Hi Mike:

Bravo! I write science fiction as you know so I imagine the future based on current science. I don’t write fantasy. I believe regional government is indeed a good idea. But we need a planetary body that can enforce rules around the use of fossil fuels and we don’t have one! Without that I’m afraid a tipping point will be reached, and I believe it will be a giant methane release in Eastern Siberia once the perma-frost melts.

In my book The Burning Years the first in a four part series called Until This Last, I imagine how we will have to live. The question is can we build these fully functional underground cities I describe in time, they also require large exterior domes (think life on Mars and Bucky Fuller).

Both you and I know that it will be the rich and the educated who go forward. I’m afraid the world’s poor don’t have a chance. Life in these post climate-change cities and communities I imagine in my books will be very much of a regional nature.

I would say to Elon Musk and Jeff Besos, like one of my characters Tom, they should be thinking about how they’ll survive here and not on Mars. They won’t have enough time to develop and make Mars liveable before we kill the planet.

Anyway I love your thoughts, but the pendulum has swung too far and now it’s a question of how do humans preserve our civiliation and species in the face of what is to come. Fossil fuels and the industrial revolution have propelled us to this point, and as far as I can tell we’re not stopping our use of these fuels. Anyone who believes that will happen in the near future believes in Santa Claus and the Grinch!