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The UN Wants To Build Floating Cities To Save Us From Climate Change (wired.com)
dmoberhaus writes: On Wednesday, the United Nations convened its first ever round table on floating cities. WIRED was in attendance to hear about one specific proposal -- Oceanix City -- the creation of a co-founder of Blue Frontiers, the for-profit wing of the Thiel-backed Seasteading Institute. This project, he says, is less about libertarianism and more about survival. It sounds like paradise, but many technological, economic, and political hurdles will have to be overcome before it's a reality. "Oceanix City was designed by the renowned Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, along with dozens of experts from institutions like the UN and MIT," Wired reports. "According to Ingels, who lives on a houseboat himself, residents of the floating city will use 100 percent renewable energy, eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste, and provide housing affordable to all, not just the rich."
"At the core of Oceanix City is a 4.5-acre hexagonal floating platform that is meant to host up to 300 people," the report adds. "These platforms are modular, meaning they can be linked to form larger communities as they tessellate across the surface of the ocean. Each platform will be anchored to the ocean floor using biorock, a material that is harder than concrete and can be grown using minerals found in the ocean, which could make the anchor more secure over time. These anchors might also serve as the seeds of artificial reefs to rejuvenate aquatic ecosystems around the floating city." The community's needs and city's location will determine the design of each platform. For example, some could act as barriers to limit the impact of waves; while others could be dedicated to agriculture. Wired goes on to discuss the political and technological challenges associated with these floating cities.
"The plan for the first Oceanix City is to moor it about a mile off the coast of a major city," reports Wired. "If one of these ocean-top communities were to get parked near New York City, for example, the floating community could be treated as a new borough, or a separate city under the jurisdiction of the state..."
"At the core of Oceanix City is a 4.5-acre hexagonal floating platform that is meant to host up to 300 people," the report adds. "These platforms are modular, meaning they can be linked to form larger communities as they tessellate across the surface of the ocean. Each platform will be anchored to the ocean floor using biorock, a material that is harder than concrete and can be grown using minerals found in the ocean, which could make the anchor more secure over time. These anchors might also serve as the seeds of artificial reefs to rejuvenate aquatic ecosystems around the floating city." The community's needs and city's location will determine the design of each platform. For example, some could act as barriers to limit the impact of waves; while others could be dedicated to agriculture. Wired goes on to discuss the political and technological challenges associated with these floating cities.
"The plan for the first Oceanix City is to moor it about a mile off the coast of a major city," reports Wired. "If one of these ocean-top communities were to get parked near New York City, for example, the floating community could be treated as a new borough, or a separate city under the jurisdiction of the state..."
reasonable as the project of that 20 year-old that was supposed to clean up the ocean plastic.
Also, see Jules Verne's Propeller Island.
There could be legal issues between nations relating to these floating low-calorie resorts requiring the UN to create principles for solving territorial disputes. The Chinese artificial islands is a prelude to the potentially coming mess.
Cities on land suffer badly from these imagine on an ocean. Oh wait on the other hand this is a great idea all those people wanting to save the planet please move onto one of these floating Death Traps^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^ Cities your sacrifice^H^H^H^H^H^H pioneering lead will reduce the carbon footprint very quickly
Your'e all thinking it, I just said it for you
Fresh water production? Sewage treatment? I'm sure they've thought of these things right?
Four acres just doesn't seem big enough for 300 people, growing food, producing electricity, treating sewage, and producing fresh water.
And 21st Century? Four acres is 1.6 hectares. As an American myself, isn't time we started getting lined up with the rest of the world and use metric first? Really, it is time.
I'm going to make a floating city just like this, only we're going to eat mostly meat and use the ocean as a garbage dump.
Not a workaround that will produce even more pollution and problems!
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
"... use 100 percent renewable energy, eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste, and provide housing affordable to all, not just the rich. ... modular, meaning they can be linked to form larger communities ..."
Which of the above goals can floating cities do, that non-floating cities can't do? If people want to go back to nature, and live and work together, they can live on a commune on the land. They don't have to live in a floating city.
"These anchors might also serve as the seeds of artificial reefs to rejuvenate aquatic ecosystems around the floating city."
We can make artificial reefs that are not floating cities.
I see two advantages to floating cities - providing room to spread out, and providing alternative places to live if sea levels rose too much. (The title of the Wired article is "Sea Levels Are Rising. Time to Build ... Floating Cities?".)
But look at the drawing of "Oceanix City" in the Wired article. That city doesn't have nearly as many people per square mile as does Miami. If the Miami metropolitan area were flooded because of global warming, then its 6 million residents would take up a lot of room, if they moved to a floating city like the one in the picture.
No, the title is a plain, outright lie. The UN does not want this. Some researchers have explored the idea. Thatâ(TM)s it.
It makes you wander what possible motive would you need to have to fake the title like this. Like, for example, to fuel hatred of the âoeotherâ, the conspiracy theory of UN wanting to be world government and so on. Crackpot is too good a word.
They're called ocean liners and they're about as enviromentally unfriendly as you can get.
Then build your floating "survival cities for the rich". Every few seconds a child dies in the developing world, and these people want to fill the oceans with floating hexagons...
Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
So if the anchors are built under this huge sun shade, how will these artificial coral reefs seeds get any sunlight and grow? Corals need both animal and plant life to live and grow and that can't happen without sunlight.
A tiny man-made island will have no space to grow crops, no soil to grow them in, and no earth to mine for minerals. The only thing they can actually harvest from the surrounding ocean will be fish. Everything else would have to be imported: fuel, metal, plastic, paper, etc. Even their electricity would depend on continuously importing solar cells, batteries, even wire to make up for losses due to age, weather, accidents, etc. The suggestion that they would eat only plant based foods is especially stupid. Every island culture in history has included fish in their diet, because it's the most convenient source of protein. In this case, it would be the only local food source.
I hear that Texas is planning to keep all of their death row inmates on these. Austria and Switzerland also would like to build a bunch of these off of their coastlines as well.
If we can't use 100 percent renewable energy, eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste, and provide housing affordable to all on land, WTF makes them think they will be able to do that in the sea?
Their 'plan' is ridiculous. The only reason I can see for it, is to shock people into getting off their asses and actually doing what's necessary to reverse human-caused climate change.
Why should building cities be a UN thing?
Don't they know about them sunspots and their relationship to the power that the sun sends to us?
And worth about as much.
A better solution - than to imaging what it MIGHT be like - is to look at cities that *DO* live on the water. Check out the river gypsies in Cambodia and Vietnam and see how they do it.
...but if the movie is any indication, this project is going to cost a lot of money...
Incipiamus, fratres, servire Domino Deo, quia hucusque vix vel parum in nullo profecimus.
I'll probably be modded to oblivion but to me the best solution to a lot of humanity current and future problems is reducing the number of people on Earth. I don't say how, I don't know how, but I'm pretty sure it's the best one.
Some sort of flexible pipe system and electric pumps? A really, really long flexible pipe that ends in a treatment platform.
Once treated the waste safe for the aquatic ecosystem.
A boat can arrive once a week to collect garbage from each platform.
Then a huge garbage barge takes the trash far away from the platform city.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Floating cities like this already exist all around the world. They are nightmares of poverty and environmental catastrophes.
The mistake these planners always make is forgetting that entropy is a thing. Everything is great when it's new, but new doesn't last long.
What a fucking waste of time.
Everything in/on the ocean costs orders of magnitude more than on land. Even dumping people in the desert and spending massive amounts of energy to make that habitable makes more sense.
but its sounds like none of these UN people have.
and not the most serious one.
Throughout history (and prehistory) the weather phenomenon that has killed the most people is drought.
Have gnu, will travel.
" The UN Wants money from the west to perhaps, someday, but probably not Build Floating Cities To Save Us From Climate Change or to be paid out as climate reparations, or just disappear into a 3rd world dictator's bank account never to be seen again
Who pays for it
Who gets the contracts to build it
Who owns it
Who gets to live in it
Twenty times that article says floating, but what is this?
"Each platform will be anchored to the ocean floor using biorock, a material that is harder than concrete and can be grown using minerals found in the ocean, which could make the anchor more secure over time. "
It's not even floating. It's just land-building. Bloody expensive, but hardly revolutionary.
And the talk of powering it all off renewable energy, not having any expensive housing and making everyone eat vegetarian? That sounds pretty ideological to me. History is littered with colonies started on ideology, and they seldom ended well. A community founded on ideological purity will always run into trouble as soon as members start to drift from it.
If you've spent any time at sea then you already know how caustic sea water is to anything made from metal.
It doesn't matter how well prepped the metal is. It doesn't matter how much you paint it. The sea finds a way.
( I can't imagine how much paint the Navy goes through per year )
Hell, living anywhere near the ocean isn't friendly to metallics. The closer you are, the more pronounced the effect.
For example:
A rather expensive lesson is the cooling fins on your home AC unit tend to disintegrate rather quickly just by daily
exposure to the air along the coastlines.
Not saying it can't be done ( as we do it already ) but it will take a lot more effort and cost to maintain.
There are no territorial disputes over cruise ships.
Why would this be different?
I doubt that. A city like this would basically built from floating concrete slaps.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
As always, the tremendous vision on display in slashdot comments impresses greatly.
https://www.homedit.com/22-mos...
https://offgridworld.com/10-pr...
Myself, I don't understand who wants to live in the cardboard-stucko condos they've been building for decades, but evidently some people do.
As is not unusual, slashdot is missing the point. Here it is from the first paragraph:
Does anyone at all see the point of this yet? You've got large populations (including entire small nations) living in places that will likely be underwater in not centuries, but decades. Progress on restraining global warming has been nil, research into amelioration techniques gives people the heebie-jeebies (for good reasons), displaced populations on the move are already creating anti-immigrant backlash and electing right-wing bastards who are not exactly expected to solve any real problems-- they do better making problems worse and blaming the other guys-- So there you are at the UN, someone asks you "where are we going to put all these people?", now what do you say?
Floating habitats may indeed turn out to be go nowhere, but research into the feasibility of floating habitats is pretty much a no-brainer.
to be able to build the floating cities on Mars. Once we get to mars and terraform to create bodies of water, we are going to need these floating cities, so we better figure it out now.
This is project management 101.
1.) You can't live on a cruise ship.
2.) You can't be taxed on a cruise ship.
At the rate it is progressing it will be insanely easy for people to simply move inland a 1,000 feet, or whatever it takes. It will not be that much change required at all.
Caution: Contents under pressure
"You"? What did I do to get the blame of a country on the other side of the globe?
1.) You can't live on a cruise ship.
Yes you can.
That's what it'll be. It won't be idealistic, but for all the people who can't afford to live in the city as prices skyrocket, they'll 'encourage' people to move to the floating cities. We all know most people want to live on the beautiful land, with the mountains, freedom to drive anywhere in a large country etc.
Instead they can now put you in a controlled environment, where you can go is limited, and you're not able to bother the rich, and protests won't be able to effect the economy.
I see this idea of floating, zero-waste cities like the ISS. By adding constraints to a system, there is a high likelihood that new solutions and technologies will be created that will spur benefits in existing cities.
I dunno, this kind of reminds me of something. For some reason the words "Alpha Centauri" are buzzing around my head.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
and his colleagues have been reading Snow Crash. Or maybe they haven't?
eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste,
Better not eat any beans!
I've seen this idea before, it's called The Ark.
227-3517
So much more practical and realistic than 'alter the earth's climate to suit ourselves'.
Cities that are tethered to the ocean floor with a mineral 'anchor' are called 'islands'.
So why don't oil & gas drilling & extraction platforms & their staff accommodation look like this? Is there, perhaps, some reason why lily-pad like structures are impractical for living on in the sea/ocean?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
Any unreasonable government could sink one of these with one bombing run. It would be a sitting duck.
Any unreasonable government could sink one of these with one bombing run. It would be a sitting duck.
No, for the same reasons no government has bombed a cruise ship:
PS: I'm one of the co-founders of Blueseed, the first commercial seasteading venture, back in 2011. This is the last arrogant comment I will be engaging with here. Most of the other "objections" have been answered over and over, and we've even put up an FAQ at blueseed.com/faq.