Polar Cities Home And Hideout After Climate Change
by Karin Kloosterman, Jerusalem, Israel on 08.15.08
Real Estate prices in Canada are expected to rise as the effects of global warming set in. Warming temperatures there are expected to make its otherwise frosty winters, a perfect place to live. But we all know that if the predictions are right, our world’s demographic shift to a severe change in weather patterns is probably going to be a lot more complicated than relocating to the higher latitudes.
Some scientists predict that if humanity doesn’t stop dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we have about 5 – 8 years (100 months) until life as we know it on this planet changes. What will happen after that time is anyone’s guess. But some like journalist/translator/blogger Dan Bloom who is now living in Taiwan, believes that we can safeguard humanity by building Polar cities, today.
He points TreeHugger to his Wiki entry that describes the solution, first concocted by James Lovelock, a chemist and inventor in the 70s. Polar cities, according to Lovelock, are to be designed to be retreats that humans in the future can turn to when the central and middle portions of the Earth turn into hostile uninhabitable regions for an indefinite period of time (his prediction).
“At six going on eight billion people,” Dr. Lovelock told a NYTimes blogger, “the idea of any further development is almost obscene. We’ve got to learn how to retreat from the world that we’re in. Planning a good retreat is always a good measure of generalship.”
These high population-density cities, says Bloom who’s taking Lovelock’s idea further, could be built near the Arctic Rim -- and in Antarctica, New Zealand, Tasmania, and Patagonia. They should include sustainable energy and transportation infrastructure as well: “Boreal soils are largely poor in key nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, but nitrogen-fixing plants (such as the various alders) with the proper symbiotic microbes and mycorrhizal fungi can likely remedy such poverty without the need for petroleum-derived fertilizers,” he writes.
Polar cities are a worst-case scenario obviously, and Bloom proposes we conduct a non-threatening thought experiment that might prod people out of their comfort zone on climate change. Not yet built, Bloom believes this to be a drastic step humanity will need to take to safeguard our future. Maybe instead of investing in the summer cottage, or in a time-share in a northern ski resort, set your sights and extra savings on investing in a flat in a futuristic Polar city. Check out the debate in TH forums.
More Polar City and Global Warming on TH
The TH Interview: Sam Branson, Environmental Activist
The 4 Stages of Global Warming Denial
100 months to save the world from climate change
Thirsty for more? Check out these related articles:
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- If NY Times Columnist Tierney Thinks Holdren Is Bad Science Advisor Pick, He’s Definitely the Right Choice
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- PBS Airs Must-See Episode about Climate Change and Kiribati: 'Paradise Lost'
SUNY Stony Brook Brings Sustainability to the Forefront of Public Education in the Hamptons
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"Some scientists predict that if humanity doesn’t stop dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we have about 5 – 8 years (100 months) until life as we know it on this planet changes."
1. Who are these scientists?
2. What are they basing their conclusions on?
3. What is the margin of error for their predictions?
I really want to see data, methods, and results. I realize that this article links to another article, but where is the peer-reviewed research to support this?
Or is peer-review optional now for doomsday scenarios?
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Karin's note: Dear UCLAri - please follow some of the links I've provided in the post. Four stages of climate change denial is a good place to start.
Thanks, for a very insightful look at the polar cities concept, merely speculation on our part, not a prediciton of things to come. Hopefully, humanity will never need polar cities, IF we get off our collective tuches and do something NOW. But humankind is a strangely-wired beast, and we might not do anything until it's too late. In which case, God forbid, we might just need something like polar cities, what some have also dubbed Lovelock Retreats, after the great Lovelock himself. By the way, Lovelock has seen these images above and told me: "It may very well happen and soon."
Again, God forbid it never comes to this. Wake up, world, wake up! We have only 100 months or less.
Also, the Polar Cities Project, a non profit, is now looking for a fundraiser to raise funds from sponsors and benefactors and philanthropists -- such as Branson, Gates, Ebay people and Speilberg -- to set up the first MODEL POLAR CITY for about 20 volunteers to live in during the summer of 2012, in Norway or Alaska or Canada. The model polar city will be a PR vehicle and educational tool to wake more people up, year by year. So if anyone reading these comments wants to be our fundraiser, please contact me. Or if you want to be a sponsor, please contact us.
See more here in an interview with the U.S. director of operations, Joey Stanford in Colorado:
http://tech.blorge.com/Structure:%20/2008/08/15/polar-cities-part-iii-building-the-first-model-city/
by the way, the illustration above in this post is by Taiwanese artist Deng Cheng-hong, whose vision and insight brought these polar cities blueprints to life. see more about him in Chinese and English here:
http://polarcitylibertytimes.blogspot.com
karin
We have renamed these climate refuges as "climate retreats" and also done up some new images here. POLAR CITIES was too sci fi a word for most people to get a handle on, and since most of these climate retreates will not be a the poles per se, and won't be cities either, I am now calling them "climate retreats" for climate refugees. See new images too, created again by genius Taiwanese artist Deng Cheng-hong
DANNY