Thank you, Nicole, for a very good story about our polar cities project, what I like to call "a non-threatening thought experiment". You wrote the article in a way that allows readers to think about the issues, without scaring them too much. Because polar cities is not about scaring people, or indulging in scare-mongering. It's really a tool to try to help wake people up, around the world, to the real dangers that global warming poses for the future of humankind. The planet will survive okay. Animals and fish will survive, no matter what. But people, the human species, we are in big trouble in the next 500 years or so. And the time to take action is NOW. James Lovelock should be listened to. I did.

What experts in climate change field are saying about polar cities, FYI:

The following quotes are from genuine emails from real scientists and experts in the field of climate change and scientific research. Since the emails to this blog were private emails and not intended for publication with their names attached, I have decided to keep their actual names private, keeping with international standards of Internet etiquette. -- Dan Bloom

*NOTE: Below are comments, most of them critical or negative, from scientists and professors in several English-speaking countries, and one from Russia.

Professor A: "If it comes to that, in the far distant future, as you say, we probably won't have the social stability to
sustain such advanced developments as 'polar cities'."

Professor B: "While I think that polar cities might surface as a reasonable model for future habitation, I'm still not ready to give up on reorganizing ourselves in the lower latitudes just yet. In other words, given the warming scenarios, why not simply reconstruct sustainable (and, most especially equitable) kinds of communities in northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, Russia Scandinavia?"

Professor C: "With the movement of grain belts north, and the thawing of lots of open ground, wouldn't it be much easier, less costly and accommodate many more of global warming 'refugees; if we were to build closed-loop, sustainable communities in the north -- but above ground? Are your polar cities above ground or below ground?"

Professor D: "Sir, your notion of polar cities for survivors of global warming in the distant future is quite provocative -- and most interesting. My real hope is that it will help prod the conversation in the direction it needs to go. If it serves that purpose, that, alone, will be a considerable achievement."

Professor E: "I doubt I would have any useful comments to make on something 400 years from now. However, people are clever and will create for themselves very interesting living conditions as time goes on."

Professor F: "I had not heard of this idea until now. If we do not halt global warming, it is probable that by 2500 the polar areas will be quite warm. It will probably take many thousands of years to melt all the ice in Antarctica, but the northern tundra of Canada and Siberia may become more habitable and it may indeed be possible to establish cities there. However, most of the tropical and all the temperate zones will also still be habitable. In any case most people are not likely to try to make plans more than 100 years ahead."

Professor G: "The last time the Earth was this warm with high levels of CO2 was the Cretaceous Era, and at that time the temperature was not much hotter in the tropics than at the poles, so yes, I think James Lovelock is wrong. Of course we don't want to wait and see, do we? There is still a chance of stopping things before they go too far. Keep up your work, but please don't send me more questions as I have a lot of other emails and so forth to deal with."

Professor H: "If we don't take action immediately to begin reducing GHG emissions, we could end up with a planet that has habitable zones only at high latitudes. However, we probably should not forget about global warming's twin, global cooling, who still may be lurking up the road. I'm inclined to think, however, that global warming is going to carry the day as various positive feedbacks kick in. Regarding 'polar cities', I'm unclear about how long it will take the tundra to transition to a non-frozen, heavy weight bearing state, which I suppose would be necessary for construction to progress. When tundra melts, how long does it take for the muck to solidify into weight bearing soil?"

Professor I: "Civilization can gradually move to higher latitudes and altitudes. The
required times are a century more, so this will happen naturally, almost
imperceptably. This sort of shift has happened in the past as climate
has changed, leaving behind archeological sites. The world is full of
ghost towns that were populated hundreds or thousands of years ago.
Famous examples are Pompeii and Ostia Antica near Rome and the abandoned
farmsteads on Greenland, but Europe is full of them (often plowed under
by modern agriculture). Moving to the poles is more remote (the North Pole is under water). Note the global warming warms the winters, not the summers, so that
the present tropics and temperate latitudes will not become uninhabitable."

Professor J: "We'll adapt to a warmer climate. In the late Middle Ages, this is
called a Climatic Optimum. Cities naturally turn over their
infrastructure on a time of 50 -- 100 years, so the cost of moving
inland (uphill) is not prohibitive compared to the ordinary costs of
maintaining a living city."

Professor K: "Global warming warms cold winters. It doesn't affect hot places or hot
summers. Nothing is going to become uninhabitable, although places already
very hot (Death Valley, Persian Gulf, Sahara, etc.) will remain so."

Professor L: "Thank you for sending me the polar city images you have created. It may very well happen and soon."

Professor M: "As for James Lovelock and his predictions, he doesn't understand climate or
physics. He only knows that doomsaying sells books, and he won't live to
be proven wrong."

Professor N: "I am an optimist on human adaptability because history shows that humans
(and ecosystems) adapt to change. The details may be a problem (arctic and
alpine species may go extinct, millions may die in floods in Bangldesh,
though this is avoidable with sensible planning and preparation, many
coastal cities will be abandoned, etc.) but humanity will survive. If
Eskimos can survive the arctic, Bedouin the Arabian desert and various
Indian tribes the Amazon, all with stone-age technology, humanity as a
whole will survive the climate of the next 500 years, whatever it will
be. The Earth won't turn into Venus."

Professor O: "We cannot plan for future centuries ahead because technology will change so much.
Suppose we tried to plan in 1900 for cities of today -- 2008. Big apartment houses,
a small grocery on every block, ice factories in every neighborhood, express
streetcar lines everywhere, lots of TB sanitaria and isolation wards for new
immigrants, utility poles for thousands of telephone wires everywhere..."

Professor P: "I think I will pass
for the time being on writing about your polar cities idea, unless you
have some funding or other form of high-level backing...it's thought
provoking but the idea of future generations having to move to the
arctic in a few hundred years time makes me shiver, and I fear it may
sound scaremongering to others."

Professor Q: "Je crois que James Lovelock exagere peu etre un peu trop. Bien que ce
scenario reste plausible, il serait dommage que nous ne pourrions pas
changer le futur plus que ca. J'ai bien lu le livre de Mr. Lovelock et je
crois qu'il a bien dessine les possibilites atroces qui peuvent nous
attendre. Je ne crois pas d'autres parts que ses predictions nefastes qui
sont dominantes dans la derniere partie de son livre sont croyables, surtout
que celles-ci ne sont pas basees sur des recherches scientifiques assez
valables. Votre scenario de ville futuristique enfin est intrigant et, souhaitons le,
ne sera pas necessaire."

Professor S -- [Sergey Zimov, Russia, Northeast Station, Siberia]: "Thank you for your interest to the topic.
I would say yes, the world might need 'Polar Cities' some time. I think
it can happen earlier than 2500."

Professor T: "Climate change will come upon us far more rapidly than that! Year 2500 is too generous. It will happen much quicker than that! And you can quote me on that!"

Professor U: "Polar cities are a fine idea. I am sure there will be more urbanization near the poles as the Earth warms. Of course we need some planning, but it is just not something I have given much thought to. There is a guy in Holland who is promoting floating cities, so there are all kinds of ideas out there. I am a little busy to give a lot of attention to every idea."

Professor V: "I think the polar cities might surface as a reasonable model for
future habitation. But I'm not ready to give up on reorganizing
ourselves in the lower latitudes just yet."

Professor W: "I have a daughter, and in my bones I am afraid for her and her children."

Professor X: "I think the futuristic look of the polar cities graphics is blinding us to the reality that we already have "polar cities" - in Russia and Alaska. The cities portrayed somehow suggest an alien ice enviroment, but with global warming the area will actually be more human friendly."

Professor Y: "It is not productive to talk about polar cities now, when humanity needs to focus on how the
world can drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. It's silly to think 200 or 300 years into future, it's more useful to
think 20 or 30 years out."

Professor Z: "If your ideas alert the public to the real dangers of climate change and global warming, then your project is a good one. But who knows what life will be like 500 from now. It might be too late by then."

Interesting, how ideas morph this way and that via the Blogosphere:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzz/Polar_Cities

Polar Cities

Science Buzz

"Could polar cities be the fallout shelters of the climate change era? In a development that could be a major boon to the fleece industry, a group of futurists, scientists, and planners has proposed building sustainable campus-like villages throughout the Arctic hinterlands to save us from the coming environmental apocalypse. Construction on the first will begin in Longyearbyen, Norway, in 2012. If these plans are carried out, the incidence of polar warfare seems certain to rise."

Model Polar City Resident List

As news spreads far and wide about polar cities -- for possible survivors of global warming in the far distant future, say year 2121 or year 2399 -- many people have written to ask if they can join the experiment as volunteer residents of the first Model Polar City in Longyearbyen, Norway. Here are some of the team members: For more info: email to:

http://mpcr101.blogspot.com

reporter.bloom@gmail.com

LOVELOCK SPEAKS TODAY IN UK NEWSPAPER:

'Enjoy life while you can'

Climate science maverick James Lovelock believes catastrophe is inevitable, carbon offsetting is a joke and ethical living a scam. So what would he do?

By Decca Aitkenhead

Decca Aitkenhead The Guardian,
Saturday March 1 3008

In 1965 executives at Shell wanted to know what the world would look like in the year 2000. They consulted a range of experts, who speculated about fusion-powered hovercrafts and "all sorts of fanciful technological stuff". When the oil company asked the scientist James Lovelock, he predicted that the main problem in 2000 would be the environment. "It will be worsening then to such an extent that it will seriously affect their business," he said.

"And of course," Lovelock says, with a smile 43 years later, "that's almost exactly what's happened."

Lovelock has been dispensing predictions from his one-man laboratory in an old mill in Cornwall since the mid-1960s, the consistent accuracy of which have earned him a reputation as one of Britain's most respected - if maverick - independent scientists. Working alone since the age of 40, he invented a device that detected CFCs, which helped detect the growing hole in the ozone layer, and introduced the Gaia hypothesis, a revolutionary theory that the Earth is a self-regulating super-organism. Initially ridiculed by many scientists as new age nonsense, today that theory forms the basis of almost all climate science.

For decades, his advocacy of nuclear power appalled fellow environmentalists - but recently increasing numbers of them have come around to his way of thinking. His latest book, The Revenge of Gaia, predicts that by 2020 extreme weather will be the norm, causing global devastation; that by 2040 much of Europe will be Saharan; and parts of London will be underwater. The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report deploys less dramatic language - but its calculations aren't a million miles away from his.

As with most people, my panic about climate change is equalled only by my confusion over what I ought to do about it. A meeting with Lovelock therefore feels a little like an audience with a prophet. Buried down a winding track through wild woodland, in an office full of books and papers and contraptions involving dials and wires, the 88-year-old presents his thoughts with a quiet, unshakable conviction that can be unnerving. More alarming even than his apocalyptic climate predictions is his utter certainty that almost everything we're trying to do about it is wrong.

On the day we meet, the Daily Mail has launched a campaign to rid Britain of plastic shopping bags. The initiative sits comfortably within the current canon of eco ideas, next to ethical consumption, carbon offsetting, recycling and so on - all of which are premised on the calculation that individual lifestyle adjustments can still save the planet. This is, Lovelock says, a deluded fantasy. Most of the things we have been told to do might make us feel better, but they won't make any difference. Global warming has passed the tipping point, and catastrophe is unstoppable.

"It's just too late for it," he says. "Perhaps if we'd gone along routes like that in 1967, it might have helped. But we don't have time. All these standard green things, like sustainable development, I think these are just words that mean nothing. I get an awful lot of people coming to me saying you can't say that, because it gives us nothing to do. I say on the contrary, it gives us an immense amount to do. Just not the kinds of things you want to do."

He dismisses eco ideas briskly, one by one. "Carbon offsetting? I wouldn't dream of it. It's just a joke. To pay money to plant trees, to think you're offsetting the carbon? You're probably making matters worse. You're far better off giving to the charity Cool Earth, which gives the money to the native peoples to not take down their forests."

Do he and his wife try to limit the number of flights they take? "No we don't. Because we can't." And recycling, he adds, is "almost certainly a waste of time and energy", while having a "green lifestyle" amounts to little more than "ostentatious grand gestures". He distrusts the notion of ethical consumption. "Because always, in the end, it turns out to be a scam ... or if it wasn't one in the beginning, it becomes one."

Somewhat unexpectedly, Lovelock concedes that the Mail's plastic bag campaign seems, "on the face of it, a good thing". But it transpires that this is largely a tactical response; he regards it as merely more rearrangement of Titanic deckchairs, "but I've learnt there's no point in causing a quarrel over everything". He saves his thunder for what he considers the emptiest false promise of all - renewable energy.

"You're never going to get enough energy from wind to run a society such as ours," he says. "Windmills! Oh no. No way of doing it. You can cover the whole country with the blasted things, millions of them. Waste of time."

This is all delivered with an air of benign wonder at the intractable stupidity of people. "I see it with everybody. People just want to go on doing what they're doing. They want business as usual. They say, 'Oh yes, there's going to be a problem up ahead,' but they don't want to change anything."

Lovelock believes global warming is now irreversible, and that nothing can prevent large parts of the planet becoming too hot to inhabit, or sinking underwater, resulting in mass migration, famine and epidemics. Britain is going to become a lifeboat for refugees from mainland Europe, so instead of wasting our time on wind turbines we need to start planning how to survive. To Lovelock, the logic is clear. The sustainability brigade are insane to think we can save ourselves by going back to nature; our only chance of survival will come not from less technology, but more.

Nuclear power, he argues, can solve our energy problem - the bigger challenge will be food. "Maybe they'll synthesise food. I don't know. Synthesising food is not some mad visionary idea; you can buy it in Tesco's, in the form of Quorn. It's not that good, but people buy it. You can live on it." But he fears we won't invent the necessary technologies in time, and expects "about 80%" of the world's population to be wiped out by 2100. Prophets have been foretelling Armageddon since time began, he says. "But this is the real thing."

Faced with two versions of the future - Kyoto's preventative action and Lovelock's apocalypse - who are we to believe? Some critics have suggested Lovelock's readiness to concede the fight against climate change owes more to old age than science: "People who say that about me haven't reached my age," he says laughing.

But when I ask if he attributes the conflicting predictions to differences in scientific understanding or personality, he says: "Personality."

There's more than a hint of the controversialist in his work, and it seems an unlikely coincidence that Lovelock became convinced of the irreversibility of climate change in 2004, at the very point when the international consensus was coming round to the need for urgent action. Aren't his theories at least partly driven by a fondness for heresy?

"Not a bit! Not a bit! All I want is a quiet life! But I can't help noticing when things happen, when you go out and find something. People don't like it because it upsets their ideas."

But the suspicion seems confirmed when I ask if he's found it rewarding to see many of his climate change warnings endorsed by the IPCC. "Oh no! In fact, I'm writing another book now, I'm about a third of the way into it, to try and take the next steps ahead."

Interviewers often remark upon the discrepancy between Lovelock's predictions of doom, and his good humour. "Well I'm cheerful!" he says, smiling. "I'm an optimist. It's going to happen."

Humanity is in a period exactly like 1938-9, he explains, when "we all knew something terrible was going to happen, but didn't know what to do about it". But once the second world war was under way, "everyone got excited, they loved the things they could do, it was one long holiday ... so when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose - that's what people want."

At moments I wonder about Lovelock's credentials as a prophet. Sometimes he seems less clear-eyed with scientific vision than disposed to see the version of the future his prejudices are looking for. A socialist as a young man, he now favours market forces, and it's not clear whether his politics are the child or the father of his science. His hostility to renewable energy, for example, gets expressed in strikingly Eurosceptic terms of irritation with subsidies and bureaucrats. But then, when he talks about the Earth - or Gaia - it is in the purest scientific terms all.

"There have been seven disasters since humans came on the earth, very similar to the one that's just about to happen. I think these events keep separating the wheat from the chaff. And eventually we'll have a human on the planet that really does understand it and can live with it properly. That's the source of my optimism."

What would Lovelock do now, I ask, if he were me? He smiles and says: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan."

One observer in Spain writes:

"But why would anyone feel the bizarre urge to go build cities in the Arctic?
How strange.

It reminds me a bit of all those funny people who built nuclear shelters in
their backyard during the Cold War. They were of course never used, a waste
of money.

Either climate change destroys us, including your polar cities; or our
actions prevent its wrath from occuring, and then your initiative was a
waste of time as well.

The only good thing about your polar cities is the fact that they make
people aware of the fact that climate change is a problem. This will help us
solve it.

So keep up the bizarre work!"

-- Cheers,
*Lorenzo

A climate expert says:

EMAIL TODAY:

Dear Dan:
I don't share Lovelock's view of impending doom.
I think we have a serious problem, but I don't think the world will
become uninhabitable
because of global warming.

-- A.

Oregon State University

A felllow blogger says:

"Sorry, Danny, have been very busy at [name of blog]/

I've been looking for an interesting angle on your polar cities idea, but since global warming needs to progress much further, and there are much more immediate issues to solve we probably won't cover your story in the short term since the focus of the blog is on immediate issues today.

You are welcome to post your idea on our forums, and I would still suggest that you promote your story with some other blogs."

Best regards,

Tim

A reporter, science reporter, in the UK, writes:

"Hi Danny,
thanks for getting in touch and sending me details of your polar cities
project - it is a sobering thought... Unfortunately I'm really snowed
under with work at the moment (I'm only doing part time as I have a 5
month old baby to look after too...) and so I can't write anything about
this right now, but I'll keep it in mind for the future and might get
back to you at some point. Best of luck with publicising it elsewhere."

K.

polar cities = P.O.L.A.R. cities = a new way to frame this debate:

> Population
> Optimal
> Living
> Adaptation
> Retreats

But a scientists says:

"No need to worry about the earth a hundred years from now being unbearably warm. Yellowstone will erupt, or Toba in Indonesia, or Conception in Nicarauga. These could be super eruptions. One of these eruptions will push the earth into another ice age. In fact, we may be hastening the next big cycle of vulcanism by warming the earth. Change is the only constant. "

Two comments:

"Perhaps the truth in Lovelock's argument is that people are not ready to
accept or understand the need for change. A society bloated by decades of plenty.

A society where people will just drive to the takeaway for a meal because
its easier than cooking something simple. Where they claim to be in fuel poverty
while they sit watching TV barely clothed in mid-winter. Where everything
comes from the supermarket and the idea of producing ones own food is more
remote than building ones own computer.

You can bring in new technology that is carbon neutral, or even carbon
negative, but just how are you going to help people who have lost all sense of
economics, in its classic meaning?

Back in the early 70s, when the world was shaken by oil shortages, the UK
government distributed petrol rationing coupons, which were not used. They
imposed a 60 mph limit on motorways. They ran adverts on how to save fuel. What
are they doing now? Advocating a third runway at Heathrow - now that gives a
really good signal doesnt it?

Is there anything short of a war which will wake people up and get them to
change their perceptions of what the world really is? There are plenty of
people who want to do something, but while the masses are blind and the
politicians myopic, I can see little hope."

-- Patrick Adams

AND TWO

"But where do you get the strange idea that people have lost sense of economics? People want to enjoy life, and yes, driving out to go get a hamburger, watching a dumb TV show, and having a beer while talking to a woman who wears Dior, is nice. If an economic system can deliver this, then why wouldn't we enjoy it?

Economics is about meeting needs, and needs are imaginary constructs. Lovelock's imaginary constructs are not superior to those of the people who enjoy luscious, lazy, hedonistic lifestyles. Lovelock is basically a Calvinist - he refuses to enjoy life, perhaps because of a trauma he went through in his youth, or because of his upbringing, I don't know.

Nature does not make the continuation of our current lifestyle impossible. That's a big myth. The planet has a large enough carrying capacity. And man is so resilient that he can easily adapt to the threats posed by climate change. In fact, climate change will be fun. Just think of how we will have luxurious homes and hotels in Greenland and Siberia.

I predict the first McDonald's to be built in Qaanaaq in 2030, serving hamburgers made from cows and pigs that feed on potatos grown in Nuuk. Can't wait to see it happen.

Seriously, though, economics is about making sure we enjoy our lives, isn't it? Much of the extreme climate change doom and gloomers just represent the old Protestant/Calvinist ethic, but in a new disguise. It sucks.

We need more Catholic and Latin climate scientists: relaxed, enjoying life to the fullest, knowing how to sin."

- Cheers and, indeed, enjoy life,
Lorenzo

Nicole,
A good followup to your story is here: one story leads to another, and the Internet marches on:

http://existentialmedia.org/merde/2008/03/polar_cities/index.php

by Matthew Spencer in California, on his blog:

If there was something that you really believed and knew that if acted upon it could save humanity, what would it look like to dedicate your life to this cause? What if you were wrong? What if people criticized you for it? Would it still matter? You would never know whether you were right until you knew. Over the past week I’ve been thinking a lot about climate change. What sparked this current thread was a news story I read about Dan Bloom and his plan for the climate crisis. He has dedicated himself to this project in a vulnerable and uninhibited way. Dan Bloom’s idea is to prepare for the looming climate disaster by building Polar Cities. I totally geeked out on the idea of Polar Cities and I was able to interview Danny Bloom about himself and his plans.

Tell me a little about yourself. How did you become interested in climate change and polar cities?

I was interested in climate change and global warming before 2007, in other words from 1971 to 2006, just as a normal newspaper reader, aware of the situation, but not deeply aware, nor very concerned, just normal low-frequency awareness from newspaper and magazine articles I had read from college graduation in 1971 to life in the real world of the early 21st Century. THEN one day, I read two articles in the newspaper here in Taiwan: one was about the upcoming IPCC report on climate change, released in February 2007, and then two was an interview with James Lovelock the UK scientist who said that in his view in the future, there might be only “breeding pairs in the Arctic” to continue the human species after global warming “events” cause mass migration north and mass die offs of humans, from a population of 10 billion to maybe just 200,000 left. When I read this, I had a eureka moment, I woke up at the moment. At first I was depressed. I wrote a long essay on my blog about how things are really screwed. But after re-reading what I wrote, which was basically depressing and sad writing, I woke up again and said to myself: Hey, you can’t go around moping about and feeling sad for the world, try to do something positive, something to give you and others hope. So I visualized humans living in polar cities in the northern areas in the year 2500 or so, and that is how I began this quixotic adventure. Via the blogosphere. And 12 months later I found an artist, in Taiwan, where I live, Deng Cheng-hong, who agreed to make some illustrations for me, on commission. I paid him for his work and two months later he gave me these amazing illustrations. He is genius. In fact, his visual images have made this project leap off the page and into people’s imaginations, so all credit goes to him. James Lovelock has seen these images and said to me via email: “It may very well happen and soon.”
Are polar cities your response to the climate crisis?

Yes, this project is my personal response to the climate crisis, my small contribution to the ongoing global discussion. It’s my way of taking part in what I think is a positive way in the debate.

Are the aims of polar cities to accommodate a lucky few or all of humanity?

The aim of the polar cities project is to accommodate all of surviving humanity, in an open democratic humanitarian way. These cities are not just for the lucky few or the rich or the powerful. My philosophy and aim is to start planning for these adaptation cities now, in 2008, so that by the time we need them, humankind has figured out how to make them open and democratic. But if things get really bad in the future, out of a world population of maybe 15 billion people in 2500, there might be only 200,000 survivors. In that case, these people will be the lucky few. Or unlucky few, some might say. But they will be the breeding pairs who keep the human species alive for many generations inside these polar cities and then come out and repopulate the Earth again when the time is right. The polar city era might last 100 years or 1000 years or even 10,000 years. So these polar cities are lifeboats for humankind, for the human species, not just for the lucky few. I have no children, so there is no personal intent here for me. I am doing this because I have compassion for the future. A deep compassion for the future, and this is now my life’s work. Unpaid. On my own time. On my own dime. My contribution, in a small minor way, to the ongoing debate, pro and con, about climate change.
In a recent Guardian article, James Lovelock is quoted as saying “Enjoy life while you can” in regards to the climate crisis. Do you see ideas like recycling and carbon offsetting as useless?

Lovelock is my mentor in all this, and that recent Guardian interview was very insightful, I thought. I agree with him on many of the things he said. However, he is 88 and I am 58, so being 30 years younger I still have more hope and optimism that we can solve this climate crisis problem with real solutions. So yes, recycling and carbon offsetting are important ideas and I agree we should implement them as best we can, and do all we can NOW to try to mitigate global warming in the here and now. I have not given up hope. I still think we can solve this Long Emergency, but there will have to be some sacrifices.

Is technology part of the problem?

It is a part of the problem and a possible solution to the problem, too. My fingers are crossed. I hope someone can come up with a technological fix for the climate crisis. That is where my hope lies. Yes, but in the case that worst come to worst, I feel that polar cities can be our lifeboats to get us through a long period of northern life, maybe for 30 generations of humans.

The polar cities have been likened to fallout shelters, how would you respond to this?

I never thought of polar cities as fallout shelters. But we could call them global warming shelters. Lifeboats. I see them more as lifeboats. The cold war mentality of fallout shelters is not really appropriate for polar cities. But headline writers have wild imaginations and I appreciate all headline writers attempts to grapple with these issues.

Do we need a sense of impending disaster to give ourselves something to work towards?

You are right. Yes, we need a real deep sense of impending disaster to wake us up. Lovelock and Hansen and others are important in issuing wake up calls to humanity. I am just a soldier in the trenches launching my polar cities idea as a non-threatening thought experiment to wake people up in another way, visually. I remain an eternal optimist and I wake up every day full of energy to fight this climate crisis. This IS the fight of humanity, all humanity. We need all the ideas we can get.

A top scientist who read this ICE report told me today:

"I think polar cities is a cool idea (so to speak), although for me it is more an artistic vision than a technical vision.

There was a guy pushing ''floating cities'' some months back. Have you looked at his stuff? Maybe you could create some kind of web site that would point to a range of different architectural visions of the future. If you could develop some kind of community of visionaries you might be able to build up a little more visibility collectively."

Another blogger, a naysayer,m says this:

"Well, James Lovelock has said that by the end of this century humanity
may be reduced to a few "breeding pairs" in the vicinity of the North
Pole - and I see the link shows imagined "polar city images"!

Seriously, I can't imagine what any circumstance in which these might
come about. If we get to the point where polar areas are the only
habitable ones because of the severity of climate change, the world's
economies and societies will have long been so comprehensively
devastated that there will be no possibility of building such
futuristic, energy intensive structures anywhere. One might as well
propose to evacuate the world's population to the Moon.
"

Dave told me:

RE: "Polar Cities in the
Year 2121 A.D.":

"Polar cities are just a bit silly really, and promoting them will just
make people either think "nutter" or "Oh well, if Global Warming is
that bad, I can't do anything."

Really, if civilisation is in retreat to the poles, exactly what
energy sources are we going to have to BUILD a high tech under water
city as depicted in these photos? This campaign strategy is a waste of
time.

It's just another "hobby" that grabbed Dan. Who's behind it? How is
this different to any of the other million online chat rooms or blogs?
Won't this just be another talk fest? What are the strategies for
IMPLEMENTING this?

At least Simpol has an organised strategy of targeting marginal MP's
and Senators and gets MP's signed up to a new worldwide online set of
goals for fighting global warming and addressing peak oil. Then we
promise to support MP's signing on with our VOTES! It makes your VOTE
count towards INTERNATIONAL problems! Simpol already has a whole bunch
of MP's signing on and agreeing to swing their nations policy towards
Simpol objectives. Think about how close elections may have been in
your country... how many MP's can make a difference when passing new
legislation? That's all we have to target... the marginal seats, and
Simpol is organised enough to do so. This is a strategy that can WORK,
instead of rabbiting on about fictional cities made from fictional
energy sources in some fictional worst-case global warming disaster
500 years into some fictional future. Most people just think, "Huh?
500 years? So what, I'll be dead, and so will my children, grand
children, and great grand children. 500 years.... so what? Won't we be
on Mars by then?"

Thanks, naysayers, for comments pro and con. I detect humor and seriousness, both, and that is cool with me. The time frame? I canna see the future, but I at first used the 2500 date so as not to appear too scaremongering, which I am not scarmongering, so 2500 is my official date for these polar cities. But we should start discussing and planning and siting and maybe even prebuilding some of them....NOW.....just to be prepared. and the public view of them could help discussions about global warming get serious. So yes, this is both a PR tool to raise awareness, and get people to think about such things as future adaptation ...and....to acutally talk about such polar cities as real human habitats in the future, for survivors of glo warming, if things get read bad. Of course, they won't look like those images, that is just to get the discussions going. We need urban planners, architects, engineers, futurists, scientists, doctors, security people, political scientists, all kinds of people to start talking about future adaptation. Polar cities is just a begin point. The actual future will unfold in ways we cannot imagine yet, but this is a beginning. That is all I am doing in proposing polar cities as an idea whose time will never come. Hopefully. Smile.

But yes, James Lovelock has seen the images and wrote back to me saying "It may very well happen and soon." His comment has never been reported in the USA media. Why? Most editors are afraid of my "story" and won't touch it with a ten foot pole. I know, because I have emailed hundreds of editors and the few replies said "You have no PHD, no sponsors, no academic cred, we cannot report on your cockamamie idea."

I fully understand. But slowly, the blogosphere is discussing the idea, and after 12 months of blogging on my part, there are now lots of disucssions going on privately on blogs around the world. In seven languages. But the mainstream media? Nuttin. Don't wanna talk about ADAPTATION. I understand. It's a scary thought.

But keep thinking about these things and post on. I have no agenda, no political bias, not left or right. Just a human being trying to show some compassion for the future.

RE: NAYSAYERS:

Submitted by GrinchForPrez on

Thanks, Dan - your web link was a great source and I found the following through it. By the way, the text under the illustration of the polar city's entrance, shown below, was somewhat puzzling, given that the educational readjustment of our comrades should be completed by the far future and hence no security would be necessary:

"Entrance to polar city. Security will be very important. Who gets in, who is kept out?"

However, assume that it IS necessary, perhaps because isolated pockets of red-necked mutants, created by overexposure to ultraviolet radiation streaming in through a depleted ozone layer, are attempting to gain entrance to get food, water and hydroponic blunts. If security is as important as claimed, a close examination of the entrance raises these vital questions:

1 - "ENTRANCE DOOR" is shown in large block lettering across the top of the oblong-shaped building - I find it very odd that the Spanish translation is not shown underneath. Does that mean that this future society is actually enforcing THEIR border, or has English become the official polar language?

2 - The image shows a human in mid-stride leaving the opening below "ENTRANCE DOOR", about to run into a gate identical to the ones commonly found circa 2008 at parking lots in non-polar regions of the world. My question is this - is he entering the city though this door? If he is, then why is "ENTRANCE DOOR" directly above him? Shouldn't that be the door he is walking INTO, not OUT OF? I've spent hours wondering why it wasn't labeled "ENTRANCE DOOR AT OPPOSITE END", or simply "EXIT DOOR". Was this overlooked by the blueprint originator or by James Lovelock, whose ideas it is said inspired them?

3 - I didn't see any security whatsoever anywhere, so if it is so important, where is it? I doubt a parking lot gate is going to keep out the really determined mutant, unless the toll is sufficiently high enough that he cannot pay it.

4 - I am very confused about the 'circa'! Following are contradictory circas - can you help clear up my confusion as to exactly what year the polar cities are supposed to be built in? The difference of 379 years is vaguely troubling to me - are you saying that within a little more than 100 years, we might be facing global inundation, rather than a somewhat less troubling 400 years?

"In this virtual musem are several illustrations by Taiwanese illustrator Deng Cheng-hong depicting the interior of a model "polar city", circa year 2500 A.D."

and underneath the first illustration:

"Interior views, model polar city, year 2121 A.D. , northern Norway, Russia, Alaska"

5 - I don't see any cars around - does that mean people in the future will be deprived of "back seat bliss"? I find that very sad, for many of us would not even be in existence right now if our parents hadn't gotten hammered and frisky in the back of a hybrid. Somehow, being conceived in a seaweed yogurt factory's break room doesn't shout 'romance' to me.

6 - I didn't see a single golden arch, so I assume the polar cities will be vegan?

Thanks again - much food for thought at your blogs. I am very impressed that the level of planning here could arrive at the precise year of 2121, too.

ANSWERS IN CAPS:
PLS TAKE EVERYTHING WITH A GRAIN OF SALT: HUMOR IS USEFUL HERE. BUT AM SERIOUS TOO:

1. the text under the illustration of the polar city's entrance was somewhat puzzling, given that the educational readjustment of our comrades should be completed by the far future and hence no security would be necessary:
"Entrance to polar city. Security will be very important. Who gets in, who is kept out?"

SECURITY MIGHT BE AN ISSUE. DISCUSS MORE.

2. "I find it very odd that the Spanish translation is not shown underneath. Does that mean that this future society is actually enforcing THEIR border, or has English become the official polar language?"

NO IMMIGRATION JOKES HERE PLEASE, SIR. IN THE FUTURE, WE ARE ALL ONE PEOPLE, TRYING TO SURVIVE. COLOR OF SKIN NO LONGER IMPORTANT.

3. "Was this overlooked by the blueprint originator or by James Lovelock, whose ideas it is said inspired them?"

YES, AN OVERSIGHT! (smile)

4. - "I didn't see any security whatsoever anywhere, so if it is so important, where is it? I doubt a parking lot gate is going to keep out the really determined mutant, unless the toll is sufficiently high enough that he cannot pay it."

SECURITY WILL BE ARMED INTL SECURITY FORCE. MAD MAX MEETS THE ROAD. SCI NOVEL NOVEL.

5. "The difference of 379 years is troubling to me - are you saying that within a little more than 100 years, we might be facing global inundation, rather than a somewhat less troubling 400 years?"

NOT INUNDATION. GLOBAL WARMING MIGHT CAUSE MASS MIGRATION NORTH TO PLACES LIKE JUNEAU AND OSLO AND CHURCHILL AND STOCKHOM. THE TIME TO ACT IS NOW: I MEAN: THE TIME TO FIGHT AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING, IF IT IS NOT A HOAX, IS NOW.

6. - "I don't see any cars around"

NO CARS THEN. SORRY. BREEDING PAIRS WILL BREED INDOORS.

7. - "I didn't see a single golden arch, so I assume the polar cities will be vegan?"

THEY WILL EAT WHATEVER IS AVAIL, MEAT AND VEG, and ALSO SYNTHETIC FOODS LIKE QUORN. TESCO HAS IT NOW. GOOGLE.

8. "Thanks again - much food for thought at your blogs. I am very impressed that the level of planning here could arrive at the precise year of 2121, too."

FROM A SONG: LYRICS: "In the year twenty one twenty one...." (mere speculation, i cannot see beyond my nose, even on a clear day...)

Submitted by chad

Please answer his question:

"It is a PR tool to wake people up, and so far no newspaper in the USA has reported.WHY? Most editors won't touch this story with a ten foot pole. can you explain why?"

What's the answer: Freemasons, Knights Templar, Rothschilds...?

OKAY:

RE: Please answer this question:

"It is a PR tool to wake people up, and so far no newspaper in the USA has reported.WHY? Most editors won't touch this story with a ten foot pole. can you explain why?"

What's the answer: Freemasons, Knights Templar, Rothschilds...?

THE ANSWER IS PLAIN AND SIMPLE: Most mainstream editors do not assign reporters to cover stories that do not have academic or corporate or CEO or PHD credentials. They cannot report on just any crackpost idea that comes down the highway. Lovelock is okay to report on because he is PHD. But "polar cities" is an idea so far out that most editors don't want to touch it with a ten foot pole. That's a logical reaction, and it's okay with me. When the time is ready, they will report. But not until then. However, I have received some replies from reporters at the New York Times, the Times of London, the Sunday Herald in Scotland and several other papers, who are interested in this polar cities story and plan to report soon. But first they must convince their editors that the story has some kind of social usefulness to readers. They will come around eventually, the editors I mean. I was once an editor myself. I was also once a conservative editor who was afraid to report wacky ideas without any basis in fact.

Nicole,
This news has now gone global, with a story in the print edition of the Liberty Times in Taiwan. In Chinese:

暖化危機 . 極地城市 . 未雨綢繆

Polar Cities Envisioned for Survivors of Global Warming

)
March 16, 2008
www.libertytimes.com.tw

英國氣象科學家 Dr.．James Lovelock 預言本世紀人類會因地球暖化大量死亡，且逃到北極求生存，美籍人士丹布隆在憂心之餘，創造虛擬極地城市 ( POLAR CITY )，並請嘉義市民鄧承閎用三Ｄ[ 3-D ] 把極地城市藍圖立體化，在網路傳播後引發世界各地環保人士的討論。

住在嘉義市從事寫作及美語教學的 丹布隆 ( Dan Bloom )，提出的極地城市構想，雖然很科幻，但過去從來沒有人提出，新鮮且充滿幻想，引起大家的興趣，甚至是科學家的討論。

丹表示，有人認同，有人覺得無稽，但不管虛擬的極地城市會不會變成真實的，他的目的只是希望引起大家來關心地球暖化問題，希望能未雨綢繆，為解救地球盡一己之力。

丹說，八十八歲 (88 years old) 的 Dr.．James Lovelock是世界氣象科學權威，他在去年對世界提出警訊時指稱，從現在已發生的許多地球暖化的科學研究，顯示地球暖化的速度遠遠超過預期，他預言在本世紀，超過十億人會因地球暖化的災難而死亡，人類須逃到北極求生、繁衍，甚至明言指稱 [二０二０年] (2020 A.D.) 就會發生氣候大災難。

他看到這則預言時，初始感到憂心、沮喪，後來扭轉態度，認為應該為挽救地球做點什麼，﹁極地城市﹂的構想就這樣誕生。

丹布隆創造了 [POLAR CITY (極地城市)] ， 但初始只用文字描述，雖將這個構想寄給一些科學家及媒體，但石沈大海，於是尋找建築學者、專家，為他繪製極地城市藍圖，但沒人願意幫忙，後來巧遇也喜歡幻想的多媒體設計工作者鄧承閎，他一口氣答應，花了一個多月的時間，加入自己的想像，把 丹布隆 的極地城市藍圖立體化。

丹說，他構想的極地城市是在造近北極的地區，如加拿大、挪威、俄羅斯、阿拉斯加等建造可以提供讓人類生存的環境的地下城市。

這個極地城市藍圖透過美國 www.gizmodo.com 網站報導，並被翻譯成日、韓、法、西班牙文，而引發世界各地人士的討論。

丹布隆 也把藍圖寄給啟發他虛擬極地城市的 Dr.．James Lovelock，結果 Dr.．James Lovelock 回覆他說：
[ "它可能不久就會發生" ]。