Lovers of all things green and those of you, who, like me, live everyday with a twisted knot of dread at the thought of our future, given the climate crisis, should check out a very interesting posting on 'Polar Cities' by blogger Dan Bloom.
Bloom presents and elaborates on the idea proposed by Dr. James Lovelock (he of 'Gaia hypothesis' fame) that those of us who survive the fierce global warming yet to come may well opt to live in Arctic communities - hence, 'polar cities'.
Check out the original post here: http://greenpieceblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/polar-cities-and-you.html
I also recommend checking out Bloom's 'Green Piece Blog' in general for other great posts on green issues; just click on the link that I will be adding to my eco/climate change list.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
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5 comments:
Hi there, thanks for posting on polar cities idea, what I also refer to as Arctopia. You know, I get a lot of emails on this, both pro and con. Here is a sample of what some people have said, and my reply:
Danny Bloom wrote: “with all these reports out there saying that a Mad Max scenario might happen one day […] why are no think tanks issuing reports now about how people might live in those distant years, say 2500? Why is no one discussing polar cities or actual real sustainable northern retreats where people might have to live to serve as breeding pairs in the Arctic, in Lovelock’s famous words?”
One poster did reply: "I’ll speculate about the reason, danny. Such “sustainable polar retreats” will have a carrying capacity sufficient to sustain only a tiny percentage of the Earth’s current human population. Perhaps only one percent. And who will that be? It will be the Earth’s ultra-rich, ultra-powerful elite, the “top one percent”, who command the wealth and resources required to construct and operate nuclear-powered, climate controlled enclaves in the Far North, and defend them with private mercenary armies.
The rest of the Earth’s billions of humans will perish, surely beginning with the poorest, but the middle-class and “merely” rich people of the industrialized nations will perish as well when the rising tide (literally and metaphorically) of climate chaos leads to the collapse of modern societies.
So, discussions about building these cities are probably in fact vigorously underway, in *certain circles*; (!!!) but those discussions are not for the general public to hear or participate in. Indeed the agenda of those “certain circles” is that the public must be “protected” from the truth about global warming and climate change, so that they will continue business as usual (ie. shopping) and continue to drive the machine known as the “consumer economy” so it will continue to enrich the rich for as long as possible. They are well aware that they are going to need as much wealth and power as they can possibly accumulate to survive what’s coming. The last thing they need is for “consumer confidence” to drop because people are worried about having to evacuate Florida and move to the Polar Circle.''
My reply:
"Regarding the posts about my "polar cities" post, above, I appreciate
all the good and well-thought out replies, both pro and con, and those
giving advice, and adding new perspectives, especially John Mashey's
99 post. Thanks, everyone, for your responses. I am digesting what
you've said and will put it my noggin for some more thinkin'.
It's hard to talk about such a wild concept as polar cities for the
year 2500, because yes, nobody wants to talk about something so far
away, and maybe undoable anyways, but I do want to add here, so
everyone understands my concept better: my blog and posts about polar
cities, which I began 12 months ago, is what I hope is a "non
threatening thought experiment" mainly to get people thinking about
taking action NOW, and to scare those people who still need scaring,
not anyone here of course, into taking action about global warming
NOW. So please look at my polar cities idea, what I also refer to as
ARCTOPIA, as a kind of online guerilla theatre for these times. Some
people have told me to give it up, others have emailed me and said
"keep pushing the idea, it's a good way to alert people who still need
alerting." That's the main thing I am trying to do. I am not trying to
convince any of you here. But you have given me good ideas as
feedback, and that is what i wanted. Thanks.
My guess is one day soon there WILL BE a govt report or a think tank
report on "sustainable population retreats" (SPRs) in the future. As a
post above said, this global warming thing entails science and it also
entails society. I remain an optimist. I see humanity getting through
this thing. But I am also reading all these very good posts here, and
they are important. We need facts, and we also need visions."
Lynn also wrote to me:
"Hi Dan, I suppose most people either
(1) would like to see Global Warming mitigated and not have to think about polar cities — that’s the whole point of ranting about how bad GW could be, to spur people to action — or
(2) they are denialists who would never consider that GW could get bad enough to need such wonderful polar cities.
I remember in the 1970s some people talking about “arks” — small, self-contained communities raising their own food that could survive the environmental devastation that would surely be upon us sometime in the future. Luckily we are still hanging on without having to live in such “arks,” though they still might be needed in the future — inland, polar and near-arctic circle “arks.”
Dan replied: "Yes, Lynn, maybe that was Ernest Callenbach's book ECOTOPIA that became a bestseller in the 70s and still sells well even now. He still lives in Berkeley."
James asked me:
Re : "[…Danny Bloom's polar cities idea is to plan so that future generations can live a good positive happy life in polar cities until they can come down to middle regions again.]"
James wrote: "OK, if you want some of my reasons, danny, here they are:
1) I’m not that interested in future generations, I’m interested in ME;
2) I’m far more interested in preventing the problem than in even moderate coping stratagies, let alone extreme ones like yours;
3) I wouldn’t be interested in living in a city, polar or otherwise;
4) What happens to the rest of the biosphere while humans are tucked away in their polar refuges, and can humans survive the effects of that?"
Dan replied: "Good questions. Interesting response. "I am not that interested in future generations, I am interested in ME." I understand that all too common reply. No offense taken, James. Your ideas are understandable. "
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/earthfrenzyradio/blog/2008/01/16/Climate-Change-A-Blueprint-for-Survival
radio interview
In the midst of doing some reading online the other day, a certain
phrase popped out at me from a press release from an Australian green
group that spoke about a "safe-climate future" in an article by Ryan
King headlined "Scientists target safe-climate future".
The term SAFE CLIMATE jumped out at me, as I saw its similarities to
SAFE SEX as a PR catchword, so I began to try to formulate a way to use
this in a good way for climate activists. I came up with the concept
of "safe-climate lifestyle" as a term to mean living a lifestyle that
recognizes that global warming is real and trying to leave as small a
carbon footprint as possible and working in whatever ways one feels
are important to help mitigate the problems we are now facing.
So a question to those reading this blogpost: for feedback. Does this have a good ring
to it, sound good, should we try to make this term popular among green
activists and the media?
As in: "Local citizens gather to discuss
safe-climate lifestyles" (as a headline in a local newspaper in
Anytown, USA).
I like it. What do you think? COMMENTS BELOW APPRECIATED OR EMAIL ME at danbloom {one word, no space) in the GMAIL place. You know how that works. Go!
-- Danny Bloom
ONLINE CURATOR: "THE JAMES E LOVELOCK VIRTUAL MUSEUM POLAR CITIES"
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com
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