(urth) The green man is a fake

[António Pedro Marques]

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> From: "Lee Berman" <severiansola at hotmail.com>
>> The amount of sunlight hitting the area of human skin is not enough
>> energty to allow
>> homeothermy and movement. And we know that the Green Man is a walker
>> through the corridors
>> of time, which requires energy approaching full stellar output.
>> Something is not right with
>> this guy.
>
> Correct about homeothermy and movement. As has been noted before, Wolfe
> is not writing hard SF, for most authors of which this would be a slight
> stumbling block.

- Who says the green man lives only on photosynthesis
- Who says the green man only uses chlorophyll-based photosynthesis (other, 
parallel pigments can make use of other wavelengths)
- Who says more intense radiation can't lead to different photosynthetic 
strategies (heck, even our plants have 3 types)
- Who says photosynthesis is the only path to autotrophy
- Who says the green man isn't engineered to be more efficient in his 
storage of energy
- Who says the green man isn't engineered to be more efficient in his usage 
of energy

(Interestingly, one corollary of your idea is that a moving, talking plant 
is an evolutionary impossibility.)