CLIMATRON by Biko Lang

The St. Louis Botanical Garden’s geodesic dome, known as The Climatron, is featured in a new climate thriller titled “Polar City Red” by cli fi novelist Jim Laughter.  The New York Times says the idea of polar cities is “a thought experiment that might prod people out of their comfort zone on climate.” Leading global warming activist James Lovelock has not read the book ye but he says, “We cannot regard the future of the civilized world in the same way as we see our personal futures. The planet may have already passed the tipping point on global warming. When the end will come, however, nobody can predict, not even me. At least 500 more years, I guess.”

In ”Polar City Red”, the Climatron has been disassembled and transported piece by piece to serve as the central hub of a geodesic survivalist city.
According to Tim O’Neil of the St Louis Post Dispatch newspaper, the Climatron, inspired by R. Buckminster Fuller, ”rose like a honeycomb of aluminum tubes, slowly curling into a dome high above the flowers. It could save the palm trees and, perhaps, revive the garden.”

”The odd structure was the Climatron,” O’Neil adds, “the world’s first geodesic greenhouse and new home for the Missouri Botanical Garden’s orchids, coffee trees and hibiscus. The local architects who designed it were inspired by Fuller, a Harvard dropout and prolific spinner of big ideas.”

The Climatron now figures prominently in a new sci fi book about climate change by Oklahoma writer Jim Laughter.

The unusual shape drew visitors during the year of construction. says O’Neil.  Shortly before the dedication in 1960, all 112 interior floodlights were illuminated. Outside, the Climatron glowed like a magic mushroom in a fantasy movie, according to news reports at the time.

A grand-daughter of one of the Climatron’s builders is reading “Polar City Red” this summer, after reading about the book in her local St. Louis newspaper. Laughter, based in Oklahoma, is eagerly awaiting her appraisal of the book.

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