Green Earth by Robinson Kim Stanley

Author:Robinson, Kim Stanley [Robinson, Kim Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-11-03T08:00:00+00:00

But maybe there were other markets.

Marta picked up, and Frank said in a rush, “Hi Marta it’s Frank,” then asked her how it was going with the lichen project.

She said it was going pretty well. “Do you have a cold?”

“No.”

They had engineered one of their tree lichens to export its sugar to the tree faster than the original had. This lichen had always taken hormonal control of its trees, and now it was moving sugar production from photosynthesis into the trees’ lignin faster than before, which meant extra carbon added to the trees’ trunks and roots. So far the alterations had been simple, Marta said, and the trees would live for centuries, and had millions of years’ experience in not getting eaten by bacteria. The sequestration would therefore last for the lifetime of the tree—not long on geological scales, but Diane had declared early on that sequestration time was not to be heavily weighted in judging the various proposals. Any port in a storm, as she put it.

“That sounds great,” Frank said. “Which trees do these lichen live on?”

The ones indigenous to the world-wrapping forest of the north sixties, Marta said, meaning Europe, Siberia, Kamchatka, Alaska, and Canada.

“I see,” Frank said.

“Yeah,” Marta replied. “So what’s up?”

“Well, I wanted to let you know that the new center is started in San Diego. They’re going to lease the old Torrey Pines Generique facility.”

“You’re kidding. Ha—you ought to hire Leo Mulhouse too. He’d get a cell lab working better than anyone.”

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