Skeptic: Promoting Science and Critical Thinking

Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto

According to Stewart Brand, a lifelong environmentalist (and creator of the Whole Earth Catalog) who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, three profound transformations are under way 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 80% 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 long held 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 challenges a number of myths and presents counterintuitive observations on why cities are actually greener than countryside, how nuclear power is the future of energy, and why genetic engineering is the key to crop and land management. Brand suggests a bold and inventive set of policies and solutions for creating a more sustainable society.