With a combination of scientific rigor and passionate advocacy, Brand shows exactly where the sources of environmental dilemmas lie and offers a bold and inventive set of policies and solutions for creating a more sustainable society.

From the Publisher:
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. Urbanizationahalf the worldas population now lives in cities, and eighty percent will by midcenturyais altering humanityas land impact and wealth. And biotechnology is becoming the worldas 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 earthas 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 planetas global-scale natural infrastructure with as light a touch as possible and as much intervention as necessary.

Tagged: Human ecology, Urban ecology (Sociology), Climatic changes, Environmental aspect