Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity (2008), Eric Chivian and Aaron Bernstein, editors.
An exploration, with dazzling graphics, of one of the most essential ecosystem services.
Ocean: An Illustrated Atlas (2008), Sylvia Earle and Linda Glover.
The best compendium of recent discoveries about the oceans and ocean life, presented with National Geographic panache. For humans this may be a “city planet,” but for life and climate it’s an ocean planet.
INDIANS
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (2005), Charles C. Mann.
What really happened on our continent is totally different from what we learned in school.
Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources (2005), M. Kat Anderson.
I wish every region in the world could have so complete an account of how the first human inhabitants engineered the ecosystem.
Where the Lightning Strikes: The Lives of American Indian Sacred Places (2007), Peter Nabokov.
The land is alive with ancient attention and reverence, and that continuity is worth maintaining.
RESTORATION
Bringing Back the Bush: The Bradley Method of Bush Regeneration (2002), Joan Bradley. (Most easily purchased online from CSIRO Publishing.)
Patience, vigilance, subtlety, craft, and success characterize the Bradley sisters’ approach to defeating alien-invasive plants. The book is specific to Australia, but its techniques apply everywhere.
Nature by Design: People, Natural Process, and Ecological Restoration (2003), Eric Higgs.
Higgs is the first to offer a compelling general theory of restoration, leading to intelligent policy and practices.
Green Phoenix: Restoring the Tropical Forests of Guanacaste, Costa Rica (2003), William Allen.
Preservation in the real world is always a richly tangled tale. Here is one of the great stories, with charismatic, eloquent Daniel Janzen in the middle of it.
Where the Land Is Greener: Case Studies and Analysis of Soil and Water Conservation Initiatives Worldwide (2007), Hanspeter Liniger, editor.
There are so many ingenious ways to bring life and productivity back to degraded land. Collecting them all in one book is a tremendous public service.
Where the Wild Things Were: Life, Death, and Ecological Wreckage in a Land of Vanishing Predators (2008), William Stolzenburg.
A well-written and persuasive presentation of essential-predator theory.
Life Out of Bounds: Bioinvasion in a Borderless World (1998), Chris Bright.
This is the best survey I’ve seen on the impacts of alien-invasive species and what to do about them.
The World Without Us (2007), Alan Weisman.
Exceptionally thorough field research distinguishes this account of what life gets up to as soon as humans step away. It is a fascinating read.
GEOENGINEERING
How to Cool the Planet: Geoengineering and the Audacious Quest to Fix Earth’s Climate (2010), Jeff Goodell.
Hack the Planet: Science’s Best Hope—or Worst Nightmare—for Averting Climate Catastrophe (2010), Eli Kintisch.
The books overlap; I slightly favor Goodell’s as the more thorough. Both authors spent time with most of the major early geoengineers—Ken Caldeira, Lowell Wood, John Latham, Stephen Salter, Russ George, David Keith, James Lovelock, David Victor—and share their view that real-world research on the various schemes must go forward soon and at scale, or half-baked geoengineering projects desperately deployed could wind up having worse effects than what they attempt to fix.
Geoengineering research will tell us a great deal about how climate works. Up to now we have never been able to study climate dynamics with precisely measured deliberate perturbations of the system. Maybe the message will be: “Refrain!” More likely it will be something like: “A and B don’t work. C will lead to catastrophe. D shows promise; proceed carefully. Consider experimenting with E and F.” Only delicate gods get to abide.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Magazine editors cause books. In my case two new-on-the-job editors are to blame. Jason Pontin, who used to sweat with me in a mountain fitness program, was hired as editor of MIT’s Technology Review in 2004. Art Kleiner, a longtime Whole Earth editor, took over the editorship of Booz Allen Hamilton’s business quarterly, Strategy + Business, in 2005. New editors are supposed to bring new writers, so both invited me to submit something. For Pontin I wrote a brief polemic titled “Environmental Heresies.” Kleiner got a long-form article titled “City Planet.” The two pieces stirred up interest, which led to some secondary press, and that led to a book proposal and contract, and here we are.
Literary agent John Brockman is another book causer. Every book I’ve worked on since 1972 has conduited through him. During that time he mustered the world’s finest collection of scientist-writers, engineered horizontal idea flow among them, nagged them toward publication, and enriched them. It’s a family business. John’s wife Katinka Matson and son Max Brockman were also in the thick of this project.
Drafts of my chapters were vetted by Paul Slovak, John Brockman, Nils Gilman, Robert Fuller, Brian Eno, Kevin Kelly, Ryan Phelan, Alexander Rose, George Dyson, James Lovelock, Richard Rhodes, Gwyneth Cravens, Rip Anderson, Peter Schwartz, Daniel Janzen, Pamela Ronald, Raoul Adamchak, José Baer, Peter Raven, Rob Carlson, and Rusty Schweickart. I hired James Donnelly for a first round of copyediting, and freelancer Gary Stimeling did the second round. Editor Paul Slovak ran the show at the Viking Penguin end. Other credits there include: jacket design, Gregg Kulik; interior design, Ginger Legato; index, Cohen Carruth, Inc.; publicity, Sally Anne McCartin. For the UK-based Atlantic edition, Toby Mundy was editor, and others involved were editorial director Sarah Castleman, jacket designer Coralie Bickford-Smith, and publicist Frances Owen.
Throughout Discipline I make a number of predictions for which I should be held accountable. They include forecasts about urbanization after the 2009 financial crisis, peak world population, Chernobyl National Park, GE poplars in China, the future opinions of Amory Lovins and Bjørn Lomborg, the engineered revival of the American chestnut, and GE biocontrol organisms for restoration. Formal, falsifiable versions of the predictions, complete with my detailed argument in each case, have been placed on a Web site called Long Bets: www.longbets.org. There you may vote on my forecasts, comment about them, and even bet money against me about them. As history proceeds, you can watch me be wrong, or maybe even right. Better still, post your own predictions for the judgment of history.
—Stewart Brand
April 2009
INDEX
Abahlali baseMjondolo
“Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security, An” (Schwartz and Randall)
“Absence of Detectable Transgenes in Local Landraces in Oaxaca, Mexico” (Soberón et al.)
Ackroyd, Peter
Adamchak, Raoul
Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE)
aerosols
AES
Africa genetic engineering and wildlands restoration and
Africa Harvest Biotech Foundation
African Agricultural Technology Foundation (A ATF)
African Biofortified Sorghum Project
Agricultural Testament, An (Howard)
agriculture climate change and
contract farming and
genetic engineering and
Green Revolution and
milpa field system and
Native Americans and
no-till form of
slash and char in
urbanization and
Agriculture Department, U.S.
Alexie, Sherman
algae
Algeny (Rifkin)
alien invasives
Allen, William
Alley, Richard
AllianceBernstein
All Species Inventory
Amazon rain forest
Ambedkar, B. R.
Ambio
Amboseli National Park
American Chestnut (Freinkel)
American Chestnut Foundation
America Needs Indians
America’s Ancient Forests (Bonnicksen)
Ames, Bruce
Ammann, Klaus
Anastas, Paul
Anderson, Kat
Anderson, Rip
Andreae, Meinrat
Angel, Roger
Archer, David
Arctic
Arctic Marine Council
Argentina
Asia
genetic engineering and
Green Revolution and
urbanization and
see also specific countries
Asian Development Bank
Asilomar Conference on Recombinant DNA Molecules
Association of Space Explorers
asteroids
Australia
Ausubel, Jesse
autocatalytic technologies
automobiles
background radiation
bacteria
gene transfer and
human body and
seawater and
Baer, José
Baer, Steve
Bailey, Ronald
Baker, Robert
Baldwin, J.
Bali
Bangladesh
Banyacya, Thomas
Barcode of Life
Baskin, Yvonne
bats
Bay Conservation and Development Commission
bears
beavers
Bechman, Roland
Beebe, Spencer
Belarus
Benedict XIV, Pope
Benford, Gregory
Benyus, Janine
Berlin, Isaiah
beta-carotene
Betts, Richard
Beyer, Peter
Bezdek, Roger H.
Bhopal, India
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
BioBricks Foundation
BioCassava Plus
biochar
biocontrol
biodiversity
Biodiversity Heritage Library
biofuels
biological warfare
biomass
biomimicry
Biomimicry (Benyus)
Biosphere Preserves
biotechnology
bioterrorism
bison (buffalo)
Blake, William
Blessed Unrest (Hawken)
Board of California Certified Organic Farmers
Bobiec, Andrzej
Bonnicksen, Thomas
Borlaug, Norman
Bormann, Herbert
Bradley, Eileen
Bradley, Joan
Brave New War (Robb)
Brazil
genetic engineering and
Brecht, Bertolt
breeder reactors
Brent, Roger
Bringing Back the Bush (Bradley and Bradley)
British Antarctic Survey
Brockman, John
Brower, David
Brown, Gordon
Brown, James
Brown, Jerry
Brown, Nancy
Bt crops see also genetic engineering
buildings
Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S.
Bureau of Land Management, U.S.
Buried Book, The (Damrosch)
Bush, George W.
“Butterflies and Plants” (Raven and Ehrlich)
Byers, Eben
C4 rice
Caldeira, Ken
California
biodiversity and
genetic engineering and
pre-Columbian agriculture in
California Invasive Plant Council
California Native Plant Society
California Water Atlas
Calthorpe, Peter
Canada
fisheries of
nuclear power and
cancer
cap-and-trade markets
carbon capture and sequestration (CCS)
algae and
carbon dioxide
carbon sinks
carbon taxes
Carlson, Rob
Carson, Rachel
Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (2000)
Caruso, Denise
Cascio, Jamais
cattle
cellphones
cellulose
Center for Biosafety, South African
Challenge of Slums, The (UN-HABITAT)
Chapela, Ignacio
charcoal
Charles, Prince of Wales
chemical mutagenesis
Chernobyl disaster (1986)
Chesser, Ronald
children, disease and
China
genetic engineering and
green engineering and
Green Revolution and
nuclear power and
urbanization and
Chinese Academy of Forestry
Chipchase, Jan
Chu, Steven
Church, George
cities
agriculture and
ecological footprint of
economic growth and
infrastructure of
innovation and
New Urbanism and
population growth and
slums and, see slums
warfare and
see also urbanization
Citizendium
clathrates
Clean Air Act (1970)
Clean and Safe Energy Coalition
Clean Water Act (1972)
climate change
agriculture and
algae and
biodiversity and
forests and, see forests
genetic engineering and
nuclear power and
population growth and
satellite monitoring of
Climate Crash (Cox)
Climatic Change
Closing Circle, The (Commoner)
coal
coccolithophores
Cochran, Gregory
coevolution
CoEvolution Quarterly
cogeneration
Cohen, Joel
Collapse (Diamond)
combined heat and power (CHP)
Commoner, Barry
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, Australian
community-supported agriculture
confirmation bias
Congress, U.S.
nuclear power and
Conservation
Conservation Foundation
Conservation Pledge
Constant Battles (LeBlanc and Register)
Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research
contract farming
Conway, Gordon
Cook, Jim
corn
Costa Rica
Cotter, Janet
cotton
Counterculture Green (Kirk)
Cousteau, Jacques Yves
Cox, John
Cox, Peter
Cravens, Gwyneth
Crook, Clive
Crop Residue Oceanic Permanent Sequestration (CROPS)
Crutzen, Paul
Cultures of Habitat (Nabhan)
cyclones
Damrosch, David
Darwin, Charles
Data-Intensive Scalable Computer systems
Davis, Mike
DDT
Decline of the West (Spengler)
Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR)
Degrees of Disaster (Wheelwright)
Delmer, Deborah
Delta & Pine Land Company
Denning, Scott
desalination
deserts
de Soto, Hernando
Dhaka, Bangladesh
diabetes
Diamond, Jared
Dicamba
Discover
Discovery of Global Warming (Weart)
diseases
DMZ Forum
DNA
synthesizing of
Doctorow, Cory
dogs
Donlan, Josh
Doubly Green Revolution, The (Conway)
Douglas, Mary
Dow AgroSciences
Drange, Helge
drought
Duany, Andrés
Dubock, Adrian
Ducks Unlimited
DuPont-Pioneer
Dyson, Freeman
Earle, Sylvia
Earth in the Balance (Gore)
Earth Day
Earth First!
Earth Liberation Front
Earthrise (Poole)
E. coli
ecological inheritance
Ecologist
Economist
Eco-pragmatism (Farber)
ecosystem engineering see also geoengineering
ecosystem services
ecotechnology
Ecotrust
Ehrlich, Paul
Eighth Day of Creation, The (Judson)
electric power
nuclear power and
elephants
Elmqvist, Thomas
EMBO Reports
Empty Cradle, The (Longman)
“Encyclopedia of Life, The” (Wilson)
endangered and threatened species
Ending the Energy Stalemate (Ehrlich)
End of Nature, The (McKibben)
endosymbiotic theory
Endy, Drew
Energy Policy Act (2005)
environment, carrying capacity of
environmental movement
engineers and
Nazism and
politics and
pragmatism and
quality of judgment and
romanticism and
science and
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S.
Essay on the Principle of Population, An (Malthus)
ETC Group
Europe
genetic engineering and
urbanization in
see also specific countries
European Space Agency
European Union (EU)
eutrophication
evolution
Expert Political Judgment (Tetlock)
“Extreme Genetic Engineering” (Thomas)
Exxon Valdez
Fagan, Brian
famines
Farber, Daniel
Farmers of Forty Centuries (King)
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