108 Quotes by Stewart Brand

Tool – something with a use on one end and a grasp on the other end.

When Brian Eno approached the father of Anthea Norman-Taylor for permission to marry her, he was told, “What you have to ask yourself is, ‘Would I wish this woman to be the grandmother of my grandchildren?

Up until 2003, I had only the usual concerns about climate change. Back in 1982, my wife and I bought an old tugboat to live on because it was impervious to the California hazards of earthquake and wildfire, and what the hell, because it was a cheap way to own a bayfront home with never a care about rising sea levels from global warming. Climate change was fun to think about, dire but distant.

Style is time’s fool. Form is time’s student.

The scale of forces, this time, is planetary; the scope is centuries; the stakes are what we call civilization; and it is all taking place at the headlong speed of self-accelerating human technologies and climatic turbulence. Talk of “saving the planet” is overstated, however. Earth will be fine, no matter what; so will life. It is humans who are in trouble. But since we got ourselves into this fix, we should be able to get ourselves out of it.

The main problem with solar on the Earth’s surface is that it is so intermittent, and we don’t have decent storage yet.

There’s no unemployment in squatter cities. Everyone works. One-sixth of humanity is there. It’s soon going to be more than that.

When the government tries to run innovation, sometimes it does it well and sometimes it doesn’t. So setting up a situation where the market runs innovation, which is a cap-and-trade idea, may well have more flexibility.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.