Lessons from an aging hippy

Those of a certain age probably read the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe's chronicle of the Merry Pranksters and psychedic movement in mid-sixties San Francisco. I did and, although I no longer find much in the movement admirable (I am, in its parlance, "off the bus"), I still have fond memories of meeting Ken Kesey at a Harvard function and ... you know ... inhaling.

One of the Merry Pranksters was a guy named Stewart Brand who is now regarded as one of the founders of the environmental movement and the originator of The Whole Earth Catalog from which Moondog and Sunbeam ordered ordered hemp sleepers for little Starshine. He later went on to become a guru of the cyberage.

There's an interesting interview with him in today's New York Times. It seems two things worry him about the environmental movement today. The first is its tendency to see problems in romantic rather than scientific terms. For him, the answer to global warming is nuclear power not a return to the Bronze Age. For guys like Al Gore who apparently have a carbon footprint the size of Megalasaurus, this has to be good news.

He also cautions against apocalyptic thinking. But then Al's already got the Oscar.