Polar cities makes front page of Colorado newspaper: Joey Stanford interview

Polar cities makes front page of Colorado newspaper: Joey Stanford interview

The first time a mainstream newspaper in the USA printed news about polar cities. Bravo, Longmont Times-Call editors! And bravo, Joey Stanford!

Polar Cities: Relocation of U.S. Congress to Anchorage, Alaska in 2500

It is possible that there might need to be plans for the relocation of U.S. Congress to Anchorage, Alaska in 2500 A.D. due to catastrophic events caused by global warming 500 years in the future. This would include both the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives.

The U.S. Congress would be housed at that time in some of the buildings on the campus of the University of Alaska - Anchorage. See photos above.

The Northern White House (google this) will be located in Juneau, Alaska, as discussed on this blog earlier. [See archives.] New York City, renamed, New York North, will have relocated to Fairbanks, Alaska as well. [See archives here, too.]

This is not a prediction. This is mere speculation. It is part of the ongoing ideas being juggled in the air today about polar cities and global warming. You do not have to believe me. You do not even have to think about this. You do not even have to take this blog seriously.

But for those who are interested in such ideas, THINK ABOUT IT.

Polar city researcher resides in Longmont, Colorado

Climate hideout
Polar city researcher resides in Longmont

By Charlie Angelo
Longmont Times-Call


LONGMONT — Joey Stanford is not a global warming expert. He’s not sure if it will threaten human life in the future. “I don’t know if it will happen or not, but it’s important to prepare,” he said.

Stanford, who works for a London-based computer company from his home in Longmont, is part of a team of volunteers working toward a survival plan in the event of extreme global warming in the future.

He is a leading researcher for the Polar Cities Research Project, serves as director of publications for the non-profit group and has volunteered to be a resident in the first polar city in the future.

According to www.polarcity.org, “Polar cities are proposed sustainable, high-population-density cities, to be built near the arctic rim, designed to house human beings in the future, in the event that global warming causes the central and middle regions of the Earth to become uninhabitable for a long period of time.”

The Polar Cities Research Project was started in January 2007 by Danny Bloom, a climate blogger based in Taiwan who graduated from Tufts University in 1971.

Alaska, northern Canada, Norway, Iceland and Russia are potential sites for polar cities, Bloom said in a recent e-mail from his office in Taipei. The work of British scientist and author James Lovelock inspired the idea of polar cities, he said.

The Polar City Project is only an idea for now. Initially, according to Stanford, the team planned to have Model Polar City One built in Longyearbyen, Norway, by 2010.
Because of myriad design questions and a lack of major investors, however, it’s not likely to be built until after 2020, according to Stanford.

“Right now, we’re trying to get a handle on what it would take to get this going,” he said.

Some of the logistical issues Stanford faces are food and water supply, fire suppression, the process of moving people into the structures and protection from polar bears.

“There are just so many aspects involved,” Stanford said. “Who would govern these polar cities, for instance?”

All of these unknown variables make it impossible to accurately predict the construction costs of a polar city at this point, he said.

Polar cities might never be built, Stanford acknowledged, but he said his research will still be valuable.

He sees a parallel between sustaining life in Earth’s polar regions and doing so on Mars.

“Even if they aren’t used to solve global warming,” he said, “these ideas are reusable for space missions.”

The Polar City Project is currently focused on increasing its exposure and finding funding, Stanford said.

“We’re using the worst-case scenario to drive research and encourage thought,” he said.

LINK:

http://www.timescall.com/news_story.asp?ID=10046

Polar cities (Lovelock Retreats) in New Zealand, too!

Peter Foster, a British reporter now living in New Zealand and blogging there, wrote an interesting post today about "Global warming and the arks of the 41st century"

He wrote:

At the end of my last post, I suggested that the human race might be better advised to focus on fixing the consequences of global warming, rather than wasting precious time and G8 Summits talking about how to prevent the unpreventable.

...

Personally, I try to worry about the world's problems in chronological order - ie. today the credit crunches, petrol prices, job losses and falling stock markets and tomorrow the threat of conflict (economic and military) between the Western powers and Russia, China and Iran as we enter a new era dominated by the geopolitics of scarcity.

As a result, I find it harder to worry actively about the far-term consequences of catastrophic global warming some time in 2500 which is the subject of several e-mails I've been receiving lately from environmental catastrophists.

Among the best of these is from the proponents of something called ‘Lovelock Retreats - aka ‘Polar Cities', re-dubbed in the hope of making the idea sound more catchy.

The idea is that by 2500 the world population will be reduced to just 200,000 "breeding pairs" who will reside in between 30 and 100 special cities built in parts of the world that have escaped the rising waters.

Here people will live, inter-breeding frantically to create a new ‘race' of humanity that will emerge in the year 3500 after the ‘Great Interruption' to repopulate the world.

These people, "of combined Caucasian-Asian-African-Hispanic-Arab stock" will live free of racial considerations and imbued with a fresh and more respectful understanding of man's fragile contract with the planet. We can all hope, I suppose.

The retreats are named after (though not endorsed by) James Lovelock, the man who came up with the Gaia hypothesis (the idea that the world is a self-regulating super-organism) and is now predicting that by 2100 some 80 per cent of the world's population will be wiped out in a great Malthusian apocalypse.

These ideas are as old as Noah and his ark, and personally I've got enough to worry about in 2008 - Can I afford to fill my car? Is my stock portfolio now worthless? Will I have a job next year? - to waste too much energy on how life might be in the year 2500 or 3500.

On the other hand, it is reassuring to see that at least one of these ‘Lovelock Retreats' is being earmarked for New Zealand. Might I respectfully suggest Golden Bay?

[NOTE: Mr Foster lives along the shores of Golden Bay in New Zealand with his wife and three childrenl see below for more info.]

Peter Foster was the Daily Telegraph's South Asia Correspondent for four years until January 2008 when he moved to live at the bottom of the world with his wife and three small children. He reports on life in Takaka, a town of 1,182 people on the northern coast of South Island New Zealand, where he is writing a book about his experiences.

Al Gore and Polar Cities: The speech he should have given!

Al Gore concluded his July 17 [3008] (sic) speech with:

"Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind."

NO, he should have said:

"Our entire civilization depends upon us now DISCUSSING AND PLANNING AND DESIGNING AND SITING polar cities for survivors of global warming in the distant future, since it is obvious that none of the fixes we are talking about are going to work. Our SURVIVAL AS A SPECIES depends on our willingness as HUMANS to TAKE THIS POLAR CITIES IDEA AND MOVE IT FORWARD AS AN ADAPTATION STRAGEGY. We have an opportunity to Try TO HELP ENSURE THE SURVIVAL OF THE HUMAN SPECIES, IF ONLY WE TAKE THIS IDEA SERIOUSLY AND BRAVELY START PLANNING NOW, absurd as it seems."

July 17, 3008

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/the-annotated-gore-climate-speech/#comment-67292

United Nations North: Moves to Reyjavik, Iceland in 2500 A.D. With Polar Cities

United Nations North: The UN will move to Reyjavik, Iceland in 2500 A.D. to cope with global warming impact events in the next 200-500 years. New York City will be abandonned, a ghost town. Most Americans will have moved north to Alaska and Canada and Russia and Iceland.

The United Nations, in 2500 AD, will be housed in a building in Reyjavik, Iceland, where many polar cities will also be built to house survivors of global warming, as per James Lovelock's predictions.

Imagine this. Get ready. Start planning now. There's plenty of time.

[images of polar cities:]
http://pcillu101.blogspot.com

The Northern White House and Polar Cities for Survivors of Global Warming, year 2500 A.D.

The Northern White House
and Polar Cities for
Survivors of Global Warming,
year 2500 A.D.




As global warming gets worse in the coming 500 years, The White House in Washington DC will be relocated to the Juneau, Alaska area where it will be called "The Northern White House" and house surviving US administration personnel -- including the then President and other key admin people, about 600 White House personnel in all -- and other survivors of global warming's disastrous events that will make much of the Lower 48 states of the USA uninhabitable. So get ready: The White House is moving north, way north, not today, not this year, not soon, but within the next 500 years for sure. Our descendants will no longer live in Washington DC, which will be a wasteland, but in Juneau, Alaska's NORTHERN WHITE HOUSE and admin city.

------------------------------------

PRESS RELEASE: for release anytime before December 31, 2499

The current White House in Washington DC will be abandonned en masse by year 2500 as global warming causes Lower 48 states of the USA to be uninhabitable as population is forced to move north in search of livable temperatures in Alaska and Canada and Russia, and in search of food and wood fuel.

By 2500, New Yorkers will be living near Fairbanks, Alaska to survive global warming events that will flood Manhattan, Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn and JFK International Airport -- and where food and fuel will be non-existant. A "Lovelock Retreat" [also called a polar city] called NEW YORK NORTH will serve as a lifeboat for New Yorkers who will be transported to Fairbanks by government orders over a period of years, with the willing and able going first, and the sick and elderly going last. It aint gonna be a pretty picture, but it's important to get ready for all this now, at least in terms of being mentally prepared for this coming dark period of human history.

However, even though NEW YORK NORTH will be in Fairbanks, centered around the buildings of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, and even though the White House will then be called THE NORTHERN WHITE HOUSE and will be located in southern Alaska in Juneau (the state capital), humans will survive this period of human history and over a period of severa generations, perhaps many generations, perhaps as many as 30 generations until the year 3500, people will survive and come back down to the Lower 48 states when the climate has readjusted and food can be grown and stored there.

See images here:

http://pcillu101.blogspot.com

New York City To Relocate to Fairbanks, Alaska in 2500 AD: Polar City North?

As global warming gets worse in the coming 500 years, New York City will be relocated to the Fairbanks, Alaska area where it will be called "New York North" and house survivors of global warming's disastrous events that will make much of the Lower 48 states of the USA uninhabitable. South of New York North in Fairbanks will be the Northern White House in Juneau, Alaska, relocated from Washington DC which by 2500 will also be unhabitable. So New Yorkers get ready: Manhattan is moving north, way north, not today, not this year, not soon, but within the next 500 years for sure. Your descendants will no longer live in New York City, but in New York North.

------------------------------------

PRESS RELEASE: for release anytime before December 31, 2499

New York will be abandonned en masse by year 2500 as global warming causes Lower 48 states of the USA to be uninhabitable as population is forced to move north in search of livable temperatures in Alaska and Canada and Russia, and in search of food and wood fuel.

By 2500, New Yorkers will be living near Fairbanks, Alaska to survive global warming events that will flood Manhattan, Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn and JFK International Airport -- and where food and fuel will be non-existant. A "Lovelock Retreat" [also called a polar city] called NEW YORK NORTH will serve as a lifeboat for New Yorkers who will be transported to Fairbanks by government orders over a period of years, with the willing and able going first, and the sick and elderly going last. It aint gonna be a pretty picture, but it's important to get ready for all this now, at least in terms of being mentally prepared for this coming dark period of human history.

However, even though NEW YORK NORTH will be in Fairbanks, centered around the buildings of the University of Alaska Fairbanks campus, and even though the White House will then be called THE NORTHERN WHITE HOUSE and will be located in southern Alaska in Juneau (the state capital), humans will survive this period of human history and over a period of severa generations, perhaps many generations, perhaps as many as 30 generations until the year 3500, people will survive and come back down to the Lower 48 states when the climate has readjusted and food can be grown and stored there.

But get ready now -- at least in your imagination based in 2008 -- for NEW YORK NORH in Fairbanks, Alaska. Your descendants will be living there, not in Manhattan -- in 2500 or so.

See images here:

http://pcillu101.blogspot.com

Polar Cities vs. Floating Cities vs. Climate Change vs Global Warming vs. Lovelock Retreats

Another good adaptation idea with good PR appeal: It's not a polar city, or a Lovelock Retreat, but it is part of the creative thinking that is going on worldwide as we grapple with adaptation issues regarding global warming in the far distant future:
Floating cities could one day house climate change refugees

is the headline in the UK's Daily Mail on July 4, 3008: here is the story:


At first glance, they look like a couple of giant inflatable garden chairs that have washed out to sea. But they are, apparently, the ultimate solution to rapidly rising sea levels.


This computer-generated image shows two floating cities, each with enough room for 50,000 inhabitants.

The 'Lilypad' cities would be powered by renewable energy sources

Based on the design of a lilypad, they could be used as a permanent refuge for those whose homes have been covered in water. Major cities including London, New York and Tokyo are seen as being at huge risk from oceans which could rise by as much as 3ft by the end of this century.

This solution, by the award-winning Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut, is designed to be a new place to live for those whose homelands have been wiped out.


The 'Lilypad City' would float around the world as an independent and fully self-sustainable home. With a lake at its centre to collect and purify rainwater, it would be accessed by three separate marinas and feature artificial mountains to offer the inhabitants a change of scenery from the seascape.


Power for the central accommodation hub is provided through a series of renewable energy sources including solar panels on the mountain sides, wind turbines and a power station to harness the energy of the waves.


Mr Callebaut said: 'The design of the city is inspired by the shape of the great Amazonia Victoria Regia lilypad. Some countries spend billions of pounds working on making their beaches and dams bigger and stronger.


'But the lilypad project is actually a long-term solution to the problem of the water rising.'


The architect, who has yet to estimate a cost for his design, added: 'It's an amphibious city without any roads or any cars. The whole city is covered by plants housed in suspended gardens.


'The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of humans and nature.'


'Some countries spend billions of pounds working on making their beaches and dams bigger and stronger.


'But the Lilypad project is actually a long term solution to the problem of the water rising.


'And it has the other objective of providing housing for refugees from islands that have been submerged.'

Enlarge The Lilypad city would house climate change refugees

Centred around a lake which collects and then purifies rain water, the Lilypad will drift around the world following the ocean currents and streams.


It will be accessed by three marinas and will also feature three 'mountains' to offer the inhabitants a change of scenery.

Power will be provided through a series of renewable energy sources including solar, thermal, wind energy, hydraulic and a tidal power station.


The city will actually produce much more energy than it consumes and be entirely 'zero-emission' as all the carbon-dioxide and the waste will be recycled.


Mr Callebaut added: 'It's an amphibious city without any roads or any cars.


'The whole city is covered by plants housed in suspended gardens. The goal is to create a harmonious coexistence of humans and nature.


'I think trying to accomodate the millions of people left homeless by environmental changes will prove to be one of the great challenges of the 21st century.'

Neither the cost of building the city or the cost of living there have been revealed.


According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the global sea level is expected to rise between nine and 88 centimetres by 2100, with a 'best estimate' of 50 centimetres.


This is due to global warming which is causing the ice caps to melt.


In many places, 50 centimetres would see entire beaches being washed away, together with a significant chunk of the coastline.


On low-lying Pacific islands such as Tuvalu, Kiribati or the Maldives, the highest point is only two or three metres above current sea levels.


If the sea level was to rise by 50cm, significant portions of these islands would be washed away by erosion or covered by water.


Even if they remain above the sea, many island nations will have their supplies of drinking water reduced because sea water will invade their freshwater stocks.


There are also tens of millions of people living in low-level coastal areas of southern Asia, such as the coastlines of Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Burma, who would be in danger.

LINK TO VINCENT CALLEBOUT, ARCHITECT

Glacial "moulins" (glacier mills) and climate change

In a recent blog post on Dot Earth, New York Times reporter Andrew C. Revkin gives a "A Tempered View of Greenland's Gushing Drainpipes", writing:

"I have a story on a new [academic] paper tracking the impact over time of those iconic drainpipes for meltwater forming each summer on the warming flanks of the vast Greenland ice sheet. Here’s the nub [of the story]:

One of the most vivid symbols of global warming used by scientists and campaigners to spur society to curb climate-warming emissions is photography of gushing rivers of meltwater plunging from the surface of Greenland's ice sheet into the depths.
Recent studies have shown these natural drainpipes, called moulins, can speed up the slow seaward march of the grinding ice by lubricating the interface with bedrock below."

Question for scientists and laypeople around the world: Why are moulins called moulins? What is the derivation of the word?

Possible answer: As readers know from the name of the famous nightclub in Paris called Le Moulin Rouge -- also a movie starring Nicole Kidman, "moulin" in French means "mill" [as in a mill to grind wheat into flour]. A windmill is called a "moulin a vent" in French, vent being the word for wind.

So "moulin" means mill, usually as an agricultural and culinary term.

However, a moulin, also called "a glacier mill" is a narrow, tubular chute, hole or crevasse through which water enters a glacier from the surface, according to Wikipedia. [They can be up to 10 meters wide and are typically found at a flat area of a glacier in a region of transverse crevasses. Moulins can go all the way to the bottom of the glacier and can be hundreds of meters deep, or may reach the depth of common crevasse formation (about 10-40m) where the stream flows englacially].

Wikipedia adds: "Moulins are a part of a glacier's internal "plumbing" system, to carry meltwater out to wherever it may go. Water from moulins often exits the glacier at base level, but occasionally the lower end of a moulin may be exposed in the face of a glacier or at the edge of a stagnant block of ice. Water from moulins may help lubricate the base of the glacier, affecting glacial motion."

So a glacial moulin is a glacial mill that mills the meltwater from a glacier, so to speak. And now you know the French derivation of the word moulin as it applies to glaciers.

CNN and Polar Cities (Lovelock Retreats)

A senior producer/reporter/anchor at CNN emailed me today: July 4, 3008:

He told me:

"Thank you for this news about polar cities, aka Lovelock retreats - it's good stuff and an intriguing idea. But I wonder how
sustainable it will be. There's also the theory that global warming will
ultimately make the poles colder. But it is a great looking site and is
far from the nuttiest idea I have seen..."

"Polar Cities" Video Conference Message (5 minutes)

Text: [Video on demand] [Soon released on YouTube.]

Hello my friends, and thank you for your kind invitation to speak
today at this conference on global warming and the future. I cannot be
there with you in person today because of time and scheduling conflicts, so this video is coming to you from my home office.

That said, let me get right to the theme of my short speech today: the
need for polar cities in the future to house survivors of global
warming in the year 2500 or so -- maybe sooner -- probably sooner --
if worst comes to worst as things progress here on Planet Earth.

These polar cities, which I have also dubbed "Lovelock retreats," in
honor of the great insights of James Lovelock, those polar cities will
NOT be at the poles per se, but rather in northern regions of the
world -- Alaska, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Greenland, Norway. Southern
extremes too -- New Zealand, Tasmania, Patagonia, Antarctica. Maybe
southern regions of South Africa, too. Table Mountain, for example.

Why will we need polar cities in the year 2500? Because climate
migrants, mass migrations of people from Mexico, the Lower 48 states, Africa, India, Asia, southern and central Europe -- will lead to millions of people, billions of people perhaps -- climigrants they might be called -- moving north in search of food, fuel, shelter, and habitable climes. James Lovelock has spoken of all this before. Nothing new here. "Sustainable retreat" Dr Lovelock called it.

So these polar cities, these Lovelock retreats, will be out lifeboats, our fire exits, our lifelines. In the future. We don't need them now. But we do need to plan for them now. We need to start thinking -- thinking -- about the unthinkable -- now!

What will these Lovelock retreats look like? Will they be underground or inside mountain caverns, or bunkers deep inside Homeland Security defenses? And where will they be situated? Use your imagination. But think northern regions, and think New Zealand and Tasmania as well. There is lots of room there, too. Patagonia, also. And yes, Antarctica as well.

Most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough: prepare your mind for what is coming down the road of time. It won't be a pretty picture, and in some cases it might even look like scenes from those Mad Max movies or that new movie The Road. But I do believe that the human species will survive, will endure, will come out of those Lovelock Retreats in those dark times ahead -- and after a long period of residency in those retreats, perhaps for several or many generations, 100 years or even a thousand years, from 2500 to 3500 perhaps -- but humanity will come out intact, we shall survive the hardships, we shall endure -- and humans will come out and move back down south when the time is right.

For now I have only three words to say: Prepare, Plan, Pray.

We shall endure. Polar cities, Lovelock retreats, will save us. Our descedants, that is. We will be long gone from the scene, those of us here today.

I say to you today that the time to think about all this is -- now. Slowly. Step by step, we need to think about the unthinkable.

Thank you for hearing me out today. And I do hope that someone is listening. If not, there will be others soon making the same case as I have made here today, so I am not worried. But if you have heard me today, please make your voices heard in the global conversation that is going on outside these walls. Persevere!

Polar Cities, Lovelock Retreats, in Tasmania: Year 2500

http://www.southafrica.to/transport/Airlines/cheapest-flight-survey/2007/tasmania.jpg

Tasmania has many rugged mountains and landscapes, and the Lake St Clair National Park, which includes Cradle Mountain, would be suitable to house polar cities, aka Lovelock retreats for global survivors of global warming in the year 2500 or so.

Hobart, for example, is overlooked by Mount Wellington, where some of the cities could be located.

Polar Cities and the Doomsday Trifecta: Climate, Oil, and the Economy

The Doomsday Trifecta. Some call it the Doomsday Difecta, as in massive die-off of the species, including the human species. OUCH.

HEY EDITOR, YOU FORGOT TO MENTION "OVERPOPULATION". By 2499 there will be 24 billion people on Earth.