Ancestors

Written by ProdigalFrog on 2025-01-12 at 02:34

Two-Trips | An illustration of two possible futures from the children's book 'The Usborne Book Of The Future' circa 1979

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Written by snowyfox on 2025-01-12 at 13:36

Two pages from a book, an article flanking two landscape illustrations.

"[Homes & Environment: Two Trips To The 21st Century]

On these pages, you can see two sorts of city. The top one, a polluted pesthole, already exists in at least one respect - traffic cops in the Tokyo of today have to wear smog masks. The bottom picture, a fairly clean, moderately attractive place, is possible if planners and people strive to make it so.

Some help is already to hand. People are aware of many of the problems of city life and are trying to solve them; and space satellites can be used for pollution control. The picture below

(smaller inset) showing nothern Europe and its weather is a typical example of the clear pictures possible using 'sky-spies'. (A cloudmap)

[Garden city on a cared-for planet]

This scene, though not pretending to show that a perfect world is possible, nevertheless indicates that tomorrow's towns could be pleasant places to live, work, and play in.

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Written by snowyfox on 2025-01-12 at 13:38

1. Electric monorail train provides an effective though not espeially elegant solution to the problem of high speed travel.

2. Below the line runs a pipe network through which most bulk cargo (such as fuel, water, grain) is pumped, silently and efficiently.

3. The city is green all over, the result of a massive world-wide tree-planting scheme started in the 1980s. It is estimated by present-day researchers that every man, woman and child on Earth needs to plant a tree a day in order to keep a balance with those that are removed or killed. The world's main oxygen-producing area is, at present, the Brazilian rain-forest. This is being chopped down, slowly but surely. A balance must be kept.

4. Non-polluting jet, powered by hydrogen fuel (whose waste is water) flies quietly across the sky.

5. Fumeless electric vehicles used for local travel. Trucks are only needed for short-distance hauls as pipe systems carry most cargo.

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Written by snowyfox on 2025-01-12 at 13:40

6. The worst excesses of mid 20th century 'brutalist' architecture are camouflaged with flowering vines.

7. Bicycles provide the basic means of transport for people to get about over short distances. Special bikeways like this keep cyclists apart from trucks and cars.

[Polluted city of a dying world]

If drastic steps are not taken to control pollution and to try to achieve some sort of ecological balance in the world, the picture on the left is likely to be typical of a city of the early 21st century. Its unpleasant features include:

1. Line of stunded, dying trees. At least these are still alive. In some present-day cities, planners have included plastic ones as bright, colourful, easy-clean alternatives to the real, oxygen-producing, thing.

2. Smog-laden sky. Visibility is limited and rain washes acids down from the sky. A jet trails a plume of filth.

3. Heavy trucks thunder along the pitted roadway while cars battle their way through the traffic fumes.

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Written by snowyfox on 2025-01-12 at 13:43

Vehicles are running on petrol fuel, a rare but valuable item in this future world. Alternatives to petrol, such as solar or nuclear fusion power, have not been pursued, so there is nothing to replace the oil when it runs out.

4. Huge, ugly, apartment blocks are thrown up to keep pace with the rapidly increasing population of the city. Birth control measures have failed and most people are out of work and ill-fed.

5. Neglect and decay result in city systems—such as lighting—breaking down.

[Power for tomorrow's towns]

Present research in Euroe, USA and the USSR indicates that the 'Tokamak' nuclear fusion reactor could provide much of the energy for the people of tomorrow's towns. A tokamak generates an intense magnetic field in its doughnut shaped reaction chamber to burn atoms of deuterium and tritium fuel. The result, like a controlled H-bomb, is heat and light. The heat can be used to generate electricity.

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Toot

Written by snowyfox on 2025-01-12 at 13:48

Deuterium, which comes from seawater, is virtually limitless in supply. Tritium supplies will take 50,000 years to run out. One litre of the fuel is equivalent, in terms of energy, to about 300 litres of oil.

(Below inset of a rendition of Tokamak. A Brutalist structure that's more or less simply a concrete doughnut with pillars that arch over into a hollow centre. 'Man to scale' says arrow to stick figure of, about.. a hundredth the width of the reactor? and a fifth in height. So like, one city block I guess, size of reactor.)

Illustrations were numbered boxes next to elements in illustration.

Bottom is a Brutalist world but with plenty greenery and fancy vehicles on empty lanes.

Top is also Brutalist but mostly brown-grey from sunset and fog and streetlights of a decidedly more urban landscape. One unmentioned element is child and parent with full hazmat suits looking out at the roadway scenery from sidewalk.

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Descendants