Interview: Stewart Brand’s Journey From Whole Earth to Nuclear Power

Stewart Brand is perhaps best known as the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog, the eclectic compendium of environmentally friendly living that became a bible of the counterculture and the back-to-the-land movement in the late 1960s and early ‘70s. But times have changed, and so has Brand. In his new book, Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto, Brand explains how concerns about global warming and the challenge of feeding a rapidly growing world population have led him to embrace nuclear power, genetically engineered crops, and geoengineering schemes to cool the planet. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Brand explains why France is an environmental model for the U.S., why “calamatist” thinkers aren’t doing the green movement any favors, and why environmentalists need to start thinking like engineers. Says Brand, “When you’re trying to design solutions, you really, really have to get used to the idea of tradeoffs, risk balancing, short-term versus long-term — all this stuff that engineers are comfortable with.”

Read the interview