Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto

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Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto

by Stewart Brand

4.07 · rating details · 197 ratings · 63 reviews

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 under way on Earth right now. Climate change is real and is pushing us toward managing the planet as a whole. Urbanization-half th...more

Hardcover, 336 pages

Published October 15th 2009 by Viking Adult (first published 2009)

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Dec 03, 2011

Mike rated it

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...moreThis 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.

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Apr 24, 2011

Hippo rated it

I picked up this book in January and I finally finished reading it today. I would describe the author as an ecocontrarian, and made me think about the defining ecological issues of today - climate change, bioengineered organisms, nuclear power, invasive species, and humanity's role in the environment. Should we try to preserve the earth as is or be caretakers? (The author sees us as caretakers.)

Though this wasn't mentioned in the book, the caretaker role reminds me of how Japanese peop...more

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Aug 08, 2010

Raymond rated it

I admire Stewart Brand because he has spent his life identifying and advocating important ideas. The first half of Brand’s Whole Earth Discipline is especially compelling. His writing is quick and declarative. He is at his best when he presents authoritative ideas as simply as he does in this book. Stewart Brand’s best writing—The Whole Earth Catalogs, How Buildings Learn, and Whole Earth Discipline—always challenged his readers to improve ourselves and the places we live through learning, and ...more

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Feb 17, 2010

Steve rated it

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: popular_science, politics, non-fiction

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 ch...more

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Nov 06, 2009

Gordon rated it

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 hopel...moreYes, 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. Her 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.
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Oct 31, 2009

Tony rated it

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 appropriat...more

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Sep 12, 2009

Tim rated it

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...more

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Mar 21, 2010

Joe rated it

Stewart Brand is one of my heroes, and this book provides another reason why. The gist is to take on several longstanding environmentalist taboos like nuclear power, genetic engineering, urbanization, and even geo-engineering, and convince the reader that their benefits outweigh their problems, especially in the face of climate change.

The most compelling thing about this book is Brand's own longstanding involvement in environmental activism, and the fact that he's willing to admit t...more

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Apr 09, 2010

Heidi rated it

Shelves: politics-history-philosophy, pop-science

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-ch...more

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Jan 13, 2010

Chris rated it

I think it is a provocotive book, and I will recommend it to people. What I liked: 1) engineering solutions to large scale problems rather than tilting at windmills through political discourse; 2) alternate perspectives on four major issues that have taken on nearly paradigm entrenchment from the culture wars; 3) his willingness to admit he's been wrong on a few issues and the key is to keep at problems; 4) his attempt to bring a balanced view through history to present issues and technologies. ...more

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Jan 10, 2010

Eduardo Santiago rated it

Recommended to Eduardo by: Cool Tools

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 ...more

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Jun 26, 2010

Gentlyferal rated it

I'm only halfway through this book yet -- and already Stewart Brand, editor of The Whole Earth Catalog and a real sure-enough biologist, has turned my mind around about urbanization and nuclear power. And now wrapping my head around the safety, nutritional value, and general eco-friendliness of genetically engineered foods.

Two things I noticed that has not yet emerged as major themes in the book:

*Opponents of the trends that Stewart now spouses tend to be speaking outsid...more

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Feb 19, 2011

Paul rated it

Really useful and interesting revisionist approach to climate change policy. Useful because it takes on non-negotiable group-think positions held by many otherwise rational environmentalists. Interesting because Brand has a breezy style and draws on both his own personal history as a prominent environmental activist and his connections with a diverse range cutting edge thinkers. It's worth reading just for the references to work by more original thinkers. Brand expresses genuine empathy with e...more

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Dec 27, 2009

Hippopottoman rated it

Shelves: nonfiction, library, john-udell

An interesting look into Brand's thoughts and feelings about our world and its current warming plight. I learned an awful lot about the merits of genetic engineering and about nuclear power (relative other "clean" alternatives). At times I felt like Brand was focusing on the positive aspects of the solutions he prefers, to the exclusion of the downsides, but he's hardly the only one to do that and he, at least, labels his book as a manifesto - we're here to get his opinions.

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Jul 31, 2010

Chris rated it

I read a library copy, then bought my own. Brand founded the Whole Earth catalog, and has reversed his position on nuclear power and GM foods. This is a fascinating read, a ten-thousand-foot view of the problems of the new century and the technologies that could save us.

I enjoyed this book immensely and plan to give it to other people. I might have known; Brand's book How Buildings Learn changed how I look at architecture. There's a great bibliography of print and web materials...more

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Dec 28, 2009

Bruce rated it

Stewart Brand's manifesto for how to go about solving the climate change problem is refreshingly optimistic. It's not written for dining room table deniers, adults who approach books with a box of crayons. To my surprise, the main target of his criticism is traditional environmentalists who irrationally oppose methods for solving the planet's problems and human problems. The emphasis is on science and engineering because those are essential tools. Politics is tangential because, I suspect, t...more

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Nov 19, 2009

Patsy rated it

Recommends it for: someone looking for different perspectives on the environment

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 ...more

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Mar 12, 2011

Phil Fox rated it

A great read. I picked up this book after I saw Brand interviewed on the Colbert Report. His background is in ecology but more importantly he is a futurist trying to systematically predict the future (in terms of human behavior, or the earth itself etc).

He breaks down many of the widely held platforms on both the environmentalist AND business side of urbanization, resource management, biotechnology, etc.

Calling himself an "ecopragmatist," he searches out both best-c...more

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Nov 01, 2009

Alan rated it

I think that the ideas discussed in this book deserve wide distribution. Steward Brand (of Whole Earth Catalog fame) has written a concentrated primer on how to think about and hopefully deal with the almost insurmountable problems facing us in these new decades of the century. Most of the problems can in fact be lumped into the category of Global Warming, and Brand does not flinch from examining and recommending possibly unpopular solutions for combating increasing temperatures. I like the fac...more

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Dec 08, 2009

Marie rated it

Shelves: audiobooks

It's difficult to review this book because I don't know if I agree or disagree with the ideas Stewart Brand puts forth. I like the overall premise of the book; that individual "green" decisions like buying organic vegetables or taking a short shower aren't going to save civilization from climate change, and that the green movement should be doing more to incorporate hard science into their arguments. But, I don't know if the solutions Brand recommends are realistic or sensible, or ev...more

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May 04, 2010

Jason rated it

This was a perspective-altering book for me. Stewart Brand has deservedly earned himself an invite to my version of the hypothetical celebrity dinner party (at least among people who are alive). I have generally been put off by the sanctimony of the "greener-than-thou" environmentalist movement. But Brand's pragmatic yet impassioned take on climate problems and potential solutions really struck a chord with me. As convincing as I found this book to be, I'd like to read at least one boo...more

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Jan 02, 2010

Sara rated it

Well this is another one of the books my boss Gordon put on my desk (because Brand sent him a copy and he certainly doesn't have time to read it...). So I did. And..it was good. Took me forever to get through, because I was reading it while extremely busy and it is pretty dense, but I'm glad I finished it.

Brand tackles the issue of future climate change, and how we are going to deal with it, comprehensively and scientifically. And I really like how he brought out all the options, and...more

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Jan 01, 2012

Frederick Bingham rated it

Stewart Brand is the author of the Whole Earth Catalog. He brings up some rather controversial ideas among environmentalists. Nuclear power is green. Cities are green. Population is beginning to level off. Genetic engineering is green.

He emphasizes the idea that science should guide environmental thinking and that we need to have an open mind with regards to saving the earth. A lot of what he says makes sense, but I'm sure makes a lot of mainstream environmental groups uncomfortable.

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May 29, 2011

Melody rated it

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 intere...more

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Sep 09, 2010

Pat rated it

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 w...more

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Nov 05, 2011

Michael rated it

Nicely written, well researched, a vision of how to deal with climate change. His points are far beyond any ideologic paradigms with which he deals with practical examples and great scientific data. He shows that nuclear power was green, cities were green and biotech/nano was green as well, and he's got the data to prove it. As Robert Anton Wilson wrote: "Everything you know is wrong." And once again Stewart Brand comes along and makes us think. Not bad at all! A great read and call fo...more

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Dec 13, 2009

Deidre rated it

Not sure how to rate this book. It certainly (as he intends) is making my head spin a bit as he challenges some long-held assumptions of environmentalists (he presents a pro-cities, pro-nuclear, and pro-genetic engineering argument). And I'm zipping through it. And it's Stewart Brand.

BUT, I'm also not so impressed with his research at times (oops, your google is showing), especially since he insists on being taken as a scientist. I need to digest it a bit more, I guess.

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Mar 27, 2011

stephen rated it

Shelves: chronological, nonfiction

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....more

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Feb 11, 2010

ben rated it

wow...finally. this book was a kick my ass every time type of book...
he is a radical. he used to be just an environmentalist that thought nature needed be saved from civilization but now believes "civilization needs to be saved from nature." he is pro anything that may work and thinks we have 50 years...i loved his sections on urbanization and nuclear power as helpful solutions. the more into straight science he got the more i got lost...

2 things he said
1: "...more

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Dec 05, 2011

Tom rated it

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.

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About Stewart Brand

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.

More about Stewart Brand...

Books by Stewart Brand

How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They're Built

The Clock of the Long Now: Time and Responsibility

The Media Lab: Inventing the Future at M.I.T.

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

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