Sounds a bit like the David Brin short story Lungfish.

Isn't that already happening?

Has io9 made a list of sci-fi books that currently seem unfilmable? If not, I'd like to nominate Red Mars (or just the Mars Trilogy entirely) for the future article.

Project Orion's estimate to Alpha Centauri was given a range of 130 to 1330 years according to Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Orion_(nuclear_propulsion)

Manifest Destiny meant conquering a continent and all countries that stood in the United States path. If Venus has any life more complex than bacteria it would be one of the biggest surprises in the history of science. And even bacteria could be classified as very unlikely. We would simply be adding life to the rock…

As far as I know the latest concepts for space elevator 'cables' could actually be more accurately described as ribbons. The vast majority of this ribbon would exist above our atmosphere and in the event of an accident it would burn up before reaching the surface. The rest of it wouldn't present a threat.

Short-term perhaps, long-term absolutely not. We are the progeny of Earth's only hope of survival past the death of the sun unless some other sentient species evolves.

Everything humans do is natural. Just as everything an ant colony does. We just do it on a significantly larger scale. Don't apply a moral judgement. We will survive. The Earth will heal in time. New species will evolve to fill the void if we don't bring back the species that go extinct before we can turn the tide.…

Hmm, hard call. If you didn't enjoy the Mars Trilogy or especially the last two books you might not enjoy this. The structure of the book allows him to convey some of the universe's information/detail/history more quickly but he still spends pages describing planets, rocks, etc. That being said, in terms of plot while…

No but it is set in a universe that is very similar. In a way it's a sequel to the Mars trilogy with an altered back story (partially updated for current events), from my understanding global warming and subsequent attempts to prevent it through geoengineering are the catalyst enabling a successful revolution rather…