Ice

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

[It's so hot here these days that writing this mail turned out to be a refreshment....]

"Thing to do, Ice proclaims, "is to go north, set up server farms where heat dissipation won't be so much of a problem, take your power from renewables like hydro or sunlight, use surplus heat to help sustain whatever communities grow up around the data centers. Domed communities across the Arctic tundra.
   "My geek brothers! the tropics may be OK for cheap labor and sex tours, but the future is out there on the permafrost, a new geopolitical imperative---gain control of the supply of cold as a natural resource of incomputable worth, with global warming, even more crucial---"
   There is something creepily familiar about this go-north argument. By a corollary of Godwin's law valid only on the Upper West Side, Stalin's name, like Hitler's, is 100% certain to enter a discussion of any length, and Maxine now recalls Ernie telling her about the genocidal Georgian and his plans back in the 1930s for colonizing the Arctic with domed cities and armies of young technicians, otherwise known, Ernie was always careful to point out, as forced labor, bringing out for multimedia emphasis his 78rpm album The Attractive Schoolgirl of Zazhopinsk, an obscure opera from the purge era, strangled Russian bass-tenor duets invoking steppes of ice, thermodynamic night. And now here's Gabriel Ice, in a capitalist party mask, with a neo-Stalinist rerun."

Bleeding Edge (pp. 310-311)

> Ice has played a prominent role in the history of the earth and its living communities for millennia. We have had fun with and on ice, battled over ice, imagined ice, struggled with ice and made money out of ice. It has transformed our relationship with food, and our engagement with ice has been captured in art, literature, popular film and television, as well as made manifest in sport and leisure. Our lakes, mountains and coastlines have been indelibly shaped by the advance and retreat of ice and snow. Beyond Planet Earth, ice can be found in meteors, planets and moons, and scientists think that ice-rich asteroids played a pivotal role in bringing water to Earth.

In Ice: Nature and Culture Klaus Dodds provides a wide-ranging exploration of the cultural, natural and geopolitical history of ice, revealing how throughout history human communities have made sense of ice. For those who are intrigued about our relationship with ice, this book will provide an informative and thought-provoking guide. <

http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780239057&sf1=series_exact&st1=EARTH&m=2&dc=24

Via Progressive Geographies --