It leads us away from apocalyptic thinking into a future where we live to build a better world-on this planet and perhaps on others. In a world populated by doomsday preppers and media commentators obsessively forecasting our demise, Scatter, Adapt, and Remember is a compelling voice of hope. Newitz’s remarkable and fascinating journey through the science of mass extinctions is a powerful argument about human ingenuity and our ability to change. From simulating tsunamis to studying central Turkey’s ancient underground cities from cultivating cyanobacteria for “living cities” to designing space elevators to make space colonies cost-effective from using math to stop pandemics to studying the remarkable survival strategies of gray whales, scientists and researchers the world over are discovering the keys to long-term resilience and learning how humans can choose life over death. Most important, it explores how scientific breakthroughs today will help us avoid disasters tomorrow. This brilliantly speculative work of popular science focuses on humanity’s long history of dodging the bullet, as well as on new threats that we may face in years to come. Life on Earth has come close to annihilation-humans have, more than once, narrowly avoided extinction justĭuring the last million years-but every single time a few creatures survived, evolving to adapt to the harshest of conditions. But in Scatter, Adapt, and Remember, Annalee Newitz, science journalist and editor of the science Web site io9.com explains that although global disaster is all but inevitable, our chances of long-term species survival are better than ever. It’s a frightening prospect, as each of the Earth’s past major disasters-from meteor strikes to bombardment by cosmic radiation-resulted in a mass extinction, where more than 75 percent of the planet’s species died out. Study of our planet’s turbulent past suggests that we are overdue for a catastrophic disaster, whether caused by nature or by human interference. Can we survive it? How?Īs a species, Homo sapiens is at a crossroads. And we know that another global disaster is eventually headed our way. In its 4.5 billion–year history, life on Earth has been almost erased at least half a dozen times: shattered by asteroid impacts, entombed in ice, smothered by methane, and torn apart by unfathomably powerful megavolcanoes. As it is, I finished the book with an image of an adult version of Thomas the Tank Engine. If this were about a struggle between different bioengineered humanoid species on the needs and expectations of the populations vs the health of the ecosystem, kind of what I was led to believe this would be, it would have been a fascinating angle to take. However, this story took a turn for the fantastical with the introduction of naked mole rats as engineers and scientists and intelligent earthworms, and actually living breathing intelligent passenger trains. This allowed them to maintain balance in the ecosystem.or at least to know that when there is lack of balance, that nobody could claim they didn't know. It was made to sound like a fresh angle on Climate change and mitigation from elements of the environment like the soil and trees and animals that are able to communicate their wishes needs and general health to the people in charge of the environment. Weird! This book was a recommendation via an interview with the author on an NPR Podcast I subscribe to. Inanimate objects and rodents as people? Meh! Sex between a robot and a cat? Why? That train happens to be a living, biological, sentient, multi car passenger train that flies and plays video games. Inanimate objects and rodents as people? Meh! "Brilliantly thoughtful, prescient, and gripping.”-Martha Wells, The Murderbot DiariesĪ Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books. As part of the Environmental Rescue Team, she cares for the planet and its burgeoning eco-systems as her parents and their parents did before her.īut the bright, clean future they're building comes under threat when Destry discovers a city full of people that shouldn’t exist, hidden inside a massive volcano.Īs she uncovers more about their past, Destry begins to question the mission she's devoted her life to, and must make a choice that will reverberate through Sask-E's future for generations to come.Ī science fiction epic for our times and a love letter to our future, The Terraformers will take you on a journey spanning thousands of years and exploring the triumphs, strife, and hope that find us wherever we make our home. This program includes original sound design.įrom science fiction visionary Annalee Newitz comes The Terraformers, a sweeping, uplifting, and illuminating exploration of the future.ĭestry's life is dedicated to terraforming Sask-E.
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