Polar city

Infobox
title = Polar City
name = Polar City


caption = This is an artist's rendition of a Polar City planned for Longyearbyen. It represents both above and below ground components which contain city infrastructure, residential housing, limited shopping, and agricultural areas.
headerstyle = background:#ccf;
labelstyle = background:#ddf;
header1 = Additional Information
label1 =
data1 =
header2 =
label2 = Alternate Name
data2 = Lovelock Retreat
header3 =
label3 = Region
data3 = Polar region
header4 =
label4 = Creator
data4 = James Lovelock

A polar city is a proposed sustainable polar retreat designed to househuman beings in the future, in the event that global warming causesthe central and middle regions of the Earth to become uninhabitablefor a long period of time. Although they have not been built yet, somefuturists have been giving considerable thought to the conceptsinvolved. High-population-density cities, to be built near the ArcticRim and in Antarctica, New Zealand, Tasmania, and Patagonia, withsustainable energy and transportation infrastructure, will requiresubstantial nearby agriculture. Boreal soils are largely poor in keynutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, but nitrogen-fixingplants (such as the various alders) with the proper symbiotic microbesand mycorrhizal fungi can likely remedy such poverty without the needfor petroleum-derived fertilizers. Regional probiotic soilimprovement should perhaps rank high on any polar cities priority list.
James Lovelock's notion of a widely distributed almanac of scienceknowledge and post-industrial survival skills also appears to havevalue.

History

The polar cities concept is a worst-case scenario prediction [ [http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/roundtables/has-the-time-come-geoengineering#rt3845 "We should plan for the worst-case climate scenario" Ken Caldeira, "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists"] 29 July 2008] based on the ideas of Britishchemist and inventor James Lovelock: life in polar cities [ [http://blog.mongabay.com/2008/03/18/polar-cities-is-an-idea-whose-time-i-hope-never-comes/ "“Polar Cities” is an idea whose time I hope never comes" ] ] arrayed inland andaround the shores of an ice-free Arctic Ocean in a greenhouse-warmedworld. Dr. Lovelock, who in 1972 conceived of the Earth's crust, climate,and veneer of life as a unified self-sustaining entity [Gaia hypothesis] , foreseeshumanity in full pole-bound retreat within a century as areas aroundthe tropics roast — a scenario far outside even the worst-caseprojections of climate scientists.

After reading a newspaper column [ [http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/james-lovelock-the-earth-is-about-to-catch-a-morbid-fever-that-may-last-as-long-as-100000-years-523161.html "James Lovelock: The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years", "The Independent"] 16 January 2006] in 2006 in which Dr. Lovelock predicteddisastrous warming, Danny Bloom [ [http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Danny_Bloom "Danny Bloom", "SourceWatch"] ] , a freelance newspaper reporter and climate blogger, teamed up with Deng Cheng-hong, a Taiwaneseartist, and set up websites showing designs for self-sufficientArctic communities. [ [http://climatechange3000.blogspot.com/ "Global Warming and Polar Cities"] ] Mr. Bloom's intent is to conduct a non-threatening thoughtexperiment that might prod people out of their comfort zone on climate change.

Design

The design of polar cities is currently (2008) driven entirely by volunteers under the name of "The Polar City Project". Danny Bloom is currently leading this effort. The defining design characteristics are efficiency, both for operational costs as well as construction costs, and a desire for the city to be a Zero energy building. The proposed agricultural module, for example, is a Sustainable agriculture vertical farm [ [http://www.verticalfarm.com/ "The Vertical Farm Project"] ] .

References

External links

* [http://pcillu101.blogspot.com/ Polar city blueprints]
* [http://northwardho.blogspot.com/2008/05/life-in-polar-cities-future-fact-or.html "Life in Polar Cities "Life in polar cities, future fact or fiction?", "China Post"] May 31, 2008
* [http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/03/30/polar-cities-a-haven-in-warming-world/ "Polar Cities a Haven in Warming World?", "New York Times"] March 30, 2008
* [http://polarcity.org Polar City website]
* [http://northwardho.blogspot.com "Climate Hideout" Front page news article, Longmont Times-Call, Colorado] July 21, 2008
* [http://sfgirl-thealiennextdoor.blogspot.com/2008/02/polar-citiesfriday-feature.html "A Science Fiction Writer Looks at Polar Cities"] February 2008
* [http://northwardho.blogspot.com/2008/07/polar-cities-relocation-of-us-congress.html "U.S. Congress Could Relocate to Anchorage, Alaska in the Far Distant Future"] Map