What I Learned from Whole Earth Discipline

What began as an attempt to scan an important but suspect work of critical environmentalism--that is, it deviates from the culturally accepted norm for "environmentalism"--became one of my more significant reads this year so far. Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist's Manifesto by Stewart Brand is a powerful, eleventh hour-style work on four strategies that can jointly mitigate and relieve the damages we have caused to the biosphere. It draws heavily on Lovelock's Gaia Hypothesis, but even more so on Brand's personal experience and interviews with experts. The four strategies are: 1) Invigorated urban centers the world over as population, economic, cultural, and resource foci; 2) Contemporary nuclear power to provide base-level power safely and consistently; 3) Using genetic engineering critically, scientifically, and safely to feed people and remediate already accrued environmental damages; and 4) Geoengineering is able to soften the impacts of catastrophic climate change to save lives and the landscape.

Some of his points are directed toward an earlier generation than my own. Brand supported the activism against big cities, nuclear power, and genetic engineering when he was a younger man. Between research, interviews, and the onset of the present social, economic, and historic reality, he has reversed his positions on these and other points. Part of his project is to correct his own path and to do so with the vigor with which he once opposed trends and technologies. Doing so is a difficult and dangerous process, possibly leading him into the No Man's Land between progressive environmentalists and climate deniers. More often than not, Brand asks us to see these possibilities in the eyes of experts. With the changes in technologies of our modern world, come the possibilities for new outcomes and political realities; realities we must examine clearly.

Picking up the book, I can say myself that I am more optimistic toward urbanization (not to be confused with sprawl, suburbs, and exurbs--which are resource and effectively climate nightmares) than most environmentalists. Many friends of mine are back-to-the-landers and similar types and I am among the first to shout that agriculture and food systems are necessary for healthy lives, livelihoods, and communities. Cities, though, can focus knowledge, culture, economics, food supplies, waste management, and energy to manageable scales. Also, I have come to accept the potential realities of genetic engineering a better world and geoengineering it to be more stable than the one we have been bequeathed--those latter two I state with more hesitance than what I have to say about cities, but I affirm them all the same.

With nuclear power, well, I have to say that my knowledge is out of date. I am hesitant about the technology and for reasons that Brand does talk about (safety, storage, efficiency, management) and reasons he does not (security, economics, and I doubt I'll ever be completely satisfied with safety). In the end, like his later points on genetic engineering and geonengineering, we can't play the "First, Do No Harm" card because we are already in the midst of it. Nuclear does provide a viable replacement for coal and we simply cannot keep burning coal; coal will necessarily lead to global catastrophe while nuclear very well may lead to localized disasters. The difference is not one of split hairs, but one of degrees: Whether we can change power generation from coal or we can keep burning coal and watch our thermometers rise.

Often, I found myself displeased with Brand's brevity on certain issues and righteousness on others, but as he addresses in the final chapters we need louder foxes and fewer hedgehogs. That is, we need foxes with widespread, critical knowledge who make flexible but more reliable predictions than hifalutin experts arguing with us over statistics and datasets and their field who often get the important stuff wrong. To accomplish his goal, Brand may feel that he must speak beyond his position in order for people to really hear him out and change their minds. I am interested in the right path forward which will mean changing my mind and my actions.

I fear many things, but what we must learn to do is act to avoid what will be inevitable, even if it means placing bets on the future. We have to do so because, if anyone hasn't noticed, everything is already on the table. We are playing one hell of a poker game with our planet on the line and I am interested in seeing it through. Despite myself, I earnestly believe in a bright future. On the way, we can all expect hard times. The difference will be in hedging our bets appropriately and gambling when and where we have the good hands. For the most part, I think that Brand has the right ideas for our gaming.