Kim Stanley Robinson On Google and Climate Change

Google Tech Talks December, 11 2007 ABSTRACT As part of our SciFoo Campers @Google Tech Talk series, acclaimed author Kim Stanley Robinson will share his thoughts on climate change in what promises to be an insightful and provocative hour. The recent IPCC and UN reports on climate change make it clear that we face an imminent environmental crisis, and that there is an urgent need to decarbonize our civilization as rapidly as possible. Robinson will discuss strategies for accomplishing this, focusing on social questions, cleaner energy and transport, mission architectures, possibilities of geo-engineering, and the important role that Google can have in all these as world leader in information technologies. As in his novels, Robinson will attempt to synthesize the Big Picture while also making specific suggestions for action now. Speaker: Kim Stanley Robinson Kim Stanley Robinson is a Californian science fiction writer best known for his Mars trilogy, Red Mars, Green Mars, and Blue Mars. He has recently published the last volume of his Climate Trilogy, Forty Signs of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, and Sixty Days and Counting. He is two-time winner of both the Nebula and the Hugo Awards, and was selected by the U.S. National Science Foundation to go to Antarctica as part of its Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, which resulted in his novel Antarctica, a precursor to his Climate Trilogy. He lives in Davis, and has enjoyed a couple of previous visits to the Googleplex.