Alistair Watt writes: The negative effects of living next to a wind power generating station have been known for some time. Consequently, to label opposition to them on that basis as NIMBY is unfair. Not In Anyone's Back Yard (NIABY) would be more appropriate. OK, let's review. We have to do something about electrical generation in Nova Scotia, because we currently burn the dirtiest possible fuel, coal, to produce about 75 percent of our power, and greenhouse gasses pose a grave and urgent risk to the future of the planet.  However: We can't use hydro, because there are no big rivers left to...

16 September, 2009
Seminal environmentalist (and sometime Cape Breton summer resident) Stewart Brand promotes a series of environmental heresies in this surprising talk. In 1968, Brand created the Whole Earth Catalog, which Apple founder Steve Jobs described as the conceptual forerunner of the World Wide Web. A counter-cultural touchstone, the Catalog helped inspire and galvanize the environmental movement. Today, Brand calls himself an ecopragmatist. This talk previews Whole Earth Discipline, a book he will publish this Fall challenging contemporary environmentalists to reconsider objections to nuclear power and genetically modified foods. Brand is pro-city, pro-genetic engineering, pro-nuclear, and so profoundly worried about climate change, he believes geoengineering will probably be necessary. After the jump, some excerpts from the talk.
14 July, 2009