麻豆传媒

Environmentalist, thinker, mover, shaker. If it was 鈥渉appening鈥� in the sixties and seventies, Stewart Brand was there. Now he tells Liz Else why green ideology is flawed and nuclear power and slums are good

IT IS a civilised plan: an afternoon with futurist, visionary thinker and all-round hippy icon Stewart Brand. This is a rare chance to meet the man who helped forge the counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s and infuse it with environmentalism.

He was immortalised in the Tom Wolfe 1968 cult classic The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, a novel about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, a band of LSD-taking, magic-bus-travelling, communal-living experimenters. Shortly afterwards, Brand published the giant-sized Whole Earth Catalog, which set out to provide information or, as he termed it, 鈥渢ools鈥�, for the millions of Americans then living communally or alternatively.

Fast-forward to London 2010, and Brand is promoting his latest book, Whole Earth Discipline. Unluckily, the local wine bar is noisy when we arrive, with a table full of post-prandial lawyers making conversation tricky. But Brand is unfazed: it will take more than a few drunks to dent the spry, sharp but genial public persona he has spent much of his 71 years cultivating. Then again, maybe there is something in the drinking water of supercool California where he has lived for decades 鈥� on a tugboat in Sausalito during the week, and at weekends in Petaluma, next to California鈥檚 largest intact salt marsh.

Zoning in past the noise, Brand is saying heart-warming things about London and 麻豆传媒. Then come the bombshells. Nuclear power. Now. Slums good. At the back of my mind, the word 鈥渉eresy鈥� is half-forming. But perhaps I should not be surprised by what to many may seem like a change of heart: after all, the subtitle of his new book is An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

He elaborates: 鈥淲hat would a green pragmatist do about the seemingly intractable issues we鈥檙e facing? A pragmatist would say ideology doesn鈥檛 help solve problems. Often it helps build loyalty, motivate people, helps people feel all warm about something, but it鈥檚 not much help thinking through problems and coming up with creative solutions, most of which are usually against the ideology.鈥�

The 鈥淲hole Earth鈥� part is a conscious reprise of the sixties Whole Earth Catalog. The US edition even uses the black of the original cover plus the first-ever shot of Earth from an Apollo spacecraft. This time though it really does mean 鈥渨hole Earth鈥� 鈥� not 鈥渢ools鈥� for American drop-outs. 鈥淢y book鈥檚 big themes 鈥� climate change, urbanisation and biotechnologies 鈥� are all global phenomena,鈥� says Brand. 鈥淎nd 鈥榙iscipline鈥� is my way of trying to get people comfortable with putting ideology aside for a while.鈥�

鈥淒iscipline is my way of getting people comfortable with putting ideology aside鈥�

Surely not? Brand abandoning ideology? Old-style greens are clearly in for a bashing. One of his big hates is 鈥渘ature right, humans wrong鈥� thinking: nature, after all, is far from good, kind or efficient. So what changed him?

The seeds were sown back in 1968 when his biology teacher at Stanford University, Paul Ehrlich, published the best-seller The Population Bomb. 鈥淲ithin two years,鈥� Brand recalls, 鈥渢he whole environmental movement became the population issue. They said, too many humans are the problem, therefore get rid of humans. Paul鈥檚 view was that we should put sterilising agents in the water. Well, Paul was wrong, but the green movement valorised him and that鈥檚 part of what we have to grow out of.鈥�

It seems that the green movement gradually became a politically conservative force for Brand. But then with that jaw-dropper about sterilising agents still hanging, we are off again on a whirlwind tour. It鈥檚 a bit like having Al Gore give you a personal lecture 鈥� from a rather different perspective but with just as many curve balls.

In front of our eyes, shanty towns and favelas turn into burgeoning creative hubs. For instance, although Mumbai is more than half-slum, it is responsible for a sixth of India鈥檚 GDP; women, subsistence farmers and children all do better there than in the villages.

The real dark green shocker, though, is what will power the cities. It has to be fourth-generation nuclear plants, says Brand. 鈥淲hat you do when resisting a whole industry is you say, well, it鈥檚 not like there鈥檚 just one problem. There鈥檚 waste, cost, weapons proliferation, there鈥檚 a control problem and obviously that adds up to, 鈥楧on鈥檛 do it鈥�. As an engineer, though, you take the whole issue apart and look at each aspect on its own merits.鈥�

So while the Whole Earth Catalog advocated wind turbines, now Brand says: 鈥淭o get a gigawatt capacity of electricity takes 250 square miles of wind farm. Holy smokes! And the wind farm is not on all the time so you鈥檙e buying French nuclear energy or burning a hell of a lot of natural gas to make up the gap.鈥�

And there鈥檚 a bigger surprise. 鈥淭hank goodness the world is chock-full of nuclear weapons,鈥� says Brand, 鈥渨hich we鈥檇 ideally love to take down to zero in the next decade or two. In the meantime, the US has been buying up the warheads of the former Soviet Union which used to be targeted at American cities, including my home town, Redrock, Illinois.鈥� As Brand points out, 10 per cent of American electricity now comes from power plants fuelled by decommissioned Russian nuclear warheads.

Challenging stuff 鈥� and not without its critics, including long-time friend Amory Lovins, chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute in Colorado, who attacked what he called the 鈥渇our myths about nuclear energy鈥� promulgated by Brand and others. These are: that renewables are unreliable; that there is insufficient land for renewables; that nuclear power is required to reduce climate change; and that we need nuclear power as well as renewables.

A new generation won鈥檛 have this prejudice about nuclear power, says Brand. 鈥淭here is an ageing green habit of being anti-technology which does not play with younger people. In nuclear energy you鈥檙e seeing a generational shift. The online discussions in environmental forums are evenly divided because this community is mostly a 20s and 30s crowd.鈥�

Sadly, younger generations have never heard anything optimistic about the world, says Brand of students he has lectured to. They were especially enthralled, he says, by the idea that in the future biotechnology could be used by anyone. And Brand鈥檚 picture of teams competing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology every September to create new organisms that do strange, wonderful, frivolous and useful things is beguiling.

But before we part, he has a sympathetic word for older greens who have taken a 鈥渢heological position鈥� and are now seeing a lifetime of hard work slipping away. 鈥淚n the book I didn鈥檛 congratulate greens enough for their many extremely important successes, such as restoring wild lions and natural ecosystems services 鈥� and the large role in bringing climate change to people鈥檚 attention.鈥� Build on the triumphs, he says, 鈥渟o the other stuff will feel more comfortable鈥� for them. A truly ecopragmatic message.