After blogging about polar cities as a non-threatening thought experiment now for about a year, I feel that the date I first envisioned for moving into these so-called "polar cities" would be about ....just a generous guess.....year 2500 A.D.
But what I have discovered from this thought experiment is that most people simply cannot get excited or worked up or even interested in something so remote as the year 2500. So I have decided to revise my guessimate and change the date of moving into our first global, multi-national, democratically-run and "open admittance" for all people POLAR CITIES to .......ready for this? ......2121 A.D.
If anybody is reading this, what's your take on the new date? Better? Too soon?
I think that in future interviews with the media I will give out the date of 2121 instead of 2500.
I want people to get involved in this issue of polar cities, pro or con, and I now feel that the date 2121 is a much better "take" on what might happen and when.
Agree? Disagree?
But what I have discovered from this thought experiment is that most people simply cannot get excited or worked up or even interested in something so remote as the year 2500. So I have decided to revise my guessimate and change the date of moving into our first global, multi-national, democratically-run and "open admittance" for all people POLAR CITIES to .......ready for this? ......2121 A.D.
If anybody is reading this, what's your take on the new date? Better? Too soon?
I think that in future interviews with the media I will give out the date of 2121 instead of 2500.
I want people to get involved in this issue of polar cities, pro or con, and I now feel that the date 2121 is a much better "take" on what might happen and when.
Agree? Disagree?
1 comment:
Living in the Jetsons era? How about living in Polar Cities?
January 26, 2008 ·
by Jane Porter
Interesting things happen when you start blogging…
One post landed me in the New York Times (Dot Earth) comments section with some random guy from Taiwan quoting another blog post of mine (the “I don’t care about global warming” one).
Anyways, that ‘random guy’ is Dan Bloom and he actually has some interesting thoughts on the matter.
He wants to build polar cities to prepare us for climate change.
In the event of catastrophic global warming events in the far distant future, humankind might have to find refuge in a group of polar cities lying within the Arctic Circle in such countries as Canada, Norway, Finland, Russia Greenland, Iceland, Sweden and the USA (Alaska). Under such circumstances, the founders of the Polar Cities Research Institute, led by visionary futurist Dan Bloom, 59, have announced that they will build a model polar city in Longyearbyen, Norway, with construction set to begin in 2012 and “volunteer testing occupancy” in 2015. (More pics and Press Release here and Dan’s website here.)
He wanted to know my opinion on his big project… so here goes it.
I hope to god that the world’s survival doesn’t depend on people living in what is essentially biodomes (Oryx and Crake anyone?) but the fact that we have some people planning for it shouldn’t be a surprise. Climate change is a big issue and everyone is going to (and is) handling it differently - and there’s room for it all. So, although I’m not really a futurist, I’m not going to call this guy crazy.
The worst that could happen is that it does come true and then we’ll all be thanking our lucky stars that at least someone thought of a backup plan. (Not to mention that for every great inventor/thinker - they were usually thought of as crazy at the time) And, so what if it doesn’t happen? Oh heaven forbid…we now have a discussion on it? The good thing is that we’re at least talking.
And, if you do a quick google search, his idea seems to be gaining ground. Investors are talking, and the bloggers are writing. Whether good or bad comments, it’s the same as business - publicity is always a good thing;)
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Thanks, Jane, for this nice introduction to my polar cities “thought experiment”. That’s all it is, a chance to think about the far distant future and what might lie in store for the human species, IF we don’t lick this global warming problem NOW. All our time and energy, of course, should go into the here and now, finding solutions for glo war NOW. Mitigation comes first. But we also need to spend some time thinking about future adaptation strategies, in case things go very very wrong in the 100 to 500 years, and James Lovelock seems to think they will, and he is my teacher in all this….
So look upon these images of polar cities, and the idea behind the images as a non-threatening thought experiment to focus public awareness on both the here and now AND the possible far distant future. Me, too, I hope polar cities never come true. But just in case, let’s look at the images, let’s imagine other kinds of sustainable population retreats, and let’s work hard to find fixes and solutions to climate change NOW.
I appreciate your interest in my idea and your kind words of support.
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