. Again liberals are their own worst enemy. Brand's book is a wonderful exposition of current methods for reducing green house gases and still managing to feed all 6 billion of us. He has finally come around to nuclear energy, which has allowed France to produce sufficient electricity without polluting the atmosphere. People worry about the health problems with nuclear waste, but they do not seem to care that essentially 100% of coal miners get lung disease and millions have died of it over the years. He also sees that genetically modified crops can be very useful. By the way, James Lovelock has made similar claims in his recent books. Brand understands that radical Greens will have trouble with his recommendations, and he has a wonderful chapter on why - see chapter 7, entitled Romantics, Scientists, Engineers. He notes that environmentalists can be divided into two categories, romantics and scientists, though there is considerable overlap. On page 208 he states: "The romantics identify with natural systems; the scientists study natural systems. The romantics are moralistic .... dismissive of any who appear to stray from the true path... The scientists are ethical rather than moralistic, rebellious against any perceived dominant paradigm....For them (scientists), identifying mistakes is what science IS, and direction change IS the goal.......Romantics love problems; scientists discover and analyze problems; engineers solve problems." Let me conclude with one example which illustrates Brand's analysis. In the 1950' and 1960's we used to laugh at the stupid right wingers who thought that flouridating our water supply was a commie plot to poison our bodies and weaken our ability to oppose communist aggression. Stanley Kubrick's magnificent film, "Dr. Strangelove," spoofed this in a hilarious manner, with Sterling Hayden as the paranoid airforce general, Jack D. Ripper. Well that has changed. Not too many years ago my son, then a student at University of California at Santa Cruz, told me that the very liberal city of Santa Cruz voted down flouridating their water supply because the environmentalists believed that it was an industrial waste that would poison us. I could hardly believe it. I hope that with the latest books by Brand and Lovelock, the environmental movement has finally gotten past its romantic stage and is now ready for scientists and engineers to solve the very real problems we face today.

I’ve followed Stuart for years, decades A firehose of ideas It will challenge many, but challenges are good Read it

The author of the “Whole Earth Manifesto” which helped to inspire the young Green movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s, tells how his ideas have changed in light of 21st century technology and scientific discoveries. Brand presents his thoughts on a wide range of interconnected issues including genetically modified crops, urbanization and population policy, sustainable agriculture, climate change, geoengineering, energy policy, and others. Brand usually states his case with clarity, but you’ll find some rambling. You may not get all of his humor; and his supporting arguments are eclectic enough to occasionally distract, running the gamut from hard science to fringe philosophies. It is all delivered with an urgent enthusiasm that keeps the book moving and paints a vivid impression of the man who wrote it. Brand writes that he holds his views loosely to allow for new learning and the possibility of change, even as he states them boldly. His admiration for scientists shines through (he says their jobs are to challenge and disprove each other). His division of the human race into romantics (who fall in love with problems), scientists (who discover and analyze problems) and engineers (who solve problems) is helpful; as is his comparison of “foxes” and “hedgehogs.” Brand writes with the authority of a well-connected founding father of the environmental movement, and with the wizened perspective of an elder statesman among environmentalists who, true to his Gaian philosophical underpinnings of seeing and celebrating the interconnectedness of systems, does not overlook the potential of governments and corporations as systems that can solve mankind’s most pressing problems. The result is an interesting smorgasbord of ideas for anyone who is trying to learn about global sustainability issues.

This book is a well written challenge to many of the traditional environmental orthodoxies around nuclear power, transgenic crops, cities, advanced agriculture, etc. It is well researched and thought provoking without being political or polemic. For example it shows the downsides and consequences of many of the campaigns against transgenic crops and their effects on the third world, and really challenges the reader to think bigger about the whole picture. Brand's work in this book creates the intellectual underpinnings for the movie "Pandora's Promise" and much of the work that Breakthrough Institute, Environmental Progress, Third Way, etc. have done in the 11 years since. This has resulted in significant bipartisan congressional support for advanced nuclear programs by the Department of Energy. Looking at all of the exciting development of many Gen IV and Small Modular Reactors that has been done in the last decade it is clear that this shift in thinking has started to show success. Even though it is a few years old now, it is still worth a read. It might just change your perspective on the world.

Despite being written in 2009, this book is full of nuggets of insight about the current situation in 2024. Stewart brand is a brilliant writer and it is nice to see him keep on trucking. It is a brilliant follow-up to the days of the Whole Earth catalogs and the Co-evolution and Whole Earth Review magazines.

One of the best books I have read in years: Cover to cover immediately. I am not d'accord with Stewart in any aspect of his opinionated upgrade for my world view, BUT that does not matter. Very well written, Many hints to very good further reading. Caused a big ditch in my Book Etat. I feel the weakest chapter is that about Genetic Engineering. He is Biologist and is so sure about it that he is not a thorough and convincing in his argument as he is in other chapters. The second weak point is the nuclear chapter. He comes to the right conclusion IMO but he is far from being as convincing as other books I have read concerning the replacement of coal burning in the light of Climate Chance or Change.

A myth buster. GMO is great. Cities r great. Nukes r great. Geoengineerig I think we must be very careful

Visione molto ampia del mondo, lettura più che consigliata

Aunque se publicó en 2009, la filosofía de Brand resulta totalmente actual. Su visión global es envidiable, pues tiene conocimiento de primera mano de un montón de procesos creativos, científicos, industriales..., que se está desarrollando a múltiples niveles. En la mayoría de los casos, su información viene de su relación personal con los protagonistas. Para el lector, es una fuente constante de descubrimientos. Aunque el autor es básicamente optimista, no puede concretar a dónde irá apuntando el futuro, pero la lectura de este libro te aporta muchas claves. Lástima que no esté traducido al castellano.