BBC News: Floating cities for environmental refugees

[txlibdem]

"Floating cities for environmental refugees"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuFrn2PTKCU

People displaced due to sea level rise will have a safe place to live once the Lily Pad floating cities are constructed. I believe they should be constructed on the sea floor and then floated to the surface of the water once construction is completed.

These cities would be far more ecologically benign than current cities of today. Because of the distances involved in transporting our food from farms hundreds or thousands of miles away, every calorie of food we eat requires 10 calories of OIL (ref http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmRoc7_jVdo&feature=related). Residents of floating cities will grow their own food, farm their own fish and recycle all their waste in an environmentally sustainable way. In addition to the solar panels and wind turbines that surround the city, the waste could be turned into fertilizer and methane to provide electricity.

But won't it take forever to construct these cities??? Let's take an example of a custom house which takes 3 months to 6 months or even more to complete construction. But here's a robot that can do it in a single day, really it's more like a giant 3D printer: (ref http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31jkjsZPjtQ ). It can use many different materials so it should be just a matter of experimentation to see which material works best under the ocean.

Floating cities will provide those most harmed by our stupidity and short sighted burning of fossil fuels with a second chance at life. They should be paid for with a tax on fossil fuel sales (Coal, Oil, Natural Gas) commensurate with their impact on global climate change.

[brooklynite]

1. And the floating cities are going to be built by...

...the Governments that are so environmentally responsible today?

[GliderGuider]

2. No, silly. They're going to be built by...

robots.

[txlibdem]

3. Fair question: The USA is the only major power to never sign on to climate change legislation

In the last paragraph of the OP it says that construction will be paid for by a small tax on coal, oil and natural gas equal to their effect on global climate change.

It doesn't really matter who supervises the construction but I do know that the USA has thousands of miles of continental shelf where these cities could be ideally constructed; East coast I would suppose would be less prone to earthquakes. Then once completed they could use their solar panels and wind turbines to power their motors that will take them to wherever they need to go.

[kristopher]

4. It's creackpot BS of the first order.

Concocted by someone with far too much time on their hands and a fetish for Kevin Costner.

[NickB79]

5. Right up there with orbital solar microwave power satellites and skyscraper organic farms

Theoretically possible, but economically unfeasible to say the least.

[txlibdem]

6. A fool despises good counsel, but a wise man takes it to heart. -- Confucius

Naysayers come in all shapes and sizes it seems.

[GliderGuider]

7. A wise man knows the difference between good counsel and bad, and is not afraid to speak the truth.

[txlibdem]

11. My counsel is good, the naysayers' is bad. Just for the record.

That *is* what your post meant, right?

With sea levels rising there will be less land available and more sea to live on (and once we've cleaned out all the trash from the idiots) and thrive on.

The sea contains all the chemicals a technological society would need, they just need to be separated which would be an easy task in 2050 or 2100 when these cities will be needed.

[GliderGuider]

12. Of course that's what I meant.

Technology gonna fix us all up, fersure.

[txlibdem]

14. Hmmm. Do I detect a note of sarcasm????

And the technology in the Lily Pad floating city is no more advanced than what we have today, just applied on a pretty big scale. It won't be the largest solar project. It won't be the largest wind farm. It won't be the largest fish farm. It won't be the largest desalination or waste treatment plant. It won't be the most expensive or most difficult to build vessel on the sea (that dubious distinction belongs to the US Navy aircraft carriers, stealth ships and destroyers). It won't be the largest city. It won't be the most complex construction project (the channel tunnel takes that crown).

It is admittedly going to be a big project, maybe larger than some of you can envision. I guess some of you would have scoffed at the idea of the Golden Gate Bridge, or the Chunnel, or the trans-continental railroad or, etc., etc., etc.

[GliderGuider]

19. Sarcasm? Moi? Jamais, mon vieux...

You see technology as part of the solution, while I see it as part of the problem. These are irreconcilable views.

[txlibdem]

22. Actually, I see technology as both problem and solution

The ignorant, thoughtless application of technology of the past centuries have brought us to the brink of species extinction.

The intelligent application of appropriate technologies (and the outlawing of polluting ones) will be the solution and will bring the planet back to a livable habitat for both humans and all other species.

[PavePusher]

15. Ummm, just how much sea level rise to you think is possible?

If you envision a "Waterworld" scenario, here's a hint: It can't happen.

Well, not without tectonic activity that would pretty much destroy civilization and be an extinction-level-event on its own.

[txlibdem]

25. Again: these cities are only meant for the people whose land is inundated by rising seas

But that is a bigger number of people than you think:

"Among the many potential consequences of climate change, rising sea levels are bound to cause problems, particularly for the more than 10 percent of people around the world who live in low-elevation coastal communities. In those places, flooding along with a spike in severe storms are likely to destroy homes and increase health risks in the years to come."

http://news.discovery.com/earth/sea-level-climate-change-110603.html

Also: please read my other comments to see how many people, even Americans, who will be made homeless by rising sea levels.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Doesn't look or sound like the BBC at all to me

The 'footage' is just the PR stuff from the guy who draws the 'lilypads'; the voice is standard American dumb-newsreader (and, while the BBC does use some non-British journalists, they're not himbos); the BBC would never use music so annoying and trashy underneath a report; and the beginning and end graphics are low-budget crap.

You don't explain how growing their own food suddenly becomes easier when a city is floating in the middle of salt water rather than sitting on the ground. All logic would point to it being a lot cheaper to build a greenhouse on land rather than having to build more floating foundations that have to withstand storms and corrosion. If you claim these cities would be "far more ecologically benign", then I want to see the figures you have to show that. Again, it's easier to put solar panels on the ground than on the sea. Dry land really is a lot more benign environment for humans than the sea. Any people willing to be cooped up in a crowded floating city would be willing to be cooped up in a crowded land city, and would have the advantage of being able to walk, cycle, or ride a train away from it to get to normal land - at once, and not after a costly sea journey.

The only advantage of a floating city is that it could be slightly nearer to offshore wind and wave power generators. But all you'd be saving is the cost of the cables connecting them to land. Compare that with the cost of having to ship so many of the goods the city consumes to it, and the extra cost of the power needed to produce fresh water (yes, you should remember that having to produce your water from saltwater is highly inefficient), and the sea cities will be a lot more inefficient.

By the way, constructing a city "on the sea floor" would be a technological nightmare. Have you any idea how much more difficult it is to work underwater than on land?

And your 'house in a day' robot is no more efficient than building a pre-fabricated house. Your claim that it "can use many different materials" doesn't seem to appear anywhere in that video - it's about a concrete pourer. The reason that no-one has yet tried living in floating cities is not that we can't build them fast enough; it's that it's an uncomfortable, inefficient way to live, with no real purpose. There is not a shortage of land to build crowded cities on; but real world economics means you'll only build the cities when there are things for people to do in them. There's just no point in banishing people to the middle of the sea (indeed, the nearest thing to this that has happened so far is prison hulks - which are looked on as possible mistreatment of prisoners).

[GliderGuider]

9. Nice analysis. n/t

[txlibdem]

13. Muriel, when did you become so negative? I'll try to answer your most pressing queries...

You: You don't explain how growing their own food suddenly becomes easier when a city is floating in the middle of salt water rather than sitting on the ground.

Me: I don't recall saying it would be "easier" to grow food on the sea. Having a fish farm, however, would be far easier (just need a cage to keep out predators and you're done. Smaller fishes swim through the mesh and feed your "farmed" fish just as any fish in the sea would eat.

You: All logic would point to it being a lot cheaper to build a greenhouse on land rather than having to build more floating foundations that have to withstand storms and corrosion.

Me: These floating cities are 1/3rd mile in diameter so the effects of waves would be minimal if not negligible. Storms have to be weathered by people on land and on the sea, I see no difference. The benefit of building these floating cities is not for you and me, it's for the peoples displaced by rising sea levels -- their land will disappear beneath the sea. Some island nations have already suffered the effects of sea level rise, much greater (and much more expensive) effects are yet to come:

Consequences

Between the Greenland ice sheet and the Western Antarctic ice sheet the world could well be facing a 13 metre (43 foot) rise in sea level if we do not drastically curb our greenhouse gas emissions. Even a small fraction of this much sea level rise would be an economic and humanitarian disaster. A few possible consequences of rising sea levels:"

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/climate-change/impacts/sea_level_rise/

Due to DU posting limits, I cannot fully explain the full extent of population displacement, read the links for cities and nations that would suffer:
The Maldives, 1 meter sea level rise
Kiribati islands, already affected, islands experiencing salt water contamination of aquifers, wiped out farms
Alexandria, Egypt, 1 meter
Thailand, Israel, China, Vietnam, already experiencing salt water contamination of aquifers
Bangladesh, 1 meter sea level rise would displace tens of millions of people, reduce its rice-farming land by 50%
London,Bangkok and New York

2nd source: http://www.earth-policy.org/plan_b_updates/2001/update2
Tuvalu, the first country where people are trying to evacuate because of rising seas
Shanghai, 1-meter rise in sea level, more than a third of the city would be under water
By 2025, Massachusetts would lose from 7,500 to 10,000 acres of land, valued at least $7.5 billion

You: If you claim these cities would be "far more ecologically benign", then I want to see the figures you have to show that. Again, it's easier to put solar panels on the ground than on the sea. Dry land really is a lot more benign environment for humans than the sea. Any people willing to be cooped up in a crowded floating city would be willing to be cooped up in a crowded land city, and would have the advantage of being able to walk, cycle, or ride a train away from it to get to normal land - at once, and not after a costly sea journey.

Me: All of those answers are in the following essay by Professor Dickson Despommier of the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University, http://www.verticalfarm.com/more?essay1

How to deal with human and animal (if any) waste, turn it into fuel and fertilizer and leave nothing but clean and pure drinking water as a result. Closed system ecology. Most of the principles outlined in that essay can be applied to the floating city.

You: The only advantage of a floating city is that it could be slightly nearer to offshore wind and wave power generators. But all you'd be saving is the cost of the cables connecting them to land. Compare that with the cost of having to ship so many of the goods the city consumes to it, and the extra cost of the power needed to produce fresh water (yes, you should remember that having to produce your water from saltwater is highly inefficient), and the sea cities will be a lot more inefficient.

Me: All of the wind, solar, and wave generation units would be built on, in or connected to the Lily Pad floating city so the cabling comment confuses me. The purpose of the Lily Pad is not to generate excess power, their purpose is to give land to those who have been harmed by the greed and corruption of the fossil fuels industries and the bought-and-paid-for politicians that have continually enabled them. All power generated is for the use of the inhabitants of the Lily Pad floating city only.

Fresh water will be filtered using either reverse osmosis filters or (my preferred method) forward osmosis fibers from Dow Chemical. Filters are common and are offered by other companies like Toyobo.
http://www.toyobo-global.com/sustainability/spotlights/sp01.html - I would add UV disinfectants and then particulate filters in front of their filters but that is just my personal preference.
Dow chemical fibers can produce many chemicals from seawater and leave fresh, potable water for the residents, thus producing a revenue stream I hadn't even thought of before writing this reply:

http://inside.mines.edu/~tcath/publications/CathPub/Review_FO.pdf - Page 13 of 18
"In recent bench-scale studies <22,47,48>, it was demonstrated
that when using a suitableFOmembrane (e.g., theFOCTAmembrane)
and a strong draw solution (highly soluble ammonia and
carbon dioxide gases), seawater can be efficiently desalinated
with FO."

The other advantage: the residents of the city can move it to wherever they want: if the economy in Asia crashes they can move to Europe or off the coast of Brazil or wherever they fancy.

You: By the way, constructing a city "on the sea floor" would be a technological nightmare. Have you any idea how much more difficult it is to work underwater than on land?

Me: Did you read my OP or any of the links??? The construction will be done by ROBOTS. The level of difficulty is similar to playing a video game. Take for example the US Air Force drones flying in (certain) parts of the world... they are controlled from Colorado and Nevada... by a guy sitting in a chair with a panel of screens and a controller. Do I honestly need a link to this? Please google.

You: And your 'house in a day' robot is no more efficient than building a pre-fabricated house. Your claim that it "can use many different materials" doesn't seem to appear anywhere in that video - it's about a concrete pourer.

Me: Perhaps marine grade concrete would be the best material, more study would be needed but your comment is incorrect as proven below:

Khoshnevis's machines can create three-dimensional items in any desired shape -- cubes and boxes, bowls or domes, cylinders, cones; cones coming out of boxes, rings or disks, either geometrically regular or free-form. (See illustration, below)

The materials can be plaster, concrete, adobe, plastic or even wood particles mixed with epoxy into a paste. Guided by computer programming based on analysis of CAD-CAM representations, the Contour Crafting nozzle-and-trowel system molds these materials into shape while semi-liquid. Khoshnevis believes the resources of Information Sciences Institute, a nationally recognized facility specializing in computer research, will help sophisticate the programming and controls.

http://www3.isi.edu/about-news_story.htm?s=47
from my other OP:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x316193

That being said, I made no claims about the exact material to be used, I simply offered Dr. Khoshnevis's work as a possible solution to the difficulties of building such a huge structure and to building underwater.

You: The reason that no-one has yet tried living in floating cities is not that we can't build them fast enough; it's that it's an uncomfortable, inefficient way to live, with no real purpose. There is not a shortage of land to build crowded cities on; but real world economics means you'll only build the cities when there are things for people to do in them. There's just no point in banishing people to the middle of the sea (indeed, the nearest thing to this that has happened so far is prison hulks - which are looked on as possible mistreatment of prisoners).

Me: You have no proof of that statement. I can disprove you easily by asking you to buy a ticket on a nice cruise liner (one of the upper decks with a balcony) -- see how prison hulkish *that* feels. When you and your "guest" are clinking champagne glasses please update us on how you feel "no real purpose."

The fact is, all of your arguments have been shallow and mostly a product of not reading the links and watching the videos easily available on the interwebs. Maybe I should have included a million links in my OP. For that I am sorry.

[PavePusher]

17. "Storms have to be weathered by people on land and on the sea, I see no difference."

Massive fail right there. Really, did you even think about this? Seriously?


"The benefit of building these floating cities is not for you and me, it's for the peoples displaced by rising sea levels -- their land will disappear beneath the sea."

Much easier to move them inland. For the cost of putting them on floating habitats, you could easily double, and perhaps triple, that number of shelters on land, just in material costs. Just look at how much a boat costs in construction and upkeep, compared to a similar sized land structure.



"The construction will be done by ROBOTS."

And you want to add that cost on top of the above? OMG....

[txlibdem]

20. You've provided no proof of your statement, I think it's false.

Please provide some data to back up your assertions.

And the cost of the robots would be spread over dozens if not hundreds of floating cities. They don't get tossed out once the prototype is finished...

[PavePusher]

23. So you're going to build these sequentially? Better start soon....

If you want to do enough of them fast enough, you're going to have to have massively parallel construction programs in multiple locations. Lots of robots at once. LOTS. Robots that don't currently exist, no actual working prototypes... hell you haven't yet built the tools to build the tools....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimitz_class_aircraft_carrier

5600 people in far tighter quarters than civilians will put up with for extended periods. A lot of a CV's equipment would not be needed for a residential platform, but would be replaced by stuff that is, so the costs may be roughly comparable. Even if you assume military costs to be an order of magnitude higher than for a civilian structure, you're still talking cost far exceeding those of land-based dwelling.

Good luck with this.

[txlibdem]

27. You're just not adding up the costs correctly

You: A lot of a CV's equipment would not be needed for a residential platform, but would be replaced by stuff that is, so the costs may be roughly comparable.

Me: So wrong it aint even funny. Compare a military vehicle like a Humvee to a Ford F-350. Costs are comparable??? I don't think so. Compare a civilian yacht to a comparably sized military craft. Costs are comparable??? Not on your life.

You are so off the mark with that it isn't even funny.

You: Robots that don't currently exist

Me: Seeing is believing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yv-IWdSdns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfbhdZKPHro&feature=related

And if you think complexity is any hinderance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=eNeXfBapcRo - Full Scale 3D Printed Motorcycle from Inventor
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guTSrF7J6Y0&feature=related - Twin Rail Mobius pendant with balls! - 3D printed metal @shapeways
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rprfWfgnFc&feature=related - The World's First 3D-Printed Car

The only thing missing is the experimentation to find out what materials would be best for 3d printing underwater. Perhaps marine grade cement, perhaps plastic, perhaps even the sand that exists on the sea floor can be used by adding a catalyst of some sort.

Seeing is believing. A whole lot of people on this board need to open their eyes to what's really happening in the real world out there.

[PavePusher]

18. " I can disprove you easily by asking you to buy a ticket on a nice cruise liner..."

And that costs HOW MUCH? For HOW LONG?

Your grasp of economics seems even more tenuous than your grasp of engineering.

Sigh.

[txlibdem]

21. I was responding with a hypothetical. You do understand that, right?

Her statement, "There's just http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.phpno point in banishing people to the middle of the sea (indeed, the nearest thing to this that has happened so far is prison hulks - which are looked on as possible mistreatment of prisoners)."

You take my hypothetical literally and then argue that it would be too expensive to house all those people in luxury suites on cruise ships?!?

Your grasp of economics and engineering must be as tenuous as your grasp of concepts and the English language.

As far as the economics go, there is a list of material commodities that can be extracted at profit out of the ocean:
Salt.
Potassium.
Magnesium. (approximately 60 percent of the magnesium metal and many of the magnesium salts produced in the United States are extracted from sea water already)
Sand and Gravel.
Limestone and Gypsum.
Manganese Nodules.
Phosphorites.
Zinc and copper, with associated lead, silver, and gold.
Placer Gold, Tin, Titanium, and Diamonds.
Water, of course.

Now what were you saying about economics???.

/edit to add link to source of above http://www.waterencyclopedia.com/Mi-Oc/Mineral-Resources-from-the-Ocean.html

[PavePusher]

24. Yep, and almost all those extraction functions are... wait for it.... land based.

For very strong economic reasons, they aren't doing any of it from floating, permenently inhabited structures.

[txlibdem]

28. So your argument is that if it has never been done it is then impossible???

That is an illogical stance to take, easily disproved by history.

[muriel_volestrangler]

26. I've always been negative with schemes like this

I don't recall saying it would be "easier" to grow food on the sea.

You claim these floating cities would be more ecologically benign. What you should compare them with is a city of the same size and density, that uses vertical farms, on land (note that the Vertical Farm Project to which you link is nothing to do with cities at sea). There's far less effort, and thus ecological footprint, in building something on land rather than on a floating base which you have to construct and maintain in addition to the thing you actually want. Fish farms need to be in the right ecological place; you can't just attach cages to a floating structure and assume fish will swim into them. Basically, they'd need to be separate from where you're placing the structure, and you can have them without a city attached.

These floating cities are 1/3rd mile in diameter so the effects of waves would be minimal if not negligible

So about the same diameter as the length of the longest ship ever built. I think storms would still be a problem (as in 'make it a very uncomfortable place to live', and 'require extensive maintenance of the vital parts of the structure'), and you don't address corrosion at all. The sea is unforgiving to structures. And if all you need is a 1/3 mile diameter place to put your city, then there are endless places on land you can do it - that's about 55 acres. Just take one small farm and you've got enough space.

Most of the principles outlined in that essay can be applied to the floating city..

But you make it much more difficult, and therefore inefficient, by trying to do it out at sea.

the cabling comment confuses me

I was saying the one advantage of a floating city is that it could be closer to an offshore wind or wave farm, and thus would need less cabling.

All of the wind, solar, and wave generation units would be built on, in or connected to the Lily Pad floating city

Your floating platform still needs to generate its own power. As I've said, it's far easier, and therefore cheaper and ecologically less damaging, to put solar panels on land than to build extra floating platforms for them. Offshore wind and wave generators take up a lot more room than 1/3rd of a mile diameter (they need space between them because of the wakes), so 'connected' means 'with cables several kilometres long transmitting the power to the floating city'.

For desalination, your 'favoured process' is a batch process (discussed in terms of emergency water for lifeboats )that requires an input of chemicals (ammonium carbonate and ammonium hydroxide), which is not sustainable (you need energy to re-manufacture the chemicals). Desalination is still "extremely energy intensive".

The other advantage: the residents of the city can move it to wherever they want: if the economy in Asia crashes they can move to Europe or off the coast of Brazil or wherever they fancy.

Oh god, the libertarian pipe dream. The location is irrelevant for the economy of the floating city; you've been trying to keep it independent of the land all this time, and now you think that it's so thoroughly immersed in its geographical economy that it can magically reinvent itself by being somewhere else? What do you envisage these cities actually producing, that is geographically dependent and thus can be reinvigorated by towing the complex several thousand miles across oceans? (remember, the city needs all those fish farms, and wind and wave farms. And you're sure that these things are so big that weather means nothing to them, but you're OK with expending the energy to tow it all half way round the world ...)

Did you read my OP or any of the links??? The construction will be done by ROBOTS. The level of difficulty is similar to playing a video game.

I watched the concrete pourer video, which involved people all over the place. It's a manned machine. If you really need reminding just how difficult working underwater is, look at the oil industry. Look at how much it costs them to do things remotely underwater, and how difficult it is - look at the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster. Just saying "I'll get a robot to do it" is like saying "I'll get someone rich to pay for everything I need". It's waving your hands and just hoping some solution comes up. This is, however, a sidetrack - no-one would seriously want to construct things on the seafloor before floating them up, because everyone can see it's far more effort than building on land, in the air. I'll ignore it as a brainstorm of yours, which isn't relevant to the idea of floating cities anyway.

Finally: the purpose of a cruise liner is to move rich people around between nice destinations, and pamper them while you're doing it. As others have pointed out, it's incredibly expensive. It's no model for how to build something ecologically sustainable. It's a way to expend a lot of energy on behalf of the rich, like flying. You can put 400 people in a jumbo jet, and say "hey, look, it doesn't take up any land at all". That doesn't make it a solution to rising sea levels making present coastal cities uninhabitable.

[txlibdem]

29. Negative minds reduce the potential of us all

I'm sorry that you are so negative of every new thing: "Schemes like this." Where is your imagination? Would we have gone to the moon had you been President back then??? Would we have built the interstate highway system (which was at the time a marvel of the world) had you been in charge back then???

I just can't imagine being inside your head; I don't think I could survive it. I need to be positive about the future, about Humankind (I believe that 98% of people are basically good and want to do good things). And I need to be positive about our potential to solve these terrible global problems that we (globally) have caused.

The reason I don't answer the corrosion question is that there have been no experiments conducted to find the correct material to build these things with. Those who say it should be built in shipyards may turn out to be correct. I prefer to think that human ingenuity will conquer the problems that face us, including this one.

Also, I just don't see the difference between "land based concrete" and marine grade concrete... which is used every day, poured under water and it sets so quickly that solid structures can be built with it. What is the difference??? Please explain it to me.

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. It's harder to work underwater

because we are air-breathing, land-based mammals; and the viscosity and density of water is a lot more than air. Yes, of course concrete sets underwater, but the whole job is harder (and remember, what you're doing is building a huge structure that then has to safely float for hundreds of years, not just putting in some underwater foundations).

And you still haven't come up with a good reason for the extra cost of making everything float. You seem to be saying that building a city on land just isn't as good as building a floating one, despite all our experience. Maybe you have been seduced by the architect's pretty pictures. Did the architect ever say why sea cities are better than land ones? Wouldn't the flexibility of being able to build a city a bit at a time, repair and extend it with land-based equipment, fit parks into it, and other benefits we've enjoyed for thousands of years, be better than a cramped city which has the potential to catastrophically sink?

[txlibdem]

32. My, Oh my. What am I to do with you???

We are air breathing, land-based mammals... just like the whales used to be and dolphins, seals, sea lions etc. You're making it sound somehow unnatural when people do it all the time. Fishermen spend months at a time on a tiny cramped smelly and dangerous fishing boat. If they can do that then other people will be happy to live in a Lily Pad floating city... because it's based on pretty pictures and people like to live in pretty surroundings.

The curved and non-linear structure of the ship seems more natural than artificial and its design is very livable.

Extra cost of making everything float? There is none. In fact, quite the opposite: all you do is make the proper supports hollow and bring in dozens of air hoses till you've filled those with air. The city will rise to the surface all by itself, much like divers do with lift bags all the time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IYpE3vWPfYE#t=107s

You: "You seem to be saying that building a city on land just isn't as good as building a floating one, despite all our experience."

Me: You don't seem to be listening. There will be a much higher population and much less land that people would want to live on due to climate change and sea level rise.

Lastly, there is no reason why the city could not be expanded upon. Parks are already integrated into the design as is a huge swimming area but what is to stop the residents from adding on new sections as their population grows or if they want more area for recreation or any other purpose.

[PavePusher]

37. Aha.... ahahaha.... hahahahahahahahahahahah!

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:


Whew!

[madokie]

10. This has to be the stupidest thing I've read yet

I'm surprised I could make it to the end. What horseshit. Take the computer away from whoever the author is, I didn't bother to note

[txlibdem]

16. Okay, what is YOUR solution to perhaps a billion people becoming homeless

You know darn well that they cannot just move onto their neighbor's land. Fresh water and land resources are stretched to the limit now.
Let's take the United States; 19 million people will be vulnerable to sea level rise in only 4 states:

"To find out just how many people are potentially vulnerable, Curtis and colleague Annemarie Schneider began with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's predictions about sea level rise over the next few decades. Then, they looked geographically to identify four of the most vulnerable regions in the United States as California, Florida, New Jersey and South Carolina.

When the researchers combined sea-level data with projected populations in those areas for the year 2030, they came up with an estimate of 19.3 million people who will be at risk of being inundated by rising sea levels in just the four regions they looked at."

http://news.discovery.com/earth/sea-level-climate-change-110603.html

[Nederland]

33. Land for cities is not, and will never be, scarce

That is the weak part in your argument. Less than 1.5% of the world's land is currently used by cities. The loss of a couple million km2 of land from sea level rise will not put much of a dent in the amount of land still available to build cities on.

[txlibdem]

35. Land for farming is ALREADY scarce and will become even more so

2050 population is projected to be 9 Billion... that will require additional farmland larger than the entire country of Brazil to feed all of those people. Then add to that up to a billion that will lose their land (a lot of it farmland) to rising seas. Then add to that the decade long droughts followed by decade long flooding, rinse and repeat. This will turn formerly perfect farmland into desert real quick. Temperatures are also scheduled to rise and Texas could have summers that reach 120 degrees. There goes your farmland.

Land for cities is not scarce. And it never will be. But it won't matter because people can't live there anyway.

[Nederland]

38. Agreed

Loss of farmland is a big problem. However, it is a big problem that your floating cities do not solve. Given that building on land is cheaper, and that there is and always be plenty of land to build cities on, you still need to explain why in the world anyone would build a floating city. The only reason to do such a thing is political: you want to build somewhere that is outside existing national boundaries.

[txlibdem]

39. It is humanitarian

The reason I believe a small tax on fossil fuels should be the vehicle by which these cities are built is because the pain and loss suffered by the displaced is a direct result of fossil fuels. I think $1 per ton of coal and $0.01 per gallon of gasoline or diesel and an equivalent added cost for natural gas.

In a way, I guess you could say that is political: the people who are responsible for forcing your family off your land that has been in your family for generations are going to pay the bill to redress you for your loss.

And the best answer to why they can't just move to another place is happening in Africa as we speak. Europe is also developing a negative attitude toward economic refugees numbering in the thousands... what will happen when they number up to a billion?

Look at your nice cozy little patch of the planet and ask yourself if a billion or so refugees who don't speak your language, would be in need of social services due to their plight and the trek, who don't look like you nor speak your language, and would cost YOU in some direct or indirect way... how would you and the majority of the people in your region respond to these refugees???

[Nederland]

40. I imagine they would respond the same way they do now

Right now, over 200 million people pickup and move every year. http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/about-migration/facts-and-figures/lang/en

A billion people moving over the course of 50-100 years is not as big a problem as you make it seem.

[muriel_volestrangler]

41. I don't think that's 'a per year' figure

The source for it is a UN site, where they say:

Estimated number of international migrants at mid-year - Definition: Estimated number of international migrants, in a country, area or region as of mid-year for each of the years indicated. The estimates refer to both sexes combined. The number of international migrants generally represents the number of persons born in a country other than that in which they live.

http://esa.un.org/migration/index.asp?panel=5

And if you look at the figure for the USA, using this page: http://esa.un.org/migration/index.asp?panel=1 , you find it's 13.5% for 2010. It's quite easy to believe 13.5% of the US population was born in another country; but for that amount to have come in (or gone out) in a single year doesn't sound right. And the figure of 87% for Qatar, given in your link, must mean a total, not a per year number.

[txlibdem]

42. Thank you for the thoughtful analysis

I knew that figure was wrong but didn't have the time to do disprove it.

[Nederland]

46. Good catch

I went to the UN site and got the correct numbers. In 2000 there were 178.5 million migrants, which increased to 213.9 million migrants in 2010. That works out to be an increase of ~3.5 million migrants a year.

Regarding txlibdem's claim that "a billion" people will be forced to migrate as a result of sea level change, I could find no supporting evidence. The estimates I came across range from 20-250 million. (a good summary: http://www.fmreview.org/FMRpdfs/FMR31/FMR31.pdf). If we take the mid range of these estimates and spread them out over 50 years the numbers are still not very high. The world is currently dealing with 3.5 million people moving every year, and a good portion of those are already being classified as environmental migrants. Given this, I believe it is clear that my original assertion in post #40--that the increase we will see as a result of climate change is "not as big a problem as you make it seem"--is still a valid one.

The reality of forced migration is that war will always have a much greater impact than climate change. In the final year (1944) of World War II, as many as 8 million Germans fled the approaching Soviet armies. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_of_German_civilians_during_the_end_of_World_War_II). The UN estimates that 5 million Iraqis fled as a result of the Iraq war (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_Iraq). It also estimates that as many as 5.5 million Sudanese were displaced by the conflicts there (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_Sudan). When one considers that displacement due to war does not come with the decades long warning that climate change does, it is easy to see why migration due to climate change will never have the same chaotic impact that the existing migrations that the world has dealt with for hundreds of years.

[txlibdem]

43. "X" number of people moving to less and less land with far less farm land available: doesn't add up

If there were no climate change then what you write may have merit. But in light of the inevitable loss of land, increasing severity and duration of both drought years and flood years, climate change will cause more land to become uninhabitable and marginally habitable where once it was bountiful.

It's like a chess board where the referee removes one of the squares after each player move.

[txlibdem]

30. 3D printing can print food now - and clothing!

3D printing can print out metal, plastic, adobe, concrete, resins of all kinds.

And now.... a 3D printer that prints out CHOCOLATE! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIFi8but3Vw&feature=related

How about a 3D printer that can print out CLOTHING! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2iT8S0m3m4&feature=related

[NickB79]

34. Wouldn't it be far cheaper to just move inland as the seas rise?

Yes, I understand there would be conflicts between nations as refugees cross borders and put strains on resources, but compared to the costs of building enough floating space to house hundreds of millions of people?

[txlibdem]

36. Just move in and take over? Or move in and get shot down?

Depending on who has the most guns and ammo???

The example of Bangladesh where it will lose 50% of its farmland if the sea rises just 1 meter (which it definitely will) should tell you that just moving your family isn't enough. Sea level rise has just decreased the total food production of that nation by half. What will they eat?

[The Croquist]

44. How long will it take for sea level to rise 1 meter?

At current rates it will take 300 years. Maybe if they institute birth control it won't be that big an issue in 300 years.

It isn't tough to prevent Bangladesh from losing farmland. Much of Bangladesh is a delta like the Mississippi delta. Both the Mississippi and Bangladesh deltas survived a sea level rise of 400 feet. Tear out the dams and levees and let the rivers flood the land like they did for tens of thousands of years. The sediments deposited from the floods builds up the delta keeping it above sea level. New Orleans is sinking not because of rising sea level but because humans are trying to prevent the natural balance from occurring.

[txlibdem]

45. 1 meter sea level rise before 2100

It all depends on what happens with the ice sheets as well. We could be looking at 13 meters sea level rise by 2100 or it could take longer... climate scientists just don't know with certainty.

Should we only act AFTER the disasters? Or should we begin to improve our technology and test a few prototypes long before they are actually needed? I vote for the latter myself.

"However, a rise of even a metre could have major implications for low-lying countries - especially, noted Dr Holgate, those whose economies are not geared up to build sophisticated sea defence systems.

"Eighty to 90% of Bangladesh is within a metre or so of sea level," he said, "so if you live in the Ganges delta you're in a lot of trouble; and that's an awful lot of people."

Dr Jevrejeva's projections have been submitted for publication in the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7349236.stm

That includes 50% of Bangladesh's farm land as well.