Acclaimed Sci-Fi Writer On How Humanity Will Endure the Climate Crisis (theguardian.com) 206
In an opinion piece for The Guardian, science fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson shares which actions be believes need to be taken to address the climate crisis. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from the report, written by Daniel Aldana Cohen, assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley: To really grasp the present, we need to imagine the future -- then look back from it to better see the now. The angry climate kids do this naturally. The rest of us need to read good science fiction. A great place to start is Kim Stanley Robinson. Robinson is one of the most brilliant writers of the genre. During Covid quarantine, I read 11 of his books, culminating in his instant classic The Ministry for the Future, which imagines several decades of climate politics starting this decade. The first lesson of his books is obvious: climate is the story. [...] What Ministry and other Robinson books do is make us slow down the apocalyptic highlight reel, letting the story play in human time for years, decades, centuries. The screen doesn't fade to black; instead we watch people keep dying, and coping, and struggling to shape a future -- often gloriously.
I spoke to Robinson recently for an episode of the podcast The Dig. He told me that he wants leftists to set aside their differences, and put a "time stamp on [their] political view" that recognizes how urgent things are. Looking back from 2050 leaves little room for abstract idealism. Progressives need to form "a united front," he told me. "It's an all-hands-on-deck situation; species are going extinct and biomes are dying. The catastrophes are here and now, so we need to make political coalitions." The point of Robinson's decades of sci-fi isn't to simply counsel "vote blue no matter who." He told me he remains a proud and longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). But he does want leftists -- and everyone else -- to take the climate emergency more seriously. He thinks every big decision, every technological option, every political opportunity, warrants climate-oriented scientific scrutiny. Global justice demands nothing less.
Robinson's "all-hands" call is even more challenging on technology and economics than on electoral campaigns. He wants to legitimize geoengineering, even in forms as radical as blasting limestone dust into the atmosphere for a few years to temporarily dim the heat of the sun. As Ministry dramatizes, and as he reminded me, there's a good chance that a country being devastated by climate breakdown will try this, whether it's authorized by the international community or not. More broadly, Robinson seems to be urging all of us to treat every possible technological intervention -- from expanding nuclear energy, to pumping meltwater out from under glaciers, to dumping iron filings in the ocean -- from a strictly scientific perspective: reject dogma, evaluate the evidence, ignore the profit motive.
I spoke to Robinson recently for an episode of the podcast The Dig. He told me that he wants leftists to set aside their differences, and put a "time stamp on [their] political view" that recognizes how urgent things are. Looking back from 2050 leaves little room for abstract idealism. Progressives need to form "a united front," he told me. "It's an all-hands-on-deck situation; species are going extinct and biomes are dying. The catastrophes are here and now, so we need to make political coalitions." The point of Robinson's decades of sci-fi isn't to simply counsel "vote blue no matter who." He told me he remains a proud and longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). But he does want leftists -- and everyone else -- to take the climate emergency more seriously. He thinks every big decision, every technological option, every political opportunity, warrants climate-oriented scientific scrutiny. Global justice demands nothing less.
Robinson's "all-hands" call is even more challenging on technology and economics than on electoral campaigns. He wants to legitimize geoengineering, even in forms as radical as blasting limestone dust into the atmosphere for a few years to temporarily dim the heat of the sun. As Ministry dramatizes, and as he reminded me, there's a good chance that a country being devastated by climate breakdown will try this, whether it's authorized by the international community or not. More broadly, Robinson seems to be urging all of us to treat every possible technological intervention -- from expanding nuclear energy, to pumping meltwater out from under glaciers, to dumping iron filings in the ocean -- from a strictly scientific perspective: reject dogma, evaluate the evidence, ignore the profit motive.
KSR is not qualified (Score:5, Informative)
In my opinion, KSR is not qualified to make these radical statements. He is not a biologist or ecologist, and does not understand what he is talking about.
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In my opinion, KSR is not qualified to make these radical statements. He is not a biologist or ecologist, and does not understand what he is talking about.
More importantly, I tried reading his Mars books, and they were trash.
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By the middle of Blue Mars, I was just done... I couldn't wait to finish the book.
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More importantly, I tried reading his Mars books, and they were trash.
I loved them.
Re:KSR is not qualified (Score:5, Insightful)
You're not even qualified to critique him, though, so there's that.
And he definitely knows what he's talking about. If you were capable of understanding his books, you'd realize that he consults with a huge number of experts in those fields who he consults for his books. They are the ones who he would listen to; not you.
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Scientifically speaking, there's no reason to panic before 2050 because of a climate crisis. And "blasting limestone dust into the atmosphere to temporarily dim the heat of the sun" is a panic move.
Re:KSR is not qualified (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:KSR is not qualified (Score:4, Interesting)
Its better to just stop using fossil fuels and start using synthetic fuels made from nuclear.
You know, Sandia NREL proved in the 1980s that we can make biodiesel from algae using low-cost, low-tech solutions. And we actually have enough unused desert land in the US for example that we could do it there and actually produce 100% of the transportation fuel needs for this country. Yet for some reason people who should know better keep promoting synthfuels from nuclear as if it made sense. It does not.
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Because making biodiesel can use fluctuating power sources, it can be a good application for small renewables. Use nuclear for our cities and heavy industries. And no, "Let's send all the heavy industry to China and not have cities at all" is not a solution to a worldwide problem.
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The guy is simply not relevant to anything. Red Mars, his magnum opus, was basically unreadable IMO. Green and Blue Mars, which I obviously didn't read, were about terraforming. I haven't read the remainder of his books but it seems very obvious that he glommed onto the climate change movement to try and sell more books... after all if your stories suck, you can always try and peddle fear.
We've already proven on slashdot that nuclear power checks all the boxes for 'green' energy except the luddite/fearmon
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Not really sure, if there is no reason to panic.
Plenty of areas are hit hard already.
The only reason not to panic is: you can not do anything anyway to advert the current problems. You can only try to prepare for the future and same time, change behaviour to mitigate the impact.
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Scientifically speaking, there's no reason to panic before 2050 because of a climate crisis. And "blasting limestone dust into the atmosphere to temporarily dim the heat of the sun" is a panic move.
If we're going to geoengineer, which will be controversial enough, we would want it to be sequestration, not shading. Better to remove the CO2 rather than just temporarily paper the problem over.
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2050 will be way too late to avoid catastrophic climate change.
Which catastrophe in particular are you worried about? Or maybe you don't have a particular one in mind?
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most of the human population will die off on a jungle planet
Not backed by evidence.
More than a little Self-serving (Score:2)
Re: More than a little Self-serving (Score:2)
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Re:KSR is not qualified (Score:4, Insightful)
If you install 100GW of a power source that only works 1/24th of the time on average
And what - which ? - kind of power source would be that?
That's why we are burning more fossil fuels today than ever before, even in Germany. ... Germany is around 50% renewables and 10% nukes ... no idea from where you get your "news". You should review your news providers ...
For electric power production?
Nope
Re: KSR is not qualified (Score:4, Insightful)
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oh well (Score:2)
Desperation is a thing (Score:4, Interesting)
He wants to legitimize geoengineering, even in forms as radical as blasting limestone dust into the atmosphere for a few years to temporarily dim the heat of the sun. As Ministry dramatizes, and as he reminded me, there's a good chance that a country being devastated by climate breakdown will try this, whether it's authorized by the international community or not.
And there it is. Countries will threaten to use nuclear weapons, bomb buildings, and start wars even in the comparably acceptable global situation of the recent and present, and as they say, "desperate times call for desperate measures."
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Countries will threaten to use nuclear weapons
lol
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wtf? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:wtf? (Score:4, Funny)
Sooo now we are turning to fiction writers with absolutely zero qualifications for climate advise? seriously?
There weren't any famous actors or sports stars available to ask at the time.
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sooo now we are turning to fiction writers with absolutely zero qualifications for climate advise? seriously?
No, you turn to the climate science community for that, not that that will make you any happier.
If a writer is not making any novel scientific claims, complaining he doesn't have the credentials to do that is being willfully obtuse. You don't need credentials to take as your premise what the overwhelming majority of scientists working in a field think the bulk of evidence demonstrates.
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Re:wtf? (Score:5, Informative)
KSR has a basic understanding of science, sufficient to permit him to consult experts when he writes his books. Some are more fanciful than others, but all are basically supported by science. There's plenty of "what if" in the books, but that's what makes them fiction.
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That's what he's been doing all along. His ideas have changed over the years... and there's been more books.
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And why do you come to the silly idea he has "zero qualifications for climate advise"?
Re:wtf? (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:wtf? (Score:4, Informative)
Next time you're in a bookstore or library open up a KSR book and see how many scientists he credits, people he consulted personally (rather than simply misinterpreting their scientific papers) on the science in question.
Sit in a room dreaming up stories? Scientists sit in a room dreaming up experiments. Then hopefully they carry them out, and then later science fiction authors contact the people who perform the experiments and make the science relatable to others through science fiction.
Re:wtf? (Score:5, Informative)
Who exactly is qualified to solve the climate mess?
Dr. David MacKay: http://www.withouthotair.com/a... [withouthotair.com]
Not a climate expert, but an AI expert.
Dr. Patrick Moore: http://ecosense.me/about/ [ecosense.me]
You have references climate change sceptics and climate change sceptic talking points multiple times now.
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2021/06/04/Fact-Checking-Patrick-Moore-Climate-Skeptic/
Moore claims to be a co-founder of Greenpeace. He wasn't.
In 2006, he disagreed with the scientific consensus on climate change in a letter to the Royal Society, arguing there was "no scientific proof" that mankind was causing global climate change[60] and believes that it "has a much better correlation with changes in solar activity than CO2 levels".[61] He has falsely claimed that there is no scientific evidence that carbon dioxide contributes to climate change.[62]>
This is a person you think is qualified to talk about climate change?
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Dr. David MacKay: http://www.withouthotair.com/a... [withouthotair.com]
Not a climate expert, but an AI expert.
Also dead for a while now, so not exactly up to date with the latest information.
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My crystal balls say (Score:3, Insightful)
The left will promise action and do little. The right will fight them every step of the way. Nothing effective will be done. Things will continue to get worse until there is a MAJOR disaster that can't be ignored. Millions will die and the survivors will do what they can to recover. Today's politicians on both sides will be vilified by future historians
Re:My crystal balls say (Score:5, Informative)
SPOILER WARNING
That's almost exactly how it happens in Kim Stanley Robinson's latest book, which covers this situation...
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Thanks for the summary of the discussion here.
OK then (Score:3)
...by his standard, "feeling really strongly that something is important" justifies ANY action, regardless of how it affects anyone else, and regardless of their consent.
Personally, I'd submit that's dangerous as fuck, and the sort of justification behind some of the worst atrocities in human history.
Zealots are cancer. Well meaning zealots who are CERTAIN that they're right are worse.
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People killing the biosphere are the cancer.
Give it a few major disasters with millions of dead and they'll start getting dragged into the streets...
Re:OK then (Score:5, Interesting)
I bet you wish that were true. Unfortunately for you, the situation is far more complex. See the issue here is that you just can't make enough batteries, PV cells and windmill turbines to ever de-carbonize the grid. There just isn't enough of the necessary elements on earth to do that. But folks want to believe this and even though you can look up this information yourself to see that its true, you won't believe it. Even with all the money spent on renewables, the increase in energy demand over that same period is more because wind and solar are horribly inefficient. That's why Germany is one of the most polluting countries in Europe even though they have spent a ton of money on renewables. Meanwhile in France, they have the cleanest grid in Europe and they are almost entirely nuclear (and sell Germany their excess on most days). This is so dramatic these days, that France can get German to do just about anything they want just by threatening to cut off their power. Such a lovely situation the Germans have gotten themselves into.
Climate change is an optimization problem. To solve it, you can't start with the least efficient technologies and expect to get anywhere. You have to use the most efficient ones (nuclear) and then adapt it to make the types of energy you need (fuel mostly). At scale this can be cheaper than extracting "natural" oil. To make matters worse for you, at some point people other than scientists and engineers are going to learn this. But at that point, I hope they don't drag you into the street and beat you within an inch of your life even though I do think you deserve that.
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See the issue here is that you just can't make enough batteries, PV cells and windmill turbines to ever de-carbonize the grid.
Luckily most people disagree with you.
Facts seem not to be your strength either.
That's why Germany is one of the most polluting countries in Europe even though they have spent a ton of money on renewables.
How exactly should a country that produces close to 60% of its electricity CO2 free be more polluting then let's say Spain or Italy, or Poland or Estonia?
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How exactly should a country that produces close to 60% of its electricity CO2 free be more polluting then let's say Spain or Italy, or Poland or Estonia?
It's more polluting per capita than Spain, Italy, Poland, but less than Estonia. There is still a lot of CO2 being emitted from cars and overall demand. Germany stands at 9.44t/capita, Spain at 5.40t/capita. Estonia is at 17.02. Poland 7.81, Italy 5.90. World average is 4.79.
https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-per-capita/
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I bet you wish that were true. Unfortunately for you, the situation is far more complex. See the issue here is that you just can't make enough batteries, PV cells and windmill turbines to ever de-carbonize the grid. There just isn't enough of the necessary elements on earth to do that.
Really? Iron and limestone are not in short supply, and rare earths are not rare.
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wind and solar are horribly inefficient.
EROEI is pretty much the same for wind as nuclear, probably a bit better for new installations (see Lazard 2020, et. al). So your comment doesn't pass muster. It would have been slightly true a decade ago, but not now.
That's why Germany is one of the most polluting countries in Europe
Germany needs to do a lot better, but it is putting in a lot more renewables. It's ahead of Luxembourg, Estonia, Gibraltar, Iceland, Russia, Czechia, Netherlands on a per capita basis (which you need to use to avoid just listing countries in order of size), but behind a lot of others. However,
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Climate change is an optimization problem. To solve it, you can't start with the least efficient technologies and expect to get anywhere. You have to use the most efficient ones (nuclear) and then adapt it to make the types of energy you need (fuel mostly).
The fallacy that underlines all of these discussions at a national and international level is that this is only a question of energy production. If we can just make enough energy cheap enough and clean enough it will solve all of our problems. It will not. Consumption, consumer consumption, is literally consuming the planet. The entire world is living off of the planet's principal instead of the interest. Until we have a societal change about growth and what that means, the planet is going to continue on it
We'll survive by adapting. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just that simple.
People seem to be of the mindset "Ooh! At this cut-off date, that's it. EVERYONE DIES!"
Stupid, insane and nothing could be further from the truth.
Not saying that it's going to be easy or pleasant adapting.
But we will adapt.
Re:We'll survive by adapting. (Score:5, Insightful)
Straw man. A thing doesn't have to wipe out every last human being to be a serious problem that should be addressed. Sure we'll adapt if the temperature goes +4C over pre-industrial. You'd adapt if all your money and assets were stolen, but that doesn't mean it's not something you'd prefer to avoid.
Most scientists, even most *environmentalists* don't think climate change is an extinction level event. They think is that climate change will stress habitats, resulting in a loss of diversity, biological resources, and ecological services. Since humans depend in various, largely unexamined ways on these things we'll see *economic stress*.
Adaptation costs under RCP 8.5 would consume about 10.5% of the US GDP [nber.org] by 2100.
Things remaining the same is just wishful thinking; one way or the other we're going to have to deal with changes. Those changes can be ones we choose are relatively good options, or they can be whatever circumstances and inaction force upon us.
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Had we started in 1990, when it was abundantly clear which way things were headed, it would have been a lot cheaper and easier for everyone. Too bad Shell was actively suppressing that information by funding "scientists" putting out papers saying the science was unclear, just so they could go on drilling. And I'm sure other oil companies were doing the same.
If there is a reckoning later on, when people are dying in droves, I guess the oil companies will be facing a lot of scrutiny. But by then the culprits
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Most scientists, even most *environmentalists* don't think climate change is an extinction level event.
Not for *our* species. But for our technology level. Or where exactly do you plan to build new cities and set up new farms?
+4C on average - means +20C at some places, over long periods of the year. Sea level rises for such changes are only "estimates". 10 - 20 yards sea level rising will hurt. Only countries - if it once will be one again - like Tibet, would be safe. Or Afganistan or Parkistan. Safe from
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It's just that simple.
People seem to be of the mindset "Ooh! At this cut-off date, that's it. EVERYONE DIES!"
Stupid, insane and nothing could be further from the truth.
Not saying that it's going to be easy or pleasant adapting.
But we will adapt.
I live in the American South, and this is basically the mindset of 80% of the population. It reminds me of a Hank Williams, Jr. Song [youtube.com] . So many people in my region believe that climate change is meaningless because they can just adapt and overcome.
Re:We'll survive by adapting. (Score:4, Insightful)
People seem to be of the mindset "Ooh! At this cut-off date, that's it. EVERYONE DIES!"
That's not what most people think. What many people do think that is related to that idea, however, is that past some cut-off point the changes will be practically irreversible and the relative condition of stasis that enabled human societies to thrive despite our only operating efficiently in a fairly narrow range of temperatures will end, making human life dramatically more difficult to sustain.
Stupid, insane and nothing could be further from the truth.
The straw man you presented could reasonably be described in that way, although there are plenty of things farther from the truth, because if climate does enter a runaway condition past a tipping point then it is likely that most of the people on the planet will die within a relatively short period.
Not saying that it's going to be easy or pleasant adapting. But we will adapt.
If global climate goes sufficiently bananas, and there are some scientifically sound proposed mechanisms for this to actually happen like the "methane clathrate [wikipedia.org] gun [royalsocie...ishing.org]" hypothesis, then most of us likely won't make it. And frankly, given that Biosphere 1 was a technical failure and Biosphere 2 was a social one (leading to also being a technical failure) it seems like a fairly sound theory that we in fact cannot keep any significant number of humans alive without the environment functioning essentially as we know it.
It is fundamentally possible that AGW will drive humanity to extinction. How likely that is remains the subject of scientific debate. The fact that it's even a possibility ought to encourage a whole lot more interest in solving the problem, but it doesn't seem to have done so as most people are still insisting that it can't happen without any scientific support for that idea. AGW denialists want to simultaneously profess the belief that humans can't possibly be responsible for changes in the climate when the climate has previously changed far more than even most of the most pessimistic estimates of the impact of AGW, as well as the belief that climate change cannot threaten humanity's existence, but these beliefs are fundamentally incompatible! If non-anthropogenic climate change that makes our species nonviable can occur, and the climate is changing even though we're supposedly not responsible for it, then there's no reason to believe that the climate will continue to support our species.
However, since we know that CO2 is a strong and persistent GHG, and we know that we emit more CO2 than many natural processes which we know to influence climate, some of which have influenced it dramatically in the past, there's no good reason to imagine that humans aren't capable of making the planet unlivable.
Why the left (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why the left (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that conservatives love big oil and big steel and all the other "old" companies. There are very natural ties between the people on their boards and conservative political organizations. This makes it politically difficult for conservatives to say "sure, we have a problem". I remember an attempt to found the "Green Right" (as opposed to Green Left, an existing political party) - it has been tried about two times now, and never gets anywhere due to lack of funding and members.
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Exactly this, and therein lies the problem. By defining this as a problem to be solved by "leftists," not only are the evil conservatives excluded (who are all needed in any solution BTW, and there are a lot of business-minded folks who probably would be happy to participate if they weren't perpetually demonized and viewed exclusively as a bank from which to extract unending taxes), but you've also ensured that non-lefties will NEVER participate because you're explicitly linking climate survival with incre
Not the first climate crisis (Score:4, Insightful)
Never ceases to amaze me how every (not without exception, by definition of the word "exception") climate-crisis discussion presumes this is the very first one.
I'm not that old. But in my life-time:
acid rain
hole in the ozone
pollution
running out of landfills
running out of oil
running out of copper (okay, that one's way before my time)
My father's not a meteorologist; he likes to say that the best-bet prediction for the weather is "tomorrow will be pretty much like today" -- you'll be correct more often than the weather report.
I'll use my father's wisdom to predict what we'll do about global warming: we'll do pretty much the same as we did with all of the past climate crises.
Re: Not the first climate crisis (Score:5, Insightful)
But climate change is different. If you stop polluting with co2 now it'll still be changing for many years. The lead time is long enough that people have a hard time conceptualising it. The weather around here might be similar today as it was yesterday, but not so 50 years ago. But despite the evidence of this, people don't accept it, they only remember that one hot summer and bitter cold winter. Slightly milder all year doesn't really register. Except the farmers do see the change. For them, in the exact place I live, so far this has been a boon, but it won't be if it continues.
Those other problems got solved because people saw the problem and the timeframe and feedback was short enough to understand, plus the solutions were not that difficult. IF we'd (when I say we, I mean the US political leaders) had committed to solving this one in the 80s/90s then it would have been substantially easier, though not easy.
Anyway, it'll be solved. Time will roll on. Humanity will get past it or die or be reduced.
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"But climate change is different."
That's what everyone always says about the newest anything.
Re: Not the first climate crisis (Score:3)
So why is it the same, in your mind? I put it to you that
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Running out of various things- the Earth's crust is very substantial and so that's just an economic problem of whether it's worth exploring and digging.
Technically global warming is just an economic problem, too.
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Running out of various things- the Earth's crust is very substantial and so that's just an economic problem of whether it's worth exploring and digging.
And this is why Kentucky Fried Dodo stores are in every town.
Re: Not the first climate crisis (Score:2)
acid rain - pollution hole in the ozone - pollution pollution - pollution running out of landfills - pollution running out of oil causing pollution Do you get the picture?
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...climate change isn't new; we've done nothing but moved it around?
yes, I believe that was my point.
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I'm a little older:
Global Winter
Acid Rain
Ozone Hole
Global Warming
"Peak Oil"
Copper Shortage
Landfill space Shortage
Pandemic (SARS and MERS)
"Climate Change"
Rare Earth Shortage
Pandemic (SARS2)
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rare earth shortage is kinda real in that rare earth mining is horrible for the environment
Except for the fact: that it is not
No idea why people are parroting nonsense they saw somewhere on the internet instead of reading a bit about it.
What exactly is horrible for the environment in pumping water down into the earth, and extracting the minerals from the water coming back up? Hu?
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you'll be correct more often than the weather report.
Well, meanwhile weather reports - especially wind and cloud cover - are extremely accurate 7 to 10 days into the future. I guess the thousands of metering stations and particularly the satellites help a lot.
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I'm not that old. But in my life-time:
acid rain
hole in the ozone
pollution
running out of landfills
running out of oil
running out of copper (okay, that one's way before my time)
[...]
I'll use my father's wisdom to predict what we'll do about global warming: we'll do pretty much the same as we did with all of the past climate crises.
Of those things you mentioned, only two out of six are climatological. The problem with borrowing someone else's wisdom is that you might wildly misapply it, as you have here.
Capitalism cannot be ignored. (Score:2, Informative)
This guy thinks we can just remove capitalism from the equation of solving global warming. We can't ignore capitalism because capitalism is merely a word to describe very basic and innate human behavior. Capitalism is a derogatory term cooked up by socialist to describe a free market. A free market means people get to choose what they buy and sell, and the rate of exchanges for what is bought and sold. Mr. Robinson thinks there will be some kind of popular uprising to demand the governments and banks o
Must be (Score:3)
Leftists are the solution to climate change? (Score:2)
Leftism is hardly the ideal solution to climate change. After all, communist countries have terrible environmental records.
The most workable, efficient way is to use a free market approach. Put taxes on pollution emissions, for example. The market will then adapt to emitting less.
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The biggest "communist country" has free markets :P
So I guess you are mixing up "communism", "free market", "democracy" with "functional government" - or even "functional society".
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The biggest "communist country" has free markets :P
Well, it's not actually communist, except by self-description. But by that measure, North Korea is democratic, so we can go ahead and ignore self-descriptions. But they also don't have free markets. If what you're doing conflicts with the Party's interests then they put a stop to it. That's not free at all.
Left (Score:2)
What's this fawning about the left? Climate is climate, it's not particularly bound to left vs right. If anything, conservatism, in its name at least, is about conserving things we already have, for example, nature, species, habitats. Environmentalists restrict their realm to the left at the peril of all of us
Re: Left (Score:2)
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I'm all for saving... (Score:2)
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...the planet but first we have to make sure that EVERYONE is using the right pronouns. Misgendering is far more urgent priority!
Luckily in English this is easy, it’s: “we’re fucked”
Ignore the profit motive (Score:2)
The people who are capable of putting aside the profit motive for a greater good aren't the ones who own the economy that is polluting the earth with waste products. Until those of us who want something other than to make tons of money at the world's expense collaborate to make it painful for them to produce crappy, disposable goods, they'll continue to put profits first.
Start with Amazon: if you're using prime you're desolating the world for your convenience.
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Kim Stanley Robinson is basically a hack. He writes science fantasy that ignores basic physics laws with a greenie hippie agenda. Basically all the classic tropes: "Natives close to nature", "wisdom of ancients", "poor oppressed minorities fighting back", etc.
Yeah, the Mars series started out with a really interesting premise, but became blabbering political nonsense. Glad I'm not the only one that doesn't give a crap what he thinks.
Re:KSR is just a hack (Score:5, Interesting)
greenie hippie agenda
My god you're a fucking idiot, he's the greatest science fiction writer of his generation.
You don't like books that talk about real problems in the world, I get it. You'd rather keep your head in the sand. It doesn't somehow change the laws of physics so that his book are "impwossuble," as you accuse.
Notice how your actual complaints have nothing to do with "basic physics laws"[]?
Lets hear how his books violate the laws of physics. I already know what you're going to say; "We dunta no how to buld that yut, so its unpwossuble!"
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greenie hippie agenda
My god you're a fucking idiot, he's the greatest science fiction writer of his generation.
The Expanse series is better than anything Kim Stanley Robinson has ever written.
Re:KSR is just a hack (Score:4, Interesting)
The Expanse series is better than anything Kim Stanley Robinson has ever written.
Isn't that the one where they spun up Ceres? Not just a ring structure at the equator, but the entire 900 quadrillion ton dwarf planet in order to provide a third of a G _outward_.? A third of a G that there's absolutely no way the material Ceres is made of has the tensile strength to withstand without breaking apart? I think you're getting "gritty realism" confused with "hard scifi". The Expanse clearly seems to be a series where either magic is being used to create a setting to tell stories, or where they bizarrely don't make use of the technology they would need to have to create those settings. To be clear, you couldn't spin up a planetary mass without breaking it and then keep it intact without some sort of extremely powerful versions of Star Trek-style technology like tractor beams and integrity fields. If you have that kind of technology that can affect a whole planet, there should be plenty of ways you can use it to dig mines, separate ore by mass and probably refine it in various ways without needing to build a mining colony, etc. That seems on the same level of credibility as having a magical wishing genie with unlimited all-powerful wishes and using it to plant grain to save a little work in the food production process. Or, maybe the same level of credibility as having man-portable devices capable of instantaneous interstellar teleportation and continuing to rely on starships as the primary means for transport, even in critical military situations.
Re:KSR is just a hack - who I like! (Score:2, Troll)
he's the greatest science fiction writer of his generation
In my experience when someone heaps that much praise on another, it has little to do with the quality of the work they did and everything to do with how much the praiser agrees with it. Even (or especially) when the person has no other experience or qualifications to make an objective judgement.
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My god you're a fucking idiot, he's the greatest science fiction writer of his generation.
LOL, no. KSR is a dumb man's idea of what sci-fi should look like.
You don't like books that talk about real problems in the world, I get it.
No, I love sci-fi that talks about real-world problems. For example, Greg Egan's "Perihelion Summer" explores the climate change much more vividly. I just don't like ham-fisted narrative written to conform the pre-written agenda.
Notice how your actual complaints have nothing to do with "basic physics laws"[]?
Look at "Green Mars" trilogy. Mars is terraformed almost accidentally. Laws of conservation of energy? Nah, don't need no laws. Or the "Aurora" novel which is just a collection of nonsense after nonsense - a civilizat
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greenie hippie agenda
My god you're a fucking idiot, he's the greatest science fiction writer of his generation.
That doesn't make him an expert and his opinions any more than, well, opinions.
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science fantasy that ignores basic physics laws
As does virtually everybody else. The supply of scientifically plausible science fiction is vanishingly small. There seems to be enough room in the world for maybe one writer per generation to make a living at it.
Re:KSR is just a hack (Score:5, Informative)
As does virtually everybody else. The supply of scientifically plausible science fiction is vanishingly small. There seems to be enough room in the world for maybe one writer per generation to make a living at it.
Charles Storss writes hard sci-fi ("Neptune's Brood"). Greg Egan writes diamond-hard sci-fi, his books are typically accompanied by thesis-sized notes on physics ( not joking, read here: https://www.gregegan.net/ORTHO... [gregegan.net] ). Robert Forward was also great.
And let's not forget Andy Weir and "The Martian".
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Science fiction is fiction. It is not real. Like all fiction it takes elements from life to make it credible, but then uses dramatic license to make it interesting. For instance B5 did space travel right, but there is no graviton, and no way to create gravity without mass. So people have to float on a space station. And the physical requirements to create atmosphere means that eve
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I have read a lot, including all of Heinlien, and Asimov. I believe Robinson is hard science fiction.
Asimov is fine, but he's not hard sci-fi. Heinlein is mostly soft sci-fi with some bits of decent hard sci-fi.
And the physical requirements to create atmosphere means that every science fiction ever created is wrong because the physics does not all great big spacecraft like in the stories.
There's plenty of hard sci-fi that depicts interstellar travel faithfully enough to known physics laws. E.g. Neptune's Brood, or if you look at earlier stories "Non-stop" or "Captive Universe". If you want even harder space-operaesque setting that is still faithful to all known laws of physics, then Greg Egan's books are awesome.
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If climate change was really a problem, wouldn't he want everybody, left AND right, to work towards solutions to the problem in a bi-partisan fashion?
It is a real problem, but yes, solutions that have bi-partisan support are required.
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Farmers can't just move to a new location, they work the land they have. If the climate changes to where they can't make a profit with the same crops then they grow different crops. This won't be some huge burden on the farmers because crop rotation is a common practice, they already grow three or four crops at a time so switching crops is just part of doing business.
Some of this may be true, but it does depend on markets for crops, profit available for sale, suitability of land for crops, and investment required and external factors. E.g., if your land is only viable with irrigation then if the profit available for any crop you can grow is not sufficient to cover the loans required to put irrigation in then you are out of the business even if it would be theoretically possible to grow something. Given that many farmers work with slim margins (disclosure: family history