"'I have this nightmare notion that [the War of Judgment] came not just as a result of huge areas turning into deserts, but came barely in time."
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), V, p. 53.
Terai Lohannaso:
"'Sometimes I wonder if the Downfall didn't come barely in time, to save the whole biosphere from what the old industry was doing to it.'"
-Orion Shall Rise, CHAPTER TWO, p. 33.
A social collapse that prevents a worse ecological collapse? Have we gone too far down the road to be saved in this way?
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
But I also recall Alishabeta telling Lorn sunna Browen, in the last section of "Progress," that the weakness and timidity of the West allied with the aggressive and "evangelistic" policies of the USSR had brought on the War of Judgment. That story was pub. in 1962 and it did seemed reasonable at the time to think that Soviet recklessness and fanaticism might provoke a nuclear exchanged between it and the US.
And after reading Robert Zubrin's THE CASE FOR SPACE, I am not entirely convinced we have gone down too far either of those two roads. But to avoid both kinds of "collapses" means being hard headed and realistic. E.g., if you want us to stop using fossil fuels, then REALISTIC alternatives have to be proposed. And that has to mean including nuclear energy.
And if you want solar energy instead, then you will have to dismiss fantasies about using solar panels for powering our cities. To REALLY use solar, you need a space based infrastructure built out in space. And that means getting SERIOUS about us getting off Earth!
So I hope Elon Musk manages to begin founding his Mars colony in 2024.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
And we discuss real issues by discussing sf, particularly Poul Anderson's.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
We do, and that has been done many times here!
Ad astra! Sean
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