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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
...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.
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.
and not the most serious one.
Throughout history (and prehistory) the weather phenomenon that has killed the most people is drought.
" 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
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.
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.
1.) You can't live on a cruise ship.
Yes you can.
and his colleagues have been reading Snow Crash. Or maybe they haven't?