Anti-gravity? Efficient wind farms and solar energy? It’s not as far-fetched as you think. Check out this guest post from Glide author Bill Gourgey:
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[Photo source]
The other day I was talking to my neighbor, a high level TV executive at the Discovery Channel, about Green Science. We were at a party and the topic came up because he asked me what I was up to, so I began to describe my new novel, Glide, and how one of its themes is Green Sci Fi. Well, I might as well have announced that I was writing about something as whimsical as Oz. He wrote me off with a wave of his hand. Green doesn’t sell, he said matter-of-factly. Really, I said, that surprises me. The opinion polls I’ve seen and the research I’ve done suggests that people love the concept of Green. That’s just it, he replied, they love the concept, but as soon as it comes down to the reality—to changing lifestyles to be Green—they avoid it. Trust me, he added, I know. We keep trying out Green programs on the network and they just don’t get traction.
Of course, there must be some truth to my neighbor’s advice. After all, he has the numbers to prove it. That got me a bit worried. If people don’t enjoy watching Green shows on TV, what would compel them to read Green fiction? But the more I thought about it and continued to research Green Science and Green Science Fiction, the more I realized that Green is simply too broad a term to throw around without qualifying it. For example, most people probably don’t want to be told that they should be making the extra effort to compost their organic garbage and recycle the rest. It’s a lot of work. Who has time…or money? And those are the kinds of Green How-To shows you tend to find on TV, narrated by some svelte intellectual who leaves you feeling guilty for not making more of an effort. BUT! What if there was an invention that allowed you to throw out your garbage the way you always do? Underneath the counter, this little machine would sort your trash for you and compact it so that all you would have to do is take two little biodegradable bags out to the curb each week? One labeled “Organics” the other “Recyclables.” Sounds a bit like something the Cat in the Hat might come up with, I know, but that invention, if it existed, would be Green Science. Since it doesn’t yet exist (to my knowledge) it would be Green Sci Fi. For the record, you can buy indoor compost stations (they look like fish tanks) and multi-bin trash compactors, but nothing that automatically sorts through a continuous flow of household trash. At least, not on the residential level. Commercially, lots of companies are tackling the waste-sorting problem with a fair amount of success. Hence, the lines between Science and Fiction have already begun to blur when it comes to Green Waste Management. Still with me?
In the simplest terms, Green means anything that is considered friendly to the environment. Of course, there are different degrees of green when it comes to science, technology, and invention. Using my own highly technical classification, Dark Green implies something consumable (it all comes down to consumption!) that either restores or preserves our natural ecosystems without unwanted byproducts (e.g., solar energy) while Light Green refers to the other end of the spectrum—to technologies that may not be Green in the strict sense, but are friendlier than prevailing technologies (e.g., ethanol vs. oil).
As Jordan Kessler from the Natural Resource Defense Council once wrote on Switchboard, the NRDC’s blog, “Sometimes, the facts on the ground are so grim, that all I can do is try to have hope that there’s a better tomorrow on the way. Just for today, I’m going to think about what…[Glide’s author] Bill Gourgey calls ‘Green Sci-Fi,’ a kind of anti-apocalyptic vision of the future.”
Here’s the thing. Mr. Kessler’s right about the facts on the ground being so grim when it comes to climate change and ecological stewardship, but you would be surprised to know just how much time, energy, and pure creative genius is applied to Green Science day after day, year after year. In lots of ways, that anti-apocalyptic future is already here waiting for our embrace. It’s truly amazing and rather unfortunate that there’s so little press devoted to this all-important field. It’s as if our brains have been so hard-wired by jaded journalists that we would rather watch the devastation of oil spills than celebrate the triumph of fuel cells. Ever hear of Bloom Energy? A company whose fuel cells convert natural gas and bio-fuels into electricity without generating carbon emissions. Google uses their boxes (called Bloom Boxes) to power some of their facilities. EBay uses Bloom boxes, too, and so do dozens of other companies. 60 Minutes even did an expose on them last fall, but I’ll bet Bloom’s not ringing a bell. And it’s a shame, because our Federal and State governments could be approving Bloom Power Plants instead of Nuclear ones or, even worse, “Clean Coal” (a phrase that ought to be entered into Webster’s as the definition of an oxymoron).
To prove my point that Green Science is a dynamic, growing field, here is a smattering of Green Science examples with their Fictional counterparts:
Urban Wind Farms, the Science:
The city of Hull in the UK has funded a project to deploy mini-turbines (see below) and are in discussions to expand the project to deploy these turbines throughout the city making it one of the first truly green energy cities on the planet. For more, see this article from the Hull Daily Mail.
Wind farm network develops green city
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Urban Wind Farms, the Science Fiction:
The micro turbines I describe in Glide are vast arrays of wind turbines as small as nickels or dimes woven into a fabric that floats above buildings like sails, or wraps around them. That may sound futuristic, but it will probably be here before you know it.
Solar Energy, the Science:
Semprius, a start-up company, has figured out how to make miniscule solar cells about the width of a line drawn by a pen. The efficiency of these cells (and the fact that they require much less cooling), significantly reduces the size of the panels needed to generate practical amounts of electricity. For more, see the following article from MIT Technology Review:
Concentrated Solar Startup Sets a New Efficiency Record
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Solar Energy, the Science Fiction:
In Glide, all manmade exterior objects (cars, buildings, homes, etc.) are painted with NanoPaint, a solar emulsifier, which is an acrylic laced with nanoscopic solar cells. While this vision is still Green Sci Fi, researchers at Ohio State University stumbled on just such a possibility using molybdenum and titanium. Again, it may not be that far from reality.
Anti-Gravity, the Science:
We’ve all heard of high speed trains, which use electromagnetics to “float” the trains and achieve, to a small extent, the illusion of defying gravity. Well, researchers at Tel Aviv University have taken it one step further to produce objects that truly float using quantum levitation. While this still does not qualify as anti-gravity, it does open up a whole host of possibilities for transportation and beyond. It’s still a long way off from commercial viability, but to learn more, check out this gizmag article:
Tel Aviv University’s astounding “quantum levitation” demonstration.
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Anti-Gravity, the Science Fiction:
Glide, the title of my novel, also stands for the futuristic industry known as the Glide Industry, which came about when the protagonist, Dr. Magigate, a genius as bright as Einstein and an inventor as prolific as Edison, discovered how to manipulate the Gravitational Constant. Here is his epiphany at the moment of his breakthrough as excerpted from Glide:
His eyes grew glassy as he allowed himself to fantasize a world no longer confined by the yoke of gravity. Possibilities rushed at him with the tumult and festivity of a parade. A new industry—the Gravity Reduction Industry, or, better yet, the Glide Industry—would be born. Raw material suppliers would continuously improve upon Magigate’s superconductive sample. New pharmaceutical divisions would be dedicated to improving his Polyena virus. Glide cell manufacturers would pack these gyroscopes into bikes, cars, boats, and planes—all of which would need to be reinvented too.
Without gravity, a calculator-sized solar cell could supply enough energy to propel a family sedan or even a taxi from New York to London at Mach speeds—no need to travel by plane. And the best part: besides a small charge injected into the Glide cell just before it left the loading docks, there would be no other energy requirements and no waste. No oil, no gas, no carbon dioxide, no ozone.
Of course, Dr. Magigate goes on to imagine all of the dark consequences of his invention, but you’ll have to read the book for that! As an added enticement to read more, here’s an image of a g*car (“g*” represents all things powered by antigravity in the future) as described in Glide.
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I could go on and on with examples, but here’s the point: as Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” And there are times when imagination is more important than ever, too. Green Science is real, but we don’t hear about it as much as we should. I think its scientists and entrepreneurs could use a little help from friends who create fiction for a living. Rather than imagining dystopian futures (which are easy to see when “the facts on the ground are so grim”), how about stretching for hopeful futures to draw attention to the possibilities and force a public discourse, one that might even sway our media and thus our politics. As the tyrannical Prophet in Glide says about our politicians, “oil flows through their veins and gunpowder salts their meals.” But it occurs to me that we can hardly ask corrupt politicians to set us on a more hopeful road if our artists and writers can’t even imagine one. Being an optimist by nature, I truly believe in humanity’s capacity to innovate ourselves out of the dark places our biology and self-interest often lead us. Green Sci Fi, then, is my Emerald City, my attempt to bring to life (bring back to life?) a genre that focuses on a hopeful future. And Green Science is its Yellow Brick Road.
By Bill Gourgey, author of Glide
