June 27, 2017
In New York 2140, Kim Stanley Robinson takes on one of the almost unimaginable yet probable outcomes of climate change: that in the foreseeable future, some of New York City will be underwater. Of course, Robinson does not adhere to the most conservative estimates of sea-level rise. But in redrawing the New York Harbor to be 50 feet above sea level, he does stay inside what he has called, in an interview with Scientific American, “the extreme edge of what’s possible” based on somewhat controversial projections of Antarctic ice melt.
June 27, 2016
Almost a thousand people stand on Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in our
solar system, and watch as an ice asteroid leaves a gash in the newly minted
Martian atmosphere. The asteroid has been commandeered by UN-approved robotic
ships that have landed and converted the material of the asteroid itself into
fuel, altering its trajectory for this calculated near miss. The assembled
crowd aren’t in it for the fireworks, though. They are a thousand among many
Earth expats who have undertaken every project conceivable to turn Mars into
a surrogate for Earth, the planet humanity has exhausted. This ice asteroid
will inject valuable heat and water into the Martian atmosphere, bringing it
one step closer to being able to support life—even as it takes the planet one
step further from what we think of as “Mars.”
