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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

What a frantic read! Clink! Clink! Clink! Loved the internal voice. Dream holidays in the future... when we'll all be living underground. 😅

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Claudia Befu's avatar

You think we’ll live underground? To keep cool?

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Alexander Ipfelkofer's avatar

Some already do (e.g., Coober Pedy). There are many historical sites and cave systems that tell the same story. War and weather drive us underground.

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Claudia Befu's avatar

That's so true! I couldn't live underground and I couldn't live in a spaceship. Dark, airless spaces make me go nuts!

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Larry Hogue's avatar

Having just returned from my own dream vacation to Iceland, where we walked on the shrinking glaciers, this really resonates.

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Claudia Befu's avatar

Wow, what a coincidence! I've never been to Iceland. How did you like it?

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Larry Hogue's avatar

It was amazing! Experiencing geothermal heating was great. Leave the heat on and open the windows for fresh air. The landscape was incredible too, even apart from the glaciers. Very friendly people also. But I think many of them are hoping they’ve hit peak tourism after this summer.

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Claudia Befu's avatar

Overtourism? I can imagine, it’s a small country. I like summers up north though, the sun never sets.

I didn’t think about the thermal waters for my story 😅

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Great story, Claudia.

Like Alexander, I loved the internal voice here.

Favourite line was this: ‘I’m back, you desert rats! And I need money.’

So much sass!

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Claudia Befu's avatar

Thanks, Nathan. I’m trying to experiment a bit with these short stories in an attempt to find my voice. I like how you’ve been doing this with your own writing. I’m curious what I’ll discover. I also try to be less precious about my writing.

What was your biggest revelation after experimenting with your writing for a while? Did you find a sweet spot, something you would call your signature style?

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Nathan Slake's avatar

Good question and don't think I have a straight answer, to be honest.

I'm still experimenting, but I'm well aware that what I really want to be doing most is playing with language and feeling, rather than writing something (for want of a better term) flat.

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

Greenland will become the escape route for Canadians pushed out by overheated Americans. Its increasingly habitable and arable land will be exploited as a new 'green rush'. Any protests from the Danish government will be ignored or bought off through licensing of mineral and fresh water rights (and their own population might just join in with the exodus).

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Claudia Befu's avatar

Do you have any recommended reading about Greenland and climate immigration? I didn’t get into this yet.

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

Greenland is referred to multiple times in Gaia Vince's 'Nomad Century' book (see index): https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/444202/nomad-century-by-vince-gaia/9780141997681

Local Greenland politics is already being influenced by global mineral resource players: https://qz.com/1988240/rare-earths-mining-takes-center-stage-in-greenland-elections

The three investigative articles by Abrahm Lustgarten forming a 2020 climate migration series (Arctic territories are mentioned in particular for the Russia one): https://www.nytimes.com/by/abrahm-lustgarten

This section in a 2011 paper discusses an evaluation of human migration in West Greenland in the context of Holocene temperature variability: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1101708108#sec-2

This paper studies Holocence acceleration in methane emissions in high latitudes: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/gbc.20025

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Claudia Befu's avatar

Thanks so much, Johnathan! Really appreciate this, you're a fountain of knowledge! 👏

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

I was called 'Wikireid' in a former job... 😉

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Claudia Befu's avatar

no way 🤣

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

Way. 🤣

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

Here's a recent major step to further Greenland's commercial and mining development. We really can't help ourselves any more with this attitude. Their icecap is melting, sea levels are rising and yet the focus remains even here on wealth generation via increased carbon emissions.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4dz7l181wo

[I continue to track this topic because 'Future Greenland' is planned as a key location in the fourth novel within The Consilience Series. It's only referred to in side-references in the first three.]

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

Meanwhile, at the other pole, we are concerned about the type of tea available whilst greeting cruise ships... https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crm2rxlz4rno

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Johnathan Reid's avatar

This is a recent Nature paper on increased expansion of vegetation in the Antarctic: https://rdcu.be/dXAHO

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