[noiv]

Reads like a fair extrapolation of the past 500 years. Although, assuming everybody adapted to climate change, the unknown unknowns are possibly underestimated. With 2000 gt more CO2 this is a completely different planet and there might be no technical solutions to the full spectrum of rising social tenses, when a billion people and their jobs are forced to move, because of rising sea level or too much or too less rain. To develop sophisticated solutions like synthetic biology you need places where weather is of no concern and only a few places will remain when temperatures rise by 4 and more centigrades.

So in short C. Stross painted a rosy future where technology - like in the past - solves everything. But he overlooked game changers like the permafrost bomb, a burning Amazon rain-forest and all upcoming social implications.

I'll give an example: In 2010 the jet streams stucked over South Russia and Pakistan and brought heat over Russian fields and devastating floods in Pakistan. As a result food prizes exploded, Russia stopped exports leading to food riots in the Arabian world and finally sparked revolutions.

Sure, there is no proof of one event based on the other. Anyway, there is no science available to estimate social consequences of climate change, but does that mean it will have none? Just think of the secured gas transports in NYC after Sandy. How many days longer with limited supply and it would gone worse? Now, answer one question: Which technology stops gas riots?

Eventually the author is not wrong with his vision of 2512, but what scares me are the next 50 years with an unleashed economy going frenzy over excluded environmental costs.