Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto - Hardcover

Brand, Stewart

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670021210 ISBN 13: 9780670021215

Publisher: Viking Pr, 2009

Synopsis

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 the world's population now lives in cities, and eighty percent will by midcentury-is altering humanity's land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the world's dominant engineering tool. In light of these changes, Brand suggests that environmentalists are going to have to reverse some longheld opinions and embrace tools that they have traditionally distrusted. Only a radical rethinking of traditional green pieties will allow us to forestall the cataclysmic deterioration of the earth's resources. Whole Earth Discipline shatters a number of myths and presents counterintuitive observations on why cities are actually greener than countryside, how nuclear power is the future of energy, and why genetic engineering is the key to crop and land management. With a combination of scientific rigor and passionate advocacy, Brand shows us exactly where the sources of our dilemmas lie and offers a bold and inventive set of policies and solutions for creating a more sustainable society. In the end, says Brand, the environmental movement must become newly responsive to fast-moving science and take up the tools and discipline of engineering. We have to learn how to manage the planet's global-scale natural infrastructure with as light a touch as possible and as much intervention as necessary.

About this title

Review:

A rich, compelling guide to how old wisdom can combine with new technologies. --New Statesman

Thoroughly exhilarating... It's one of those books that you want to press on people and insist they read... Whole Earth Discipline doesn't present itself as the only road map, but I doubt you'll encounter a more entertaining or thought-provoking one. --Independent

Environmentalism has a worthy prophet, Stewart Brand, and a bible, Whole Earth Discipline... Entertaining and thought-provoking... I can see it being quoted thirty years from now. --Financial Times

A landmark book...Illuminating. --Scotsman

Brand offers his own vision of caring for ecosystems even as we transform them - adopting lessons from everyone from Native Americans to modern, scientifically informed restoration projects... [A] wise book. --Guardian

Book Description:

Stewart Brand is a pioneer of the environmental movement. He remains one of our most penetrating and important thinkers. And his brilliant and urgent new book looks to be his most influential - and controversial - yet.

'Now the new style of environmentalism has a worthy prophet, Stewart Brand, and a bible, Whole Earth Discipline.' Financial Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Pr
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0670021210
• ISBN 13: 9780670021215
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 325