Just read Stuart Brand’s ‘Whole Earth Discipline, an eco-pragmatist manifesto’. Brand was editor of the optimistic, 70s Whole Earth Catalogue. Now he’s back willing to consider radically different alternative alternatives, in the face of climate change.
He’s undertaken the book in the spirit of debate, and with ‘the long now’ in mind – the future 10,000 years. What bugs him is the pessimism of those who still hold ’70s’ view. He sees them as romantic’mossback environmentalists’. In transformative times, he regards environmentalism’s purposeful agendas as a problem. Why aren’t they willing to change their minds?
He’s changed his. With coal burning as a no no, he’s getting behind nuclear power. This puts him onside with James Lovelock, Tim Flannery and Bill McKibben who gave judicious support to an IPCC proposal that nuclear energy should provide an increased 2% of the world’s energy supply. Brand believes that ‘seizing the century’ involves getting on board with green biohackers, technophiles, GE researchers, urbanists and infrastructure rebuilders.
The book’s very upbeat. It really engaged me. Brand believes we can’t assume that future humans will be like us, either in terms of available technologies or basic concerns. In other words that having a cautious future orientation is paternalistic. We should be prepared to take steps along the way in an emergent adaptation plan, including nuclear energy. We shouldn’t turn away from anything that limits the burning of coal.
This book is very optimistic about science. Unfortunately, there are no great deliberations in society, either between between scientists, politicians, policy makers or the people when it comes to testing out assumptions about following where science leads. Ever wonder why so many spokespeople give views with the proviso ‘I’m not a climate scientist’?
Maybe that line isn’t really about climate science expertise. Maybe it’s really saying that there’s a lot more to climate politics and culture change than energy related problem solving.