Stewart Brand – Whole Earth Discipline

Long Now chief Stewart Brand comes to Portland tomorrow night at Powell’s to talk about his new book Whole Earth Discipline.   Here’s how Peter Schoonmaker in the  Oregonian introduces him:

Futurist Stewart Brand spoke to nearly 1,000 committed environmentalists in Portland several years ago and offered three solutions to the world’s environmental problems: slums, nukes and genetic engineering. The crowd was not receptive. Dozens walked out.

Brand loved it. Now he’s written a book, “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto,” expanding on these solutions. Environmentalists should read it.

I look forward to hearing more on this debate.  Here’s more from Edge.org.

Update:  Brand talked over a slide-show that emphasized what he terms eco-pragmatism.  His big themes are around the growth of cities, use of nuclear power as a better alternative than fossil fuels, and use of genetically modified agriculture.  He faced one persistent questioner very concerned with the effects of eating meat, after admitting that he’s a committed carnivore.  I was interested to learn about multiple commercial efforts to develop small, modular nuclear power reactors that could be deployed quickly.  There’s one producer in Oregon by the name of NuScale.