When the two lectures began, I assumed there would not be much overlap. I mean what does refrigeration and landscape futures have in common? Turns out way more than people initially think. One image that will stick with me, and unfortunately one that is not too uncommon of a sight in the world today, was the picture of water pouring off a glacier into the sea below. Just the sheer amount of water is what strikes: almost a waterfall into the ocean. One of the types gases we use in refrigeration is a greenhouse gases are called Chlorofluorocarbons and are many more times more effective at trapping heat in our atmosphere than CO2. On top of that they are also a catalyst in a chemical reaction that breaks down ozone, another crucial component of our atmosphere. As refrigeration started to become the norm in the United States, its negative effects became more and more apparent. Today CFCs are outlawed in many countries and many companies have pledged to find greener alternatives. The problem is this is not the case in emerging refrigeration markets, namely China, where regulations have the reputation to be lax or not very well enforced. These markets not only have larger populations that the U.S., but are also installing a completed networks of thermal control, designed to keep products a stable temperature all the way from production to the consumers hands. The amount of waste generated from a cold network designed to feed a billion people could be detrimental to our planet in unforeseen ways. Currently, 15% of all the power generated in the world goes to keeping food cold. If China and Africa, two of the largest populations in the world, go down the path of converting to ubiquitous cold storage it could just to a quarter of all electricity produced. This connects nicely with the idea of landscape futures. Geoff Manaugh made the point during his presentation that any land effected by humans will have a trace of that interaction for almost ever, and the more extreme the change in the land the more prominent it will be for years to come. The lost Mayan gardens of the Amazon are a good example of this. People in the rain forest planted groups of plants together that would never occur like that naturally, but were chosen for a particular reason. The Mayan temples that once reached into the sky, were covered in vegetation, then over years and years covering the ruins in a layer of dirt and vegetation. To the untrained eye it appears to be empty jungle, but a more careful study will reveal traced of human life all around. If thousands of years could not fully erase evidence of people, what will time do a much advanced and extreme manipulation of nature. The cold network is a good example to see just how far we have come as a species: every road and railway that your food will travel on has already been converted to refrigerator. It would take almost an eternity to return just our homes to something that resembles nature and even longer for a megafridge.