-Poul Anderson, "In The Shadow" IN Anderson, The Queen Of Air And Darkness And Other Stories (London, 1977), pp. 91-111 AT p. 93.
"...I mostly spend my furloughs at one or another resort, as expensive and exclusive as possible. Thus I needn't observe what man has inflicted on this planet his mother while I was gone. Spaceman's pay accumulates wonderfully on the long hauls, years or decades in a stretch. I can afford whatever I want on Earth: even clean air, trees..."
-Poul Anderson, "The Alien Enemy" IN The Queen Of Air And Darkness..., pp. 69-85 AT pp. 69-70.
My point here is merely that many fictional futures necessarily parallel each other. These two stories share well-paid astronauts holidaying in exclusive resorts on a crowded Earth but otherwise are unalike.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And I've wondered where some of those surviving undeveloped and resort areas were located? I've thought of Alaska/Northwestern Canada or the Amazon river jungles, for examples.
Sean
Sean,
Speculation about the details can be endless.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
They certainly can be!
Sean
Sean, if deforestation continues at the *current rate, it would unlikely be the Amazon rain forest. Also, my guess is that in a few centuries both **Alaska and Northwest Canada may have been settled by considerable numbers of climate refugees.
* 20% of the Amazon biome has already been lost and the trend will worsen if gone unchecked.WWF estimates that 27 per cent – more than a quarter – of the Amazon biome will be without trees by 2030 if the current rate of deforestation continues.
The Amazon is the biggest deforestation front in the world.
** https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/26/
Kaor, Mr. Halperin!
And I regret that! Moreover, I have much of the land in Amazon basin is not even all that good for farming. Which gives another reason for saving as much as much as the forest there as possible.
Sean
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