The Whole Earth Discipline by Stewart Brand distorts nuclear and bio-engineering truths to argue that we need these (toxic) industries to stave off climate change and the depletion of natural resources.
I think Mr. Brand's book should be called The Whole Earth Distortion.
We do not need nuclear.
We do not need bioengineered food.
We need the truth.
The increasing number of white men in suits and Levis, praising dangerous thinking based on faulty, lazy, or selfish reasons--concerns me.
I suspect Mr. Brand, and his friends who wrote glowing book blurbs, may have hands in the nuclear and bio-engineering cookie jar.
The once famous author of the Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand, uses potential climate change devastation to justify nuclear power, transgenic crops, and geoengineering.
Brand suggests we step up carbon-free nuclear energy. In essence saying, future cancer victims and a devastated earth be damned. He justifies this by comparing favorable "clean" nuclear to dirty coal. But nuclear is dirty, too.
Whole Earth Discipline reminded me of the short-sighted yet popular environmental book, Earth: The Sequel by Fred Krupp. What these men have in common is a lot of rich white corporate friends.
I think they're riding a van called Misperceptions on a contaminated road that could devastate earth, while spinning press releases about saving it.
On the Penguin Press book jacket's cover, the following blurb made me cringe:
"One of the most important green tracts since Silent Spring." Fortune Magazine
Oh my.
The falsehood!
Rachel Carson author of Silent Spring, who died of cancer, would turn in her grave based on the short-sightedness of this book.
Women are the nurturers, the earth's greatest stewards.
Of the 34 positive, glowing blurbs inside Whole Earth Discipline, only 2 were written by women...women I haven't heard of... the rest were white men--(do they get paid?) some of whom I have respected like Paul Hawken. How he could give his name to this book, I don't know. But that's equally my concern about this book. A few respectable men endorsed it. Making me wonder if they're over-worked, over-tweeting, or feel a need to be published by the same house?
Stewart Brand poo-pooed solar and wind power as viable energy solutions because they haven't proven to be reliable 24/7 rain or shine.
Please. Respect the process.
In less time and money than it takes to build a nuclear reactor, the finest minds in our world can solve the safe, renewable energy storage and transmission dilemma.
Yes, we can.
Obama got elected on it.
Building a dangerous nuclear power plant will take incredible time, money, energy, and unbelievable amounts of water.
Get the best scientists world-wide involved, instead of simply saying yes to nuclear.
Let's talk about simple.
On page 80, Brand who was once against nuclear energy says,
"Two things about nuclear had changed for me, I gradually realized Waste disposal no longer looked like a cosmic-level problem, and carbon free energy from nuclear looked like a major solution in light of growing worries about climate change."
How simplistic. Too simplistic.
Clearly Brand didn't do enough fact-checking. Fact-checking should be required before mining for uranium and building nuclear plants.
Facts.
What about all the nuclear melt-downs that have gone unreported and under-reported, and corresponding cancer cases? What about the leaking canisters at Hanford Nuclear Storage Facility? The ones Bush wouldn't green-light to reinforce. Because we don't have enough money for proper storage of nuclear waste. Poor Columbia River and its nearby inhabitants. This is the real world. None of these facts were mentioned in Brand's nuclear section of book, which minimizes cancer and contamination issues.
What about those of us living in the shadow of California's nuclear power plants, those who own homes and must sign forms saying they understand a nuclear leak or disaster is possible, and those who have had or know someone who has had thyroid cancer?
I've hung out at the Aerospace Cancer Museum of Education in Simi Valley, site of the biggest nuclear disaster in U.S. history. It wasn't Three Mile Island. It was in L.A.'s backyard. There are cancer clusters there. That's why a $30 million judgment went to pay many, but not all, cancer-victims impacted by Rockedyne's melt-down. There were untold millions of people living down-wind from the melt-down, including the populous San Fernando Valley, and they never knew.
And what about this story about how the Nuclear Regulatory Commission used an epidemiologically invalid study to reassure the public that the continuous release of radioactive material from power plants into the surrounding regions did not contribute to increases in cancer...
I didn't finish reading Whole Earth Discipline.
I couldn't.
The book angered me.
Seeing blurbs from so-called intelligent men discouraged me.
There is a mass closing of the eyes going on. Everyone's distracted.
I just checked other Whole Earth Discipline book reviews and the only intelligent one I found was by Amory Lovin called Four Nuclear Myths.
My uncle called and asked what I was doing, and I told him about how this book landed on my desk, and how it bothered me and he understood. He knew all about Brand, and said he's in with the corporations. He's not an environmentalist.
Intelligent books to read instead of Whole Earth Distortion include those by Helen Caldicott on nuclear energy, Jeffrey Smith on the known hazards of bioengineered food, Sandra Steingraber on the connection between chemicals and cancer, Dr. Theo Colborn on the connection between chemicals and endocrine problems and my friend S. David Freeman who wrote the intelligent road map toward safe renewable energy called Winning Our Energy Independence: An Insider Tells Us How.
To follow my clean air search and explore air pollution solutions together, subscribe to the Chasing Clean Air RSS feed!
