On Tue, 28 Apr 1998 00:00:03 -0400 Automatic digest
processor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> My *ante* into this thread will be Harry Harrison's Make Room! Make Room!, upon which
> the movie Soylent Green was based. In Harrison's world of 1999 (1999 is O.K.,
> remember?) there are 20 million people crammed into New York City. NYC's current
> population: about 7 million, I believe. In the book, the Greenhouse Effect is in full
> infernal force and New York harbor is home to hundreds of thousands of these people,
> mostly Asian refugees living in old mothballed ships.
>
> Why has this not come to pass?
It may yet. We have not "solved" the greenhouse effect and
huge populations are living on the edge of collapse.
Looking at the news reports of the smogs in South-east Asia
caused by forest fires in Indonesia I'm reminded of the
last few pages of John Brunner's The Sheep Look Up where
the entire American continent is in flames.
----------------------
Andy Sawyer
Librarian/Administrator
Science Fiction Foundation Collection
University of Liverpool Library
PO Box 123, Liverpool L69 3DA, UK.
Reviews Editor: Foundation: The International Review of Science Fiction
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Web: http://www.liv.ac.uk/~asawyer/sffchome.html
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