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| Illustration scribbled, and paper cut up by me, because I need this posted. |
Immigration was never far from the top of President Green’s thoughts after her return from her world tour. The extra two days in Central America to transfer Stadel into his new position in life was an eye opener on the process from refugee to American citizen, even as POTUS’s fiancé, it was going to take years.
After visiting with multiple leaders of South American countries U.G. had seen refugee camps of people waiting at the border in-person. This wasn’t new, news. She and the Vice President elect had been briefed on the immigration crisis at the Southern border as soon as they became the surprise winners of the 2020 election, even before her administration took office. But, it’s not the same thing as being there, and fearing that someone you want to keep in country might be snatched away to a holding cell.
What could POTUS do to not make a terrible situation worse?
When faced with a seemingly impossible situation she would try to remember her friend Lee from the Dog-Planet, and ask her AI-Critter what it thought he would do. And of course the telepathic critter would refer to all Lee’s writings and discuss the data with QSO as a sounding board.
One might assume if you asked a telepathic entity about how to reduce tensions from a cluster of violent conflicts causing thousands, upon thousands of refugees to flee their home countries, that the QSO would focus on the people.
But, she focused on "what is the stuff, in the area, that we can do something about?"
“Yes. Sort the data and do the math.” U.G.’s half of the AI-C parroted.
The last topic of research for the ‘Year of the Fish’ that President Green had been familiarizing herself with before QSO found Stadel, was the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt or GASB. Sargassum suffocated the ocean causing dead zones of life threateningly low oxygenation, a.k.a. hypoxia in the warming Atlantic Ocean.
President Green had been quite bummed that every idea people came up with, about what to do with the sargassum; turned into a list about what not to do with sargassum.
The blooming-stuff while naturally occurring, when over fed, was killing everything swimming in the top layer of surface water, to the life on the ocean floor, adding dead waves to the kill zone as brown tides washed up on beaches. Just stop over feeding the dead-zone was a lot like saying, just stop pooping. Why? Because, the sargassum was in function the ocean’s toilet paper. It absorbed all the toxic shit, some of it actual shit, from people, birds, fish, cows, dogs, etc… some of it unnatural shit, all that was chemical (like fertilizer run-off from multiple deltas) or sewage with a mix of contaminent of cleaning products, bits of garbage, bacteria, prescription and other drugs, etc… that had gotten into the sea via boat or costal populations. But the most troublesome stuff the sargassum was absorbing was soil run-off, and some tailings from mining, that included arsenic, and heavy metals in that dirt.
President Green’s note, a list of what NOT to do with sargassum:
1. Sargassum should not be used as fertilizer. Because it contains nitrogen it will feed the plants, but the arsenic, (both organic and in-organic arsenic), and heavy metals like cadmium have been found in the harvested vegetable crops at levels harmful for human or animal consumption.
2. Do not ignore it on beaches: Allowing large amounts of Sargassum to accumulate and decompose on beaches leads to foul odors (hydrogen sulfide), reduced oxygen in nearshore waters, harming marine life like seagrasses and corals, and of course makes everyone alive on the beach sad or disgusted.
3. Do not dispose of it in unlined landfills: Decomposing Sargassum can release leachates containing heavy metals and other pollutants, potentially contaminating groundwater, especially in areas with porous soils like karst substrates.
4. Sargassum should not be used to cap or fill over the many sea floor oil or gas leaks in the gulf: Sargassum ash in cement/mortar can decrease the strength of the material, leach heavy metals, decompose and add to the salt content to the cement that negatively impacts structural integrity of the cap or sea floor fill area.
5. Sargassum bricks should not be used on superfund sites because the durability in chemically reactive conditions especially when exposed to a marine environment with hurricanes or fluctuating water levels, could exacerbate existing pollution problems in the surrounding soil and ground water.
The list continued, but…. What QSO was working her way towards was what sargassum could be useful for. And here’s where we finally get to the robots.
Arsenic is useful for clear, bubble-free glassmaking, alloys used in battery manufacturing, and high-purity arsenic (not what is in sargassum) is used in the electronics industry including fiber-optics, detectors, and solar cells.
As the ocean’s “toilet-paper” the mix of trace amounts of many contaminants, metals, (heavy metals, semi-metal/metalloid, or compound toxic substances), plus sea salt, etc… Given this impure mix, ash for glassmaking is the best direct use. — With caution, because arsenic is an odorless, tasteless, bleaching/colorless contaminant/poison.
Arsenic in glass manufacturing is something the glass industry has been working on eliminating. Therefore robots controlled remotely. In QSO’s opinion it was past time that the humans improved how to remote control robot industry in inhospitable environments, especially if they ever intend to terraform Mars or have space outposts on the Moon.
So why was QSO going “there”? …. This is a long-jog and important.
The telepathic space squids had helped the Dog-people emerge from their dark age by creating libraries of shared stories, music (in the Dog-People’s case, historical limericks), science learning, (what worked vs. what was found to cause more harm than good), and made sure that all Dog-kind had access to any and all of the information they needed, or could ever want.
Human language and Dog-people language are significantly distinct in that Dogs have scent notes and are very emotional in honest and consistent themes. Some of Dog literature is ONLY scent notes and emotions about it. This makes sense to a people who value food above everything else with the exception of relationships with loved ones and friends.
Human communication is very visual, with the most emotionally universal language being music — language via sight and sound, not scents.
What QSO was proposing to POTUS was a very specific type of glass making. Archetypal-library-glass-discs, designed to be read post-oil-age by a wind-up/fly-wheel or possibly solar powered robot, (in the dark), of underground vaults. All of human knowledge, music/sound recordings, literature, art (images and credits for all types of art), film movies to digital videos, etc… archetypal for thousands, possibly tens of thousand of years, to help prevent the humans from falling into a new dark age, after the oil age.
Because the trace contaminants are concentrated in the ash by reducing the bulk of the other material, robots would be making the discs, as well as handling and reading/playing the data from the finished discs in storage.
Then hard copies from up-cycled plastics and other materials, most of the materials needed is available in enough quantities, if sorted and up-cycled/not landfilled, especially when printed on-demand, not as in-print for profit (see publishing industry and shredding of unsold new books and print inventory waste). The printed on-demand plastic-paged durable-books, and playable digital data up-grading what was available on-loan in the many, many already existing libraries in most every town in America.
QSO mentioned the superfund sites in the list of things not to do with sargassum, because, some of these sites have been cleaned up, while still not considered safe for humans to live on, some of the locations may be ideal for data disc vaults, dust-free airless, glass chip factories, and printing facilities, run remotely by robots.
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POTUS was interrupted from what appeared outwardly to be a catnap. An emergency security meeting was being called to put UN boots on the ground to prevent escalating conflicts in the area of the Red-sea Dead-Sea Water Convenance Project. Multi-national scientists, engineers and their survey team had been working on finalizing plans to go ahead with the project, before the Year of the Fish, had been threatened, and American Military had stepped in and protected them from being kidnapped by a terrorist faction.
President Green didn’t get back to the conversation about solid state, long-term archetypal-data-storage of the world’s libraries on glass discs, for four days. There was more than a few pressing matters that took most of her attention, even sadly interrupting her private dinners with Stadel. The lone Cat-Man then ate dinner with his team and only saw POTUS when she emerged from her room in the early mornings.
He would play pleasant music, in the kitchen of the residence in the White House while he waited for her. Or rather his half of the AI-C acting as his plucking fingers, would dance on the strings of the Oud, and he would play the notes on the frets, the two of them playing the music in his mind as a duet.
“I’m here, and there you are U.G. to remind me of what I am.” He would often think to himself when he saw her. But, loud enough for her to answer.
“You are. And we are here, together.” She would often think back.
“Good morning.” She would say out loud. And he would nod, and smile, no pause in the pattern of the song they were playing.
Meanwhile nested in her crater on the dark side of the moon, the telepathic Queen Space Octopus (via several of her “remote-control” communications), had been jump-starting negotiations with several of the Nations largest tech corporations. Ping-ponging people who knew and worked with each other, off of each other, multiple groups of people assuming the other had initiated the conversation about archetypal data vaults, sarcasm ash for glass data discs, the robots, all of it.
The initial corporations, a couple tech-giants side-project technology labs and “Big-Softie”, who had pledged to spend all of his billions before his death. The corporation where he had made his billions, had been working on solid-state silicon data storage for over a decade. One of the most famous American movie directors had requested a format for long term conservation of silver halide film to save the world’s movies. Reels of film footage is delicate and degrades over time, slowly oxidizing like tarnished silver turning black. Therefore they had a head start, on saving delicate and incredibly detailed image data to lead the project to find that “golden” standard, for the archetypal glass digital storage discs.
The ideal glass disc that was not so small that the data would be prohibitively difficult to write or read, and not so thin that the glass discs would be too fragile to clean/polish if they got scratched, nor too heavy. The goal being the perfect size for a good chunk of data, like an entire series of novels, the life work of an artist, or several large file data-telecine copies of TV footage or fine resolution film movies.
They nicknamed the project to perfect the universal standard glass data disc, Goldie-locks, referring to the fairytale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and the golden rectangle, a standard in publishing and art. Not, because there was any gold in the actual discs.
And all of this was happening in the private sector, because during U.G.’s campaign, instead of taking donations for advertising, POTUS had donor’s pledge how they would ideally like their money spent. She had a good chunk of money earmarked for the US public library system to invest. And instead of “fighting” with the broken Congress for spending, she had initiated a program for non-refundable direct pre-payment of taxes. What this meant was that a corporation like the tech companies or the retired “Big Softie” with his billions to donate, could work with their people, and their money on projects for the people, and a special appraisal branch of the IRS would evaluate the value of the projects budget in progress, as well as the final value of any finished components of a project.
For long-term goals with a giant scope like Goldie-locks, what they were able to contribute in a year would be a challenge without the open production budgets. And then the IRS could asses and publicly share with the American people with complete transparency how much money a corporation or a wealthy individual pre-payed with works. And in this way the US was able to get to work on needed projects like solid state data vaults filled with glass discs designed to be read by special “record-player” type robots, and the corresponding demand publishing system on the surface for the public libraries, without spending a penny of collected tax revenue from the previous year.
Meanwhile, along the Southern border, refugees continued to line up and camp in record numbers. At the same time, the Green Army needed testing and training sites to build environmental shelters for homeless people in the US, and to help towns hit by weather disasters rebuild. President Green’s moto, “sort the data and do the math” meant, sort out what we have to work with, to get the job done. And America, is good at contests and soft-power a.k.a. rules supreme in the world of the entertainment industry.
So, the donations earmarked for environmental projects, in every industry, from farming to construction, all types of food, all types of manufacturing, were directed towards figuring out what was the best and most on demand for the people, to streamline what to produce, where.
Across the US, in every state and on both the Northern and Southern border the Green Army was the boots-on-the-ground for state-side contests for up-cycling infrastructure, construction and well… “everything” that needed an upgrade. Many engineers in training, and apprentices in the trades, electrical, plumbing, hydroponics, aquaculture, desalination etc… were educated via the front lines of the climate crisis while serving in the Green Army.
What this means is that they were building experimental structures, and filming what they were doing. Posting on the new internet, asking everyone to participate, in any way they could from their couch at home or if homeless or living in doubled up housing, by moving their homeless camp/near homeless selves into a test project area.
Imagine the Green Army builds rows of bio-fuel toilets in a camp (mostly state side and a few abroad or for thousands of refugees along the US Southern boarder). And they set up internet and make sure everyone has a device. And the people stuck in the camps everywhere get rewarded for using several of the test models and filling out surveys rating what they did and didn’t like about the different prototype toilet designs.
At the same time they also set ups 3rd places, internet cafe shelters for remote interviews, working with lawyers, and again in the case of the border, immigration offices networking together, all over the US. The camps hire people to do on-site social work, help interview and process who of these refugees or homeless Americans are (where ever they are), if they have already had earned a degree or had certified trade skills via work experiences from before they fled or lost their home.
Simultaneously, they were establishing schools for children and clinics for everybody, and for a large part, the people helped themselves. They built functioning towns with a market, and started community gardens, and businesses. And the businesses too were testing designs, experiments in up-cycling, repairing or making new of everything the people need and want. Stateside it was decaying malls, ghost towns, and abandoned houses in suburbs that needed infrastructure. On the boarder it was mostly mobile movable camps, to permanent structures, as designs were finalized.
At the Southern boarder, in just a few months what seemed a hopeless desperate situation, where people were waiting in uncertainty. Where things that were happening were desperately underfunded and understaffed; transformed into a busy camp. Resulting in a lot of the people never having to cross the boarder at all. When able to make a life for themselves where they are, or relocate to a near by country with a town that was benefiting from the economy generated by the test infrastructure, people follow the jobs. And people who are processed through immigration with work visas and destinations in the US had a plan with a career waiting for them. Many people were able to earn what their family needed, to start working and living, again.
In the next stage after the midterms, all across the US, via the newly passed ‘Every-Roof, Every-Parking-Lot Program’ surveying every use case for every roof, and every parking lot, for best tested designs of all types: passive energy cooling NSRC circulating cool mineral heavy water to under foundation thermal mass, solar ovens, reflective roof and wall top lights that open and close, smart micro-grid systems. All because everywhere across the US and on the boarder in the camps, the best designs were tested and the designs that didn’t work were fixed or replaced. Tested and redesigned many times, everyone comparing notes and feedback. And everyone communicated, what breaks, or what functions poorly, to help determine the best direction for timely production and installation of the new state-side construction projects on every roof and over or replacing every parking lot.
This is mitigation of climate change damage, just a few solar panels on a roof here and there is not going to cut it, much,… but every roof and every parking lot turning green, supporting a passive energy or renewable rebuild? That might actually help, a couple degrees of heat soaking thermal mass reduced, BTUs of fuel saved from here to there, daily energy use reduced everywhere, carbon footprints minimized everywhere there was no longer an old style “tar” roof or ground formerly covered by paved parking.
And by the time President Green’s first term is almost at a close in 2024 they make the cities on both sides of the border official. Twin cities one on each side of Baja California and the Gulf. They name the cities Utah Green and Utah Verde, (Utah with the permission of the Ute Peoples) in honor of President Utah Green.
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