Cross posted from blog.terraformindustries.com. Over the last 18 months developing our clean natural gas technology, we’ve developed some heuristics to help us assess our progress and the general capability of any system or set of systems that can address the climate crisis. We’re happy to evolve this list as we gain knowledge so if you think we’ve missed something let us know! There are six key characteristics we believe a climate play must have to have a chance of making a positive difference. Does it crush drilling and coal mining? CO2 by itself has no moral valence, indeed its emission …

Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. The opening sequence of this chapter is about lichen adapting to Mars. A distinction is offered between natural selection – unguided evolution, underlying thousands of years of human efforts via artificial selection, which is responsible for essentially all domesticated plants and animals, and then more recently “Genetically Engineered Microorganisms” (GEMs), or what we might term GMOs. We even get a list of 1992-era “recombinant DNA” buzzwords, which sound scary but it is important to remember that no matter …

Part of the Mars Trilogy Technical Commentary Series. Contains spoilers for this chapter and earlier chapters. Google Mars .kml. Literary commentary podcast. The opening prolog to this section describes the formation of the planet Mars, so we have many opportunities to put our nerd hats on. One of the main reasons I am writing this commentary is to reflect on the knowledge we have gained in the ~30 years since the Mars Trilogy was written, but in reviewing this section I am reminded that despite our incredible gains, many of the mysteries raised are still mysteries and will likely remain …