Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog, has a new book coming in October called Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.

In it, the longtime environmentalist argues that nuclear power, genetically modified crops, and geo-engineering – approaches generally abhorred by enviro-purists – are necessary to solve the litany of ecological problems currently facing humanity.

(For a quick run-through of the ideas contained in the book, see Mr. Brand's TED talk here. And here's a more recent, albeit longer talk.)

The ideas Brand proposes are not necessarily new. (For articles on geoengineering, click here. And here's a story on the "new nuclear enthusiasm."

But one of Brand's ideas warrants special attention for its counterintuitive implications. Urban slums, he says, nearly all of which exist in the developing world, are a solution to poverty, he argues, not a cause.

They're also good for the environment.

In the October issue of Wired magazine (though unavailable on its website at this writing), "The Smart List" issue, he explains:

What makes squatter cities so important?

That's where vast number of humans – slum dwellers – are doing urban stuff in new and amazing ways. And [...]  there are a billion of them! People are trying desperately to get out of poverty, so there's a lot of creativity; they collaborate in ways that we've completely forgotten how to do in regular cities. And there's a transition: People come in from the countryside, enter the rickshaw economy, and work for almost nothing. But after a while, they move uptown, into the formal economy.[...]

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