We are gods and we have to get good at it?

Stewart Brand’s new book ‘Whole Earth Discipline’ marks him out as ‘post green’. The book is a mine of fascinating and challenging information advocating the use of nuclear energy, GM crops and geo-engineering to solve climate change. But it is more than facts. It depends on a particular view of human nature.

I have not read a book as challenging as this for a long while. It is the first time I have read anything that seriously questions our EarthAbbey commitment to live more in tune with the earth.

Brand’s basic message is summed up in his phrase ‘We are gods and we have to get good at it.’ Clearly taking his rise from Gen 3 v 5, Brand argues that we are powerful creatures facing an imminent crisis and we need to use all our creative, scientific ingenuity to confront climate change. That basic attitude introduces a comprehensive debunking of many Green stances vis a vis nuclear energy and GM crops. As I read his work, I recognised in myself a desire to write all this off, it was simply too challenging. Yet I was consistently impressed by the quality of his argument and look forward to reading the response of others, who will criticise the details better than I can. 

Yet there is a deep critique that needs to be made. Brand is at heart an entrepreneur. He likes to make things happen and betrays a ‘fix it’ attitude to the world. For him a problem like climate change is not a cause for humble re-examination of our culture, it is a time to rise up and experiment with the world. Brand sees us as primarily shapers of earth history rather than creatures who are shaped by it. In his estimation we are already having a massive impact on the earth, so we must now take responsibility and begin to actively shape the future. And that means embracing geo-engineering and nuclear and GM and all the other things that greens have grown to hate.

At first glance Brand’s position seems quite reasonable. But then you begin to notice things. Why is there no critique of our consumerist culture? Why is almost everything he advocates a business opportunity? What links does all this have to the Global Business Network which he co-founded?

Since the advent of postmodernism very few people would advocate treating business as a neutral venture, but, curiously, this is just what Brand does. Is he, like Lovelock, of an age to be simply a child of modernism? Why does he attempt to bracket away all ideological questions in the pursuit of a pure scientifically-informed endeavour? Is this not at least as naïve as those greens who he accuses of a disastrous ‘fealty to a mystical absolute’?

One reason for the importance of ideological and faith positions is surely that they allow us to talk about those deep level commitments that we have about the world that are so important to get right if we are to develop truly helpful paths into the future.  A fuller Judaeo-Christian critique of this would surely recognise the tension between acknowledging our God given power in the earth (they shall be like gods knowing good and evil) and our corruption, with its tendency to pursue our own greed.(eg the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life 1 John 2 v 17). And the result would be a proper humility and a seeking after God.

The scariest chapter is probably the last, dealing with a range of global fixes like spraying sea water into the atmosphere, or seeding it with sulphur particles, or putting iron filings into the sea. For Brand this type of thing will soon become essential. He says we have already shown ourselves unable to respond adequately in cultural terms. Now is the day for the fix.

You will make your own conclusions about this book, but the biggest worry is that this book will lull people into inaction. We will leave it to others to clear up our mess.

Geo-engineering may be part of the answer or it may be, in the words of Meinrat Andreae, ‘like a junkie figuring out new ways of stealing from his children’.

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