Month: April 2007

It may be fake, but this weekend The Guardian printed
an article on global warming (Sat 4 April, p. 26) which I like very much. Of course, liking it doesn’t make it right….

The gist of the article is this: there’s a lot of worry about global warming, and the cause, but “Earth’s resources are finite; the planet is doomed to die […] and the solution is clear: we must seek other planets to colonise. Earth may be good for 10,000 years or so; then it will be time to find a new home, or homes—a literal New World.”

Original? No. I first heard this from the mouth of Bart Simpson: ” Aw, recycling’s useless Lis. Once the Sun burns out, this planet is doomed. You’re just making sure we spend our last days using inferior products.”

Anyway, the thing about new worlds that troubles me is this: pretty much any planet that’s habitable is going to be inhabited, because life’s like that. So any new world we colonize is going to be one of those SF moves here the aliens come to take over the Earth, except, we’re the bad aliens. More funding for terraforming, I say.

Here’s an example of why I like the writing in 2600 magazine: “We all love 2600 for its highfalutin articles on port knocking, Caller ID spoofing, Walmart self-checkout hacks, etc., but sometimes we lose sight of the obvious stuff. Sooner or later, the North Koreans or Iranians are going to bomb us. When that happens, how are you going to pay for doughnuts and beer from the 7-11?” (from the Winter 2007 issue, which goes on to describe how to hide things inside a cut out book).