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NUCLEAR_DENIAL

                                             June 7-16, 2013

                                         GETTING_WARM
It's remarkably funny after awhile,
watching Kim Stanley Robinson-- a
very intelligent, well-informed guy--        This is remarkable because
struggling with the fact that the            KSR is hardly technophobic:
logic of the situation points in a           e.g. he recognizes that we
direction he really, really, doesn't         have no choice at this point
want to go: nuclear power.                   but to consciously engineer
Throughout his 40/50/60 series of            the biosphere.
novels, he ignores it in places,
grudgingly mentions it in others,                One of the solutions they
then forgets he mentioned it.                    work on is binding atmospheric
                                                 carbon using a genetically
    Consider: when the main character            modified lichen.
    is talking to someone working with
    the nuclear navy, he asks about the              THE_HERETIC
    possibility of using nuclear
    submarines as portable, emergency
    power plants. He's told that it's
    quite doable, in fact they've done
    things like that before.

    Near the close of the story, they've begun
    working on a number of emergency terraforming
    hacks to try to combat the rising sea level.
    One of the more promising ones is a project
    where they begin pumping seawater up on land
    in Antarctica, essentially building up the
    southern ice pack again.

    This whole operation is supposed
    to be powered by *solar cells*--
    which they admit will only
    function 6-months out of the year.








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