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No, the reason people don't live in Antarctica -- is because there are no jobs, nor the possibility of a job (even self employed) there.Look at the *North* Pole. There are resources. And there are loads of people living there. For research, for hunting, for fishing, and for mining/resources.

You think there are no resources in Antarctica of economic value? It's a freaking continent. The only reason they haven't been tapped yet is because it's a freaking miserably place and the cost of getting the resources is too EXPENSIVE to be worth the bother currently. So we have a gentleman's agreement between nation states for now but if the ice melts (as seems likely) or there is a shortage of a key resource (like oil) expect that agreement to fall apart rather quickly when the mining companies move in. The only real question is how cooperative the countries will be. If the US or Russia or China decides to mine Antarctica, nobody is really going to be able to stop them.

the conservation of energy. indeed. Solar provides energy that's is entirely free for every relevant scenario we'd be dealing with.

regarding trees: linky

You'd have to plant trees in an area the size of basically Texas...every single year and never let that CO2 go back into the atmosphere. That's just to keep up with current status quo. More if you want to start cutting into what we've already released.

Trees is not even a fraction the answer we need. Of course not cutting down the trees we still have is prudent.

http://www.coolantarctica.com/...

Also,

Not sure of the validity of this site, but they go no to say that to make an impact it would have to be done on a very large scale (Land mass of Spain every year).

http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica%20fact%20file/science/carbon_offsetting_tree_planting.htm

Wouldn't your habitat have plenty of air?

I doubt, we'll have the SciFi-like all-encompassing roof for another 100 years. I think, the base will consist of a few buildings connected by tunnels. You could fly from one level to another — in fact, that's what people would do, for there will be no elevators, but no free flight over "city blocks" any time soon.

The base will, simply, be too small. I bring up (once again) the example of Antarctica. The place is a lot more habitable than Moon, but all it has are some small science bases (America's McMurdo being the largest). All attempts to establish permanent settlements on the continent have so far failed, however — people just don't want to live (as in "raise children") there.

Maybe if a strong country like US gets to it, it will, eventually, succeed in bribing people to live there (as it currently does with Alaskans)... But they would need to spend a lot of time in the gym, or else coming to Earth would crush them (Asimov warned about this)...

While terraforming is cool, there may be severe health risks with finding unexpected life forms.

But, the cold? Will, a green house effect be enough to heat it? Are there any published estimates of timings and what effects may be had?

(BTW, who would like to have near Antarctic weather. Yes. It's cool, but...)

mining antarctica is not worth it. History shows us no government will stop mining or extracting resources from a country because of environment reasons. If the oil in antartica was cheap enough to extract, and that was not harmful for our planet (as mining mars is not) the USA or another country would probably already have done that by seeking for some WMD. :)

The reason they end up over the poles is because that's where the offending particles end up. To read about why this is so, visit here: Ozone Hole.

I call BS. While there may be some people working in fractals who do the digital equivalent of "walking around, randomly photographing...", there are plenty of people producing beautiful images by hand selecting which equation, what coloring method, which colors, and, in more complicated instances, what layering techniques to use. In particular, check out the works of Sylvie Gallet, Damien Jones, and Kerry Mitchell (google on each name and take first link). Sure, they all use computers to produce the art, and each uses fractals as their medium, but each produces works of striking beauty and each has a style that is distinct to themselves.

If Ansel Adams can walk around in the wilderness and come upon a random scene of a small southwestern town with the sunset just at the exact right angle to illuminate the town and the rising moon in the background (description here), then it is, in fact, possible for people to take pictures of nearly random elements of our environment and have the output be art. There are many, many examples of so-called random photographs that are considered art. I can't thik of the name offhand, but there's a guy in New York who takes amazing portraits of people on the street by walking around with a camera, jumping in front of someone, and taking a flash photo of their face. Granted, I don't like everything he does, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't produce art, just art I don't like.

If the photograph, then, is art, then what sets the digital equivalent apart? The fact that there is no physical document? The fact that I didn't have to get my hands covered in developing fluid or paint all over my shirt? The simple fact is that mankind has been using new technologies and new techniques to make art ever since the first caveman picked up a piece of charcol and drew a buffalo on a cave wall. The camera that you hold to be such a lofty means of creating art was itself the subject of a similar discussion in the art community when it was first introduced, yet today, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who'd disagree with the statement that you can make art with a camera.

In the end, I look at these "artists" turning their nose up at new methods as being elitist snobs who are unable or unwilling to recognize that art is not static, there is no standard definition, and there is no inherent quality that one can point to that seperates art from crap.

Also, according to this site, phyto-plankton basically use sun as their food source, like plants, and act as food sources for the other sea animals... This could impact whole ecosystems!!

Adams was very interested in the technology of photography.

In his day, Dr. Land's Polaroid system was a controversial and "new-fangled" technology, which most established photographers dismissed out of hand, just as digital is controversial and oft-dismissed now.

Adams was very involved in the development of Polaroid instant materials.

From this Adams bio:

Ultimately, he sent over three thousand memos to Polaroid.

One of Adams' famous Yosemite photographs, El Capitan Winter Sunrise, was shot on B&W Polaroid negative material.

Adams was always open to new technologies and ideas if they could provide him with more control over his medium, and increase quality. If he rejected a new development, it was usually because it did not take him in the direction he wanted.

As far as digital goes, he would not only be interested in it, he would be actively guiding its development towards his personal and professional goals.

Here's a quote from a film made not only when Adams was alive, but during the time he was still doing good, vibrant work. It is a good assesment of the arsenal that Ansel used to create his photographs, and it is reasonable to extrapolate that he would have used digital gear were he working today, though not exclusively. Despite the assertations of many amateur photographers, film size does exceed that of 35mm and medium format, and it is from the large formats that acutance unavailable to digital, 35mm and medium format is to be had.

View, for example, Monolith, The Face of Half Dome in person and of a print that Adams himself made, and you see a tonality and level of detail that modern science has yet to be able to create digitally, at least in a form available to a consumer. That is not to say that it cannot or will not be done, because in my opinion it is a matter of time before digital surpasses ANY film. Nevertheless, that day is still in the future, at least in regards to a piece of 4X5 or 8X10 sheet film.

Beaumont Newhall narrated Larry Dawson's 1957 film, Ansel Adams, Photographer, and described Adams's photographic gear:

"...A fine craftsman employs different tools for different purposes. Item: one 8 x 10 view camera, 20 holders, 4 lenses -- 1 Cooke Convertible, 1 ten-inch Wide Field Ektar, 1 9-inch Dagor, one 6-3/4-inch Wollensak wide angle. Item: one 7 x 17 special panorama camera with a Protar 13-1/2-inch lens and five holders. Item: one 4 x 5 view camera, 6 lenses -- 12-inch Collinear, 8-1/2 Apo[chromatic] Lentar, 9-1/4 Apo[chromatic] Tessar, 4-inch Wide Field Ektar, Dallmeyer [...] telephoto.

"Item: One Hasselblad camera outfit with 38, 60, 80, 135, & 200 millimeter lenses. Item: One Koniflex 35 millimeter camera. Item: 2 Polaroid cameras. Item: 3 exposure meters. One SEI, and two Westons -- in case he drops one.

"Item: Filters for each camera. K1, K2, minus blue, G, X1, A, C5 &B, F, 85B, 85C, light balancing, series 81 and 82. Two tripods: one light, one heavy. Lens brush, stopwatch, level, thermometer, focusing magnifier, focusing cloth, hyperlight strobe portrait outfit, 200 feet of cable, special storage box for film.

[Ansel's car (a Cadillac) with platform pulls away from camera.]

"Item: One ancient, eight-passenger limousine with 5 x 9-foot camera platform on top."