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TERRAFORM_TERRA

                                             June 7-16, 2013
                                            
                                        GETTING_WARM
                                            
In Kim Stanley Robinson's "40/50/60"        
series of novels, the accelerated           
pace of attack of climate change is           
useful for novelistic purposes so          This is also, unfortunately,    
that the crunch is compressed into         not an implausible premise:      
several crisis years.                      the admitted uncertainty          
                                           in climate modeling is an axe    
    KSR was distinctly ahead of me         that may cut in either           
    in some respects: humanity as          direction-- things could be   
    a whole has simply not been            even worse than worse          
    taking the precautions needeed         estimates from the IPCC.      
    to to hold climate catastrophe         
    at bay. That means that we're                                  
    going to sit on our butts               
    until the disaster really               
    hits-- and then we're going      
    to need some desperate,                 
    extreme measures really fast.           
                                            
                                            
    One nice detail: they pull off an the    
    amazing feat of geo-engineering,        
    re-starting the gulf stream by           
    dropping huge quantities of salt into   
    it at the northern end...                
                                               
    And because of that success, afterwards  
    the public figures that all of the          
    problems will be solved just as easily--   
    they expect a simple technical fix will 
    be contrived to hold back the rising    
    seas.                                       
                                                
                                                
                                                
                                                

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