L Garforth <lg109@YORK.AC.UK> replied to me:
>> Please be careful. Many ecological stories are not technically possible.
>> A good example is _Ecotopia_ which depends on imaginary, impossible
>> technology.
>
>Just how are we defining 'impossible' here!? I mean that both critically
>and as a genuine question. I'm also doing work on sf and eco/techno
>themes, and I now shamefacedly admit that my scientific eduction is not
>all it might be...My point is, do you mean impossible as in not currently
>possible, or impossible as in against known understandings of physcial
>laws?
I read it quite a while ago, so my impressions are clearer in my memory
than details. I recall, for instance, the use of foams for things like
housing. The combination of characteristics, chemical and phusical,
necessary for a substance to be used for fast-setting foam houses is long
and complex. There is nothing anywhere near the combination of cheap,
easy, not-too-high-tech, and environmentally innocuous taken for granted in
the book. Disciplines like chemistry, materials engineering, process
engineering are extremely complex.
>Can we talk of either with any certainty?
Of course. It is impossible for me to walk up the side of a building. It
is impossible to light a mtach on a bar of soap. It is impossible to state
a logical argument, or a truth, in such a way that everyone will agree to it.
>I need to be enlightened
>here..! Second, isn't there a way in which it doesn't matter? In the
>particular case of Callenbach's _Ecotopia_, my feeling is that its main
>function is a propogandist one
Obviously. It was my reaction that he severely damaged his propogandistic
purpose by telling a story that no one with technical training could
possibly take seriously.
(On the other hand, I've been vigorously recommending _Ecology and
Revolutionary Action_ [if I got the title precisely right!] for decades,
just about since Murray Bookchin wrote it.)
Neil Rest
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 25 2000 - 19:06:38 PDT