Rethinking Green
I recently listened to an audio podcast of Stewart Brand discussing world trends and the environment:
- 5 out of 6 of us live in the developing world.
- The dominant demographic event of the century is screamingly rapid urbanization.
- Urban living promotes an informal economy, which is invisible to authorities, and huge.
- Mumbai is half slums and one-sixth of the gross domestic product of all of India.
- The big event of the next 30 years will be young people in the new cities in the world south. Old people in old cities in the global north.
- Cities are greener than suburbia and way greener than subsistence farming.
- Wealth is coming to the developing world and that requires more energy.
- Coal power is the biggest contributor to climate change.
- Drought is the great civilization killer. Darfur, Australia, and soon the river basins of the Himalayas (where most of the developing world lives).
- The only carbon-free substitutes for coal are nuclear and hydro. Hydro around most of the world has already maxed out.
- Russian warheads are being recycled in nuclear power generating stations around the world. Half of the US nuclear energy comes from these Russian warheads.
- Nuclear waste is tiny compared to coal. The political decision to keep it away from humans for 10,000 years has only led to waste and delay. Protect it for 100 years, when we will probably want it as a resource.
- Coal must be made expensive.
- Micro reactors are cheap and easy to scale. Russia is already building them for Arctic outposts, now that the ice melt has opened the NW Passage shipping lanes.
- Genetically-engineered foods are no different from natural selection taking place in the wild.
- European environmentalists went to enormous lengths to terrify the leaders of African nations that GM foods were poison. People starved for two decades until those leaders wised up.
- There is no good reason for genetically engineered food crops to be controversial.
- Synthetic biology is taking off rapidly.
- Natural ecosystem engineering is happening all over the world. Planned geoengineering will happen soon, as countries respond to climate change. We need debate and governance now, before it happens.
Some of you may remember that Stewart Brand was the one who came out with the Whole Earth Catalog in the 1970s. With its picture of the Big Blue Marble on the cover, this was a wake up call for the environmental movement in America and around the world. I just placed a request with my local library for his new book, Whole Earth Discipline, when it comes in.
Stewart has many friends who hold the opposite view on several of his opinions. So how do they stay friends? He said it is the difference between the fox and the hedgehog. A hedgehog is focused on one objective. It rules his life. The fox is open to new ideas and approaches. He usually wins. Stewart says he is constantly asking his friends to change his mind. Continuous learning is the key to his friendships.
Labels: environment, nuclear

