4 Jul 2008
Artemis Gordon Glidden
"...two floating cities, each with enough room for 50,000 inhabitants..."
But wouldn't it be easier and cheaper just to send them back to Dar al-Islam?
I am a fan of the Dyson Sphere and all its variants, including the Niven Ring, and Arthur C. Clark's Rama world. Once we begin terra-forming, and begin taking advantage of the huge quantities of resources (including energy) that are available outside this little ball, we will laugh at the idea that we ever burned liquified prehistoric vegetation to run our society.
These floating cities are ingenious. But the part that feels creepy to me is the idea that we should work on adapting to global destruction, rather than preventing it.
This is the James G. Watt (Secretary of the Interior under Ronald Reagan) theory of environmental policy. He famously said that if the ozone layer was being damaged by chloroflourocarbon use, and was thereby allowing an increase in solar radiation to reach the Earth's surface, then we should all just wear a hat and sunglasses.
