As any fule kno, cities are a good thing – Ecopolis Now! and all that.1 We read that our ever-growing urban sprawls are increasingly self-built, high-density, low-rise, pedestrianised, low energy consumption, frequent recyclers – our last best hope, or so I’m told. Regardless whether you agree, there’s something seductive about the idea that the urban village can deliver Arcadia with Starbucks.
Before we get there, unfortunately, climate change is probably going to wipe our civilisation out. See what I did there? “Probably”. You can keep snacking on your Pringles (or whatever people eat these days) without worrying that a) I’m some kind of nutter who thinks that climate change is going to wipe our civilisation out and b) that climate change is going to wipe our civilisation out. “Probably” – it’s like magic!
The only evidence I’ve got is this article (via this blog post), and we all know scientists are probably making most of this stuff up. Roll with the abstract though:
“Despite the uncertainty in future climate-change impacts, it is often assumed that humans would be able to adapt to any possible warming. Here we argue that heat stress imposes a robust upper limit to such adaptation… global-mean warming of about 7 °C [would call] the habitability of some regions into question. With 11–12 °C warming, such regions would spread to encompass the majority of the human population as currently distributed.”
A brief aside: Paul Romer is taken seriously, while Danny Bloom is not, despite the fact that both of them are peddling schemes that are utterly impracticable and one step away from crackpot. Chalk it up to the fact that people will take you more seriously if you’ve made a lot of money, so that Romer’s luck in filling a niche in the market somehow translates into column inches for his ideas.2 Anyway, if #3 sounded bad, relax. I’m probably here to save you, set up Romer and Bloom for life, and even throw in some avant garde architecture into the bargain. Watch the magic happen!
- Antarctica is by definition the natural habitat of Bloom’s polar cities, but his biggest problem is that nobody wants to live in Antarctica because it’s the harshest environment on the face of the planet.
- In the globally-warmed future, however, Antarctica will be desirable beachfront real estate compared to the dustbowl that will compose the rest of the planet.
- If we wait until the planet turns into hell, it’ll be too late. How to persuade people to move to Antarctica? Why, set up Charter Cities and watch the economic migrants flock to the promised land.
- Unfortunately it’s tough living in Antarctica however you cut it: enter Towards a New Antarchitecture, Taylor Medlin’s thesis project, covered by BLDGBLG. Now that’s some nice ice building.
- Alternatively we could rock it old school in modular cities with a Futurism-meets-John Carpenter aesthetic while listening to Music from Antarctica. See you on the viewing deck with a daiquiri – I’ll be the one rocking it like MacReady.
