Sixty Days and Counting
by Matthew Sparkes, London, UK on 07. 3.07
Kim Stanley Robinson is a science fiction author, whose trilogy on the danger of climate change was completed in April with the release of Sixty Days and Counting. It, and previous installments; Forty Days Signs of Rain and Fifty Degrees Below, feature a future Earth ravaged by the effects of climate change.
Wired has an interesting interview with him where he talks about the difference between the Earth at present and his novels, and what he believes needs to happen to ensure we have a long future on this planet.
Wired News: You use the analogy of falling from a cliff when discussing humanity and climate change. Do you think coming changes will be so abrupt?
Kim Stanley Robinson: It's not the best analogy. But when I'm in the Sierras, because of the way the glaciers carved the landscape, you come to points where it's a difficult down-climb off a promontory to a better situation. That's probably what history in the 21st century is going to be like.
Many of the technologies we've invented are necessary to keep 6.5 billion people alive. We can't go back from that, so we need to decarbonize really rapidly. ::Wired
There is plenty of reason to hope. I just returned from souther Canifornia, where I walked a lot, and there are beautiful, big new articulated double buses, which represent a big investment in mass transit, and a lot more xericulture. It's catching on!
The traffic also seemed lighter, owing to higher gas? I think there's a lot to fear about the future, but also a lot of reasons to hope.
It's Forty SIGNS of Rain
But Southern California is just one example. I live in Billings, Montana. We have a bus system, but the only folks who use it are students going to and from school (and they have school buses too) and retired folks (not many of them). Billings is suffering from a major case of urban sprawl, and 90% of people drive everywhere, including a couple of blocks down the street. We also have a coal fire power plant, and a Conoco refinery.
Some of the bigger cities might be getting involved, but I think the inner portions of the country are far behind the few metropolises.
This reminds me of the book "September Snow" which i bought a few months back. Met the author at barnes and nobles, they let him sell it in local stores only, as a curiosity event -- "what, an actual author in the store?"
The phenomena in general reminds me of Kilgore Trout.