Posthuman Blues

Visionary writer tells what he sees (by Lewis Shiner, who happens to be a damned good SF writer)

"With public figures from George Bush to Michael Crichton claiming that global warming is a myth, Sterling does feel a little frustration.

'It's fun to go around denying absolute reality, but I'm sorry, it's like denying evolution or denying the germ theory. It's exactly like denying the Holocaust,' Sterling says. 'The problem with that is that physical reality is not loyal to political ideology.'

"But Sterling doesn't single out President Bush for blame. 'If the U.S. vaporized tomorrow, the world would still be in big climate trouble.'

"To solve these problems, Sterling says, 'we've got to come up with a method where we don't design for landfills. The future of objects is cradle to cradle. We're going to have to fold them back into the production stream and make new objects out of the same material that we made old objects out of. Because otherwise you run out, eventually.'"