Underground Polar Cities: Our Last Defence Against Global Warming?
Mon, Aug 18, 2008
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Image by: Deng Cheng-hong
Whether you believe in global warming or not, the world is changing. The areas around the equator are getting hotter, so much so that scientists believe within the next 5 to 8 years equatorial countries will be practically inhabitable by humans. On the other hand, rising temperatures are expected to make usually freezing environments quite a pleasant place to live, predicting a huge migration to more northerly regions.
One journalist/blogger, Dan Bloom, believes that we can take measures to safeguard against global warming by building Polar cities. Citing the work of chemist and inventor, James Lovelock (who first suggested moving to the Poles), Polar cities would provide alternative retreats when the central and middle regions of the Earth become overheated, hostile and less habitable.
Image by: Deng Cheng-hong
Dr Lovelock said: “At six going on eight billion people, 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.”
Bloom is continuing Lovelock’s work suggesting that a number of high-density, sustainable cities could be created near the Arctic Rim, Antarctica, New Zealand, Tasmania and Patagonia. Yet to be built, Bloom thinks these housing schemes may be a drastic step humankind will need to take to ensure long-term survival.
We’re not entirely sure Polar cities are the best answer though, after all, we’re not so hot on looking after the land we’re living on right now, can you imagine what state the Poles would be in after a mass exodus to them?
Sources: 1, 2
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Ciudades subterráneas en los polos: nuestra última defensa contra el cambio climático (Eng) Says:
August 18th, 2008 at 6:04 pm[...] Ciudades subterráneas en los polos: nuestra última defensa contra el cambio climático (Eng)www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/polar-cities-global-w… por tarkovsky hace pocos segundos [...]
August 18th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
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August 19th, 2008 at 3:05 am
Linda,
thanks you for a very insightful piece about polar cities. hopefully we will never need them, but if Dr Lovelock is right, we just MIGHT need something like p;olar cities, which have also been dubbed by the media as LOVELOCK RETREATS, in honor of the great man!
August 19th, 2008 at 3:31 am
Linda,
RE: “We’re not entirely sure polar cities are the best answer though, after all, we’re not so hot on looking after the land we’re living on right now, can you imagine what state the Poles would be in after a mass exodus to them?”
LOL, sigh. You are right. Part of the Polar Cities Project is a PR wake-up call to raise awareness about what we are doing, and NOT doing NOW. Hopefully, we will never need polar cities, aka Lovelock Retreats. Some say we have 100 months to get our house in order. Things are looking grim. But we must try to keep hope alive, I agree.
By the way, Dr Lovelock has seen this image above of an imagined polar city, and he wrote to me in an email last January: “Thanks for showing me those images by Deng Cheng-hong. It may very well happen and soon!”
OUCH!
PS: Some of these polar cities will be underground, others will be above ground, others will be inside mountain caverns and caves, where-ever and however we need them. The main point now is to start the discussion NOW, and maybe even start planning and siting these polar city settlements now. For use later on, maybe in the year 2121 or 2222 or 2525. It’s good to be prepared. We need to prepare mentally and spiritually for all this. And we need to listen to Lynas, Monbiot, Pearce, Hansen, Revkin, Flannery and Lovelock. And Andrew Simms, too. Transition Towns is also a great idea and deserves media coverage. McKibben, too. And JAmes Howard Kunstler, too. We are headed for what some are calling The Great Interruption, where the very survival of the human species will be at stake. The time to take action is not later, it’s NOW.
August 20th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
1500 underground habitats / instalations already exist world wide.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
“Global Warming” is a hoax.