Nonfiction: 'Whole Earth Discipline'

Special to The Oregonian By Special to The Oregonian The Oregonian
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on October 24, 2009 at 11:00 AM

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.

With the latest evidence suggesting even more dire global climate disruption than scientists had predicted just a few years ago, Brand maintains that we need to own up to the role we've taken on unwittingly: global geo-engineers.

He begins with a quick reprise of the latest findings in Earth systems science. Much of his review, indeed much of the book, comes from reading the scientific literature and talking with scientists and entrepreneurs, many of whom are friends and colleagues. The essential message is that humans have been affecting global climate since the advent of agriculture and we push carbon, nitrogen, water and energy around enough to fundamentally change chemical and life systems on the planet. We are crossing, have crossed or will cross tipping points that will be hard to reverse. Goodbye Arctic ice, hello Northwest Passage. Goodbye polar bears, hello palm trees in Portland. Soon.

The bad news: To stabilize our climate system, we need to keep atmospheric carbon dioxide to no more than 350 parts per millions, not 450 or 550 as we thought just a few years ago. The really bad news: We're already at 387 ppm and climbing. To get back into the safe zone, we'll need to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 97 percent by 2050. The worst news: Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy at a global scale is probably not realistic. To do so, we'll need to make and install 900 square feet of photovoltaics every second, and bring online a 300-foot-diameter windmill every five minutes, day and night, for the next 25 years. We'll also need huge land areas for biofuels and solar thermal energy. And we'll need a new smart grid system to carry all this clean energy. We might be able to do all this if we converted our auto and silicon chip industries to making windmills and solar cells, but how likely is that? And that's not all. We'll also face population and food-supply bottlenecks in a warming world.

The eco-pessimist conclusion: We're sunk. Brand will have none of this. He's a techno-optimist. If we can't reduce greenhouse gases fast enough to stop climate change, how about cooling the atmosphere with stratospheric sulfates (mimicking volcanic eruptions) or with water vapor spewed from ocean-going "cloud machines"? If we're worried about population growth, why not encourage people to move to cities -- even to slums (which eventually transform to livable places) -- where they have fewer children and a lighter ecological footprint? If we can't build all the renewable energy solutions fast enough, why not let a proven technology -- nuclear power -- back into the game? If we're worried about climate-induced food shortages, why not engineer new drought-tolerant crops?

Of course Brand has anticipated the objections to these solutions. If he doesn't always convince you of his techno fixes, he makes you pause to consider them. In the end, his overriding message hits home. We have become the Earth's gardeners, whether we like it or not. Now we need to tend the garden responsibly. The question arises, however, "what does it mean to be responsible?"

Reading: Brand discusses "Whole Earth Discipline" at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 27, at Powell's City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside St.

Stewart Brand 
$25.95, 325 pages

-- Peter Schoonmaker, Special to The Oregonian