In couple of weeks I am off to Tokyo for six weeks on my annual pilgrimage. The first blog I will post will be on a fascinating book about the Whole Earth Catalog and its associated movement by Andrew Kirk.
I just have to point out at this moment that one of the greatest contributions of Stewart Brand, myself and others was to the environmental movement. We changed it from Sierra Club conservation of land to personal responsibility in behavior and consumption. We appreciated technology and saw its positive potential from solar power to wind generation (and most recently nuclear power). At the same time as we promoted the personal vision, there was an apocalyptic end of the world vision (not ours) that still prevails in the political landscape.
For the Whole Earth movement, fear of the end of the earth can never be as strong a motivator as personal values and personal solutions that lead to recycling and saving resources for their own sake. I have been a simple liver for forty years and have always been enchanted by the simple livers around me (Al Gore is not one of them). None of them do it for fear of the end of the world, they do it for pure joy. They bicycle for the exercise, fresh air and exhilaration. The personal-environmentalist's influence on others is the Whole Earth contribution to the environmental world, regardless of whether you believe in human caused-global warming or not.