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Climate Etc Open Thread Praises and Critiques the POLAR CITIES IDEA

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  1. When DANNY BLOOM asked the OPEN THREAD at Judith Curry's very good blog CLIMATE ETC, they replied as follows:
  2.  
  3. QUESTION: Could I ask readers here if they have heard about my pioneering work
    about “polar cities” for survivors of climate chaos 30 generations
    from now and that the time to start discussing them and planning and
    even pre-siting them might be now, as there is still time to prepare?
    see my work at http://pcillu101.blogspot.com or google the term,
    “polar cities” – and wiki also has page. It’s a bit CLI FI, my work,
    and I produced two books already on Amazon, a novel titled POLAR CITY
    RED, well reviewed in the Alaska media, and a nonfiction history of
    polar cities, POLAR CITY DREAMING. go look and comment pro and con. I
    am most interested in feedback, and all POV welcome. – Danny Bloom,
    I just love it every time I confuse you Danny with Steve Bloom. Excellent conversations I’ve had with the wrong one in mind.=============
  • I speculate about the distant future sometimes. What would a 1000+ ppm world look like in 2500 AD? Would sea-level be well on its way to rising 70 meters? Would tropical areas still be habitable with 35 C oceans and steam-bath climates, and if not, how would evacuation take place, or would worse things happen to those populations. Would there be hypercanes? Where would the food sources be? What would the energy sources be? What about fresh water supply? Would acidification lead to ecological disaster in the oceans? The fact that polar latitudes have smaller areas than lower latitudes and that 70% of the world population lives within 100 meters of sea-level may mean population crowding and less area where food can be grown, especially in the southern hemisphere as people escape to higher ground and higher latitudes. This is an interesting area for cli-fi, for sure. A 350-400 ppm world in 2500 AD would look more friendly from an environmental viewpoint.

  • Yew quote:
    ‘Clive Hamilton [see below last comment here] shows that the climate problem is now primarily
    a question of social science: of psychology and political
    economy.’
    Say, I’d go along with that. :)

    Hmm , though I am a smidgeon worried about ‘the pause’
    and the present cold spell in the UK.
  • ==================
  • Danny
    Before I glance at your work can you assure me its not a joke?
    tonyb


  • Beth
    Good grief. What with our Govt busily shoving up energy prices whilst the UK temperatures plummet, and this guy promoting Polar cities, it is difficult to know how to keep our sanity.
    Has the world lost all sense of perspective and context?
    tonyb

  • Yup, more geology and theometry.
    ==========
  • Tony,
    Madness …yes! (
    Re Long term prediction, looks like Danny needs ter read
    Taleb’s ‘Black Swan’ … but I predict he won’t. )

    Beth the serf and so on.
  • True geniuses appear on the most Northern and most Southern horizons.
    ===================
  • RE: '': Could I ask readers here if they have heard about my pioneering work
    about “polar cities” for survivors of climate chaos 30 generations
    from now and that the time to start discussing them and planning and
    even pre-siting them might be now, as there is still time to prepare?”

  • 30 generations? About 900 years? I haven’t yet checked your link, but I’ve said before that at any time in human history, predictions of the world 90-100 years hence would have been wildly wrong, we have no capacity to make sensible or useful predictions over the time-frames you mention, and it would surely be mad to put resources now into a fantasy 2900 AD.
    If you want to do it as speculative fiction, that’s another matter, but it would have no policy relevance.

  • Faustino,
    Thanks. I was going to get in before the rush and buy a beach front property. But thanks to your advice I think I’ll wait a while.

  • MEANWHILE CLIVE HAMILTON in Australia told me via email:
  • Hello Danny

    I got your voice phone message -- at 1.30 am in the morning!

    Thanks for the material on polar cities. I don't really know how to respond. While I obviously share your assessment of the situation, and the alarm it should generate in a rational person, I think the world is perhaps two decades away from taking the "polar cities" idea seriously.

    Some of us are much too far ahead of the times and it drives us mad. It will be no comfort to be vindicated in 2040.

    All the best

    Clive

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