To my mind, this sounds obnoxious. Villages are inefficient if you have to drag nuclear or thermal power over distances of 10,000 kms, but if you could allow and invest in villages investing in their own local power – through solar, wind, bio-gas, biofuels – that would change the demographics of the village.

People migrate to cities, to live in near-inhuman living conditions in slums (squatter cities!) to get out of abject poverty – absolutely correct. But the answer to get them out of this poverty is not in getting them to cities and claiming that it is a “good thing”. On the contrary, the model of our “skewed economics” city-centric, solely-profit-oriented (without values of maximising human creativity, spreading love, compassion) needs to change.

Stewart Brand sounded nothing more than rhetoric here with the message and the wry smile – “we’re shining back at them” – means nothing – to address the state of the world we’re in. The climate crisis we’re in is a result of thinking of such policy makers, I feel.