Stewart Brand in free online web talk Feb 18
Written on Sunday, February 07, 2010 by
Dan
In:
Idaho Samizdat | Comments:
0Why you should listen to Stewart Brand
Stewart Brand (left) is best known for his famous book the Whole Earth Catalog which offered readers an environmentally friendly path to living on the earth. However, at age 70 Brand is not an advocate of living off the grid. Rather, he is an advocate for solving our most pressing urban problems so that we can live in cities and, most important for this blog, he is now a staunch advocate for nuclear energy.
>> Read more below how you can hear him live online Feb 18th.
In his new book Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, he does what Newsweek Magazine called a “U-turn” on the prevailing mantras of the green movement and endorses nuclear energy.
In his new book Stewart Brand lays out what has been called “a mind-blowing vision for the planet's salvation: migration to the cities, power generated by mini-nuclear reactors, healthier crops through genetic engineering.”
Brand, who created the 1960s and 1970s classic Whole Earth Catalog, believes that big cities (and not rural villages) are green, that nuclear power is green and that biotechnology is green.
Whole Earth Discipline is what book publishers like to call “myth shattering” because it 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.
Brand’s new book has been widely praised.
- Paul Hawken calls it “likely one of the most original and important books of the century.…”
- Edward O. Wilson says it is “ominous and exhilarating.”
- Larry Brilliant says it is “an absolutely seminal work, extraordinarily well written, a tour de force of so many interconnected worlds and lives and studies.”
Why waste matters
Even more interesting, he said that even if we didn’t have the challenge of global warming, he would still be an advocate for nuclear energy. The reason is waste. That’s right, waste.
For decades anti-nuclear activists have pummeled the industry over the issue of storage of spent nuclear fuel. Brand answers them by pointing out that the most useful comparison is between bundles of nuclear fuel rods and trains of coal filled hopper cars. In addition to the CO2 that comes from burning coal, the waste also include fly ash full of heavy metals.
A 1,000 MW coal-fired power plant produces 19,000 tons of CO a day. A nuclear power plant the same size produces none. The spent fuel can be stored safely in dry casks for decades.
Four environmental heresies
According to Stewart Brand, who sees everything in terms of solvable design problems, four 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 80% will by midcentury-is altering humanity's land impact and wealth.
- Biotechnology is becoming the world's dominant engineering tool.
- Nuclear energy is a solution to reducing carbon emissions.
Brand said the environmental movement must figure out how to come to terms with fast-moving science and take up the tools and discipline of engineering. Brand was trained as an ecologist at Stanford University so he comes to this point of view with impeccable credentials.
These changes will require environmentalists to reverse some long held opinions and embrace tools that they have traditionally and profoundly distrusted. Brand said that a radical rethinking of traditional green mantras will be necessary to stop the catastrophic deterioration of the earth's resources.
Brand online Feb 18
You can hear Brand talk about these issues online on Feb 18, and the web seminar offers listeners the opportunity to submit questions during the live session. The date/time coordinates for an online conversation with Stewart Brand about nuclear energy are February 18 1 PM EST. Click link for free registration. http://trunc.it/5cgoe
In an interview with Energy Collective blogger and FORTUNE contributing editor Marc Gunther, Brand will talk about the evolution of his thinking, the research that went into the book and the reaction he’s getting from his friends in the environmental movement. The sessions allow plenty of time for questions from listeners.
It is organized by the Energy Collective and sponsored by Siemens. If you can't hear the session live, register for it anyway. That will give you access to the online archive which you can go to anytime.
The nuclear energy chapter of Brand's new book is online with annotations.
Preview - Brand talking about his book and its issues at the TED conference.
You must have Adobe Flash Player installed to see this video. Download and install it here.
Name (required)
Email (required)
Website