Episode 20 << Click to Listen
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Eli Kintisch, author of Hack the Planet, joins us to discuss some of the ambitious and risky geoengineering schemes that are being proposed to address climate change.
Panel Topic: Terraforming
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Introduction
0:00 Introduction by Tor.com
0:38 Dave and John introduce the show
Interview: Eli Kintisch
02:00 Interview begins
02:11 How Eli got interested in science and became a science writer
02:51 Eli’s favorite science fiction authors and “climate porn”
03:30 Worst-case scenarios: methane, mega-droughts, and the death of the rainforests
05:27 Regarding geoengineering, and how the book came to be
06:17 Proposed methods of geoengineering
08:00 Small-scale environmental engineering and how it’s gone wrong
11:38 The history of geohacking; turns out it goes back a long way
13:32 Countries with competing interests in where to set the thermostat
14:51 Eli’s opinions of other books in the field
15:46 Regarding Michael Crichton’s State of Fear and Carl Sagan’s treatment of other planets
17:01 Eli’s take on terraforming: the ultimate hubris
18:12 How immersion in the subject has impacted Eli personally
19:12 The conspiracy theorists
20:18 Geoengineering vs. cutting carbon
21:53 Is there climate-related speculation happening now?
22:41 Coastal cities and adaptation to climate change
23:13 Waterworld and what generations down the line might be dealing with
24:02 What about super-cooling the planet? The problem of thermal inertia
25:58 What can we do as individuals?
26:41 Eli would love to hear from listeners at http://hacktheplanetbook.com
26:57 End of interview
Dave and John talk about geoengineering and terraforming
27:08 Geoengineering and the Gulf oil spill
28:45 People’s natural revulsion toward geoengineering
29:56 Lex Luthor’s misguided effort at geoengineering to increase property values
31:28 The Day After Tomorrow, and scientists as heroes
36:25 The difficulty that SF faces today, and the optimistic futures of the Shine anthology, edited by Jetse de Vries
38:51 The importance of the cautionary tale: Soylent Green; Anathem
40:57 Glaciers, sea levels, ice, and fresh water: Ice Pirates; The Millenial Project
43:34 Terraforming 101: AIR.
45:08 Regarding Mars: Total Recall; the Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
46:25 Example of terraforming in Star Trek: the Genesis Torpedo inStar Trek II; ST:TNG
47:32 More about Mars: Red Planet and Mission to Mars
49:47 When terraforming becomes routine: Isle of the Dead by Roger Zelazny; Slartibartfast’s award-winning fjords
51:34 Zelazny’s “The Keys to December” and the unforeseen consequences of geoengineering
53:02 Altering humanity to suit the environment: Frederik Pohl’sMan Plus; “People of Sand and Slag” by Paolo Bacigalupi
53:54 The origin of the term “terraforming”
54:17 Gene Wolf’s Book of the New Sun
55:07 Stuck in the Solar system: terraforming what we’ve got, and the example of Firefly
56:49 Mike Resnick’s Kirinyaga
57:43 The ethics of terraforming
59:45 Show wrap-up
Next week: Nnedi Okorafor, author of Who Fears Death
Thanks for listening!
Show notes compiled by podtern Christie Yant. Friend us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.
