The UN Wants To Build Floating Cities To Save Us From Climate Change (wired.com) 236
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..."
These sound about as safe and (Score:3)
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 [wikipedia.org].
Re:These sound about as safe and (Score:5, Insightful)
reasonable .
Huh?
a) What's reasonable about spending trillions of dollars on making cities float instead of spending less money on not needing to do that (eg. passing a few laws to penalize emissions, invest in renewable energy and next-gen nuclear power)?
b) What's reasonable about plans that make floating Floridas for the rich and will leave the other 99.999% of the world to fend for themselves?
Re: (Score:2)
b) What's reasonable about plans that make floating Floridas for the rich
According to the visionary himself, the houses will be affordable for the poor.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
b) What's reasonable about plans that make floating Floridas for the rich
According to the visionary himself, the houses will be affordable for the poor.
According to Trump, America will be great again.
Shipping Container houses (Score:2)
As always, the tremendous vision on display in slashdot comments impresses greatly.
https://www.homedit.com/22-mos... [homedit.com]
https://offgridworld.com/10-pr... [offgridworld.com]
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.
Re:These sound about as safe and (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe not, but laws passed by 185 countries with good intentions could very possibly do that.
Laws are free (as in beer) and have no impact on costs right? Seriously do you not pay attention to the major complaint that laws being passed to help curb climate cost tax payers lots of money?
It's not why spend trillions when you can pass laws. It's a case of where are the trillions better spent, creating new living spaces or attempting to maintain the old ones via legal framework.
Re: (Score:2)
Seriously do you not pay attention to the major complaint that laws being passed to help curb climate cost tax payers lots of money?
Of course, I give it as much attention as it deserves. This is one of the standard claims that deniers trot out, here [nature.com] is a recent paper calculating that cost. It finds that keeping the temperature increase below 1.5 degrees would cost us negative $20 trillion by 2100.
There is, in fact, an entire journal dedicated to analyzing the costs of climate change, if you're interested in something more granular. It's a big topic with a lot to cover. It's called Climate Change Economics [worldscientific.com].
Re: These sound about as safe and (Score:4, Insightful)
You think rich people are going to live on 4 acres with 300 other people?
Are you fucking retarded?
Re: (Score:2)
They do it in Manhattan penthouses already, so it's more plausible than the poor living on an island where the only way to get anywhere else is an expensive ferry service.
Re: (Score:3)
You think rich people are going to live on 4 acres with 300 other people?
Manhattan has a population density higher than that, and plenty of rich people live there.
Re: (Score:3)
You think rich people are going to live on 4 acres with 300 other people?
Are you fucking retarded?
Is 300 not enough servants?
Re: (Score:2)
b) What's reasonable about plans that make floating Floridas for the rich and will leave the other 99.999% of the world to fend for themselves?
I somehow feel that this would turn out to be the opposite... what sane person would want to live on a floating commune? Not rich people... Not anybody, really...
This sounds like it would turn into a place to shove unwanted people...
Re: (Score:2)
+1 this is an overflow capacity plan.
What about floating on the ocean makes it possible to "use 100 percent renewable energy, eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste, and provide housing affordable to all" more easily than on land?
It sounds like they're saying building floats is cheaper than building high rises. They should be honest about what they are proposing
I can see places like San Francisco, Seattle, etc going full-in on such a project. They can put all the drug addicts out there where they can take shits and toss their used injection syringes *directly* into the ocean, instead of paying city sanitation and waste management services to end up doing essentially the same thing.
It'll save the politicians a lot of Lamborghinis...err...hookers and blow...err..."taxpayer's money"...yeah, that's the ticket!..."taxpayer's money"...[snicker].
Strat
Re: (Score:2)
If the rich want to live trapped on packed, flat, floating islands... well, go have fun. I'll stay here in the foothills with vast open spaces and topography to explore.
Re: (Score:2)
>> reasonable .
> Huh?
You didn't even digest what was said, in obvious jest. You're part of multiple problems, at the same time. SMH
Re: (Score:2)
"You"? What did I do to get the blame of a country on the other side of the globe?
Hurricanes and cyclones (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
just have them on the baltic sea. several months of the year you can even drive to them. ..hmm. hmm, oh wait most of finland is already unpopulated and it's right there. and if that fills up there's siberia to the east of finland right there that is even less populated.
this is neither a necessity or a pressing matter to invent. in fact it is quite stupid. most of arizona even is unpopulated. all of these are easier to populate than floating cities. just because you can make floating cities doesn't mean th
Re: (Score:2)
The most stupids thing is to grow plants on them instead of having aqua farms for fish and perhaps kelp.
Re:Hurricanes and cyclones (Score:4, Interesting)
Most of the damage from hurricanes (at least in developed countries) is from storm surge, since modern engineering is generally up to the task of handling wind damage. If you can literally just float over the surge, that risk goes away.
Re: (Score:2)
"If you can" being the critical question: can you float _over_ the surge when your "island" is chained to the sea floor?
Seems like you'd be praying to float _through_ the surge(s)
While that is a problem that needs consideration (e.g. ships tied to fixed docks do indeed sink if surge/tide gets bad enough), it's one we've had answers to for several millennia (e.g. leave slack in the anchor chain, pull the anchor up, use floating docks, sail around the storm, etc.), so I'm not too worried about it. They'd likely just leave some slack in the chain so that it can account for any surge. Plus, there's nothing saying they can't let out some more chain in the case that a storm is coming thro
Re: (Score:2)
"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..."
I could already see the social hysteria free floating migrants that gain citizenship by relocating their island would cause.
I think New Yorkers would mind more if that floating island was part of New Jersey.
Four acres, 300 people? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Four acres, 300 people? (Score:5, Insightful)
Fresh water production? Sewage treatment? I'm sure they've thought of these things right?
How about other materials ? Glass, steel, copper, plastics, wood, plastics, ... the list is endless. And for everything they obtain from the mainland in trade, they need to produce something useful in return.
Re: Four acres, 300 people? (Score:2)
Well if they are anchored within commuting distance of major coastal cities then labor could be their primary export. Fishing and aquaculture could also be viable exports. Otherwise you just have to look at the costs in terms of economic viability and unless the cost per acre is on par with dry land real estate then it won't compete.
Re: (Score:3)
Fishing? Probably not. The oceans are acidifying and the lower parts of the food chain are already being eaten or destroyed. Hell, they won't even be able to sell tours to see whales after the Japanese have gutted them all for "science".
Re: (Score:2)
Faaahhhccckkkk yyyyoooouuuu wwwwhhhhaaalllleee!!
Re: (Score:2)
bigpat wrote:
I've actually been expecting someone to build a floating housing complex out in the Hudson river, one of these days. If you could moor it to an artificial island with subway access, I'd think the money would be there.
Of course, kicking poor people out of the Western edge of Brooklyn is even cheaper, but I imagine they're about done with that.
Re: (Score:2)
How about what it is all really about and what they do not want to say. Sea level rise will cripple a whole bunch of third world island nations in the pacific. Nobody wants them, so floating towns, attached to their sinking islands. They can still try to harvest the fish and produce from the sea, but they will live in that floating town, until it is wiped out by a cyclone and then they are no longer a problem.
In modern countries, it is simpler to make planning changes. One require all highrise to have a gro
Re: Four acres, 300 people? (Score:2)
Building above as-is roads are very expensive due to the steel spans, maintenance requirements and air handling requirements not to mention you are blocking natural light from the buildings along the way. Much more expensive than building on solid ground. And really there is no lack of less expensive land except in close proximity to the core of a few select cities.
Compared to building a floating platform, the floating platform might be more economical and the end result more desirable, than building on pl
Re: (Score:3)
And for everything they obtain from the mainland in trade, they need to produce something useful in return.
No need. This is 100% powered by good intentions!
Re: (Score:2)
And for everything they obtain from the mainland in trade, they need to produce something useful in return.
Does your house produce something useful in return for all the things you buy? Or do you go to work somewhere?
Re: (Score:2)
It's a service economy
So what services will the islanders be delivering to the mainland ?
Re: (Score:3)
So what services will the islanders be delivering to the mainland ?
The same services any city provides to the rest of the country.
There are no steel mills or factories in NYC or SF. It is all services: law, finance, design, engineering, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
Which would put hurricanes in a much more friendly light.
Re: (Score:2)
Wouldn't even need H1B if you could keep them far enough off shore.
Re: Four acres, 300 people? (Score:2)
Go read a European news site, then ?
Let's look for a real solution instead! (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a workaround that will produce even more pollution and problems!
Why explore space? There are problems on earth! (Score:2)
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.
What a nasty spin (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re: What a nasty spin (Score:2, Troll)
I noticed that myself.
If you want Americans to hate something there's no better way than suggesting the UN wants it.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Why is this a "conspiracy theory"? Some people would like the UN to be a world government. And who can blame them when most of the world governments are pretty much shit might as well see if the UN can sort things out or at least send some money their way.
Sometimes I have thought a world government based on Liberty and democracy would be a good idea, but apparently I don't exist in your mind and people that believe in a world government are just fodder for crackpots.
Ultimately I don't think the putting al
Re: (Score:3)
Why is this a "conspiracy theory"? Some people would like the UN to be a world government. And who can blame them when most of the world governments are pretty much shit might as well see if the UN can sort things out or at least send some money their way.
That doesn't make sense. The UN is nothing more -- and nothing less -- than the collective wills of the current national governments around the world. If they collectively want something done then the often do it via the UN machinery. If they don't collectively want something done then the UN doesn't do it.
Writing your sentence out in full, it becomes "Some people want the governments of the world working together to be a world government".
Re: What a nasty spin (Score:2)
And some people want a world government to replace or supersede the nation-state governments. Not me, but it isn't a conspiracy. Some people would want direct elections of our UN representatives... count me in favor of that.
The point is that it isn't a conspiracy to have different viewpoints about what the UN should become and even if there is a one world government conspiracy then people are well within their human and civil rights to conspire to effect political change.
Heck sign me up for the conspiracy
300 people? They already exist. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're called ocean liners and they're about as enviromentally unfriendly as you can get.
Re:300 people? They already exist. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"PS: I'm one of the co-founders of Blueseed, the first commercial seasteading venture, back in 2011"
You hero.
This sort of crap has been tried before and never wored. But enjoy the venture capital sucker money until it runs out.
Feed The Poor First (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Feed The Poor First (Score:4, Interesting)
Not feeding the poor would make more sense if you want to slow down climate change.
Re: (Score:2)
Teach them to feed themselves instead of letting them rely on handouts year after year.
Re: (Score:2)
Thought you said Black Chicken [youtube.com] instead of black market for chicken.
poorly thought out (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
A floating island like tis would use wave energy, wind and solar. That should not be a problem at all. However you are right, the rest is nonsense.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think anyone claimed they would be autarkic, as in fully independent.
Flying pigs (Score:2, Informative)
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?
This is a Must Do Prerequisite... (Score:2)
This is project management 101.
The UN is trolling everyone (Score:2)
Why UN? (Score:2)
Don't they know about them sunspots and their relationship to the power that the sun sends to us?
Typical fantasy... (Score:2)
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.
Kevin Costner was right! (Score:4, Funny)
Stop make children like rabbits (Score:3)
Re:Stop make children like rabbits (Score:4, Informative)
I have the answer, but I just don't know what it is.
It's not at all clear that a massive die-back would actually solve any problems to speak of, because human beings aren't just mouths to feed, they're hands and brains--
If you're thinking "boy we could use less resources if only we kill those poors", maybe a more effective solution would be to kill the people using the most resources, which are not the poor people...
The Best Solution most of us have is to let the entire world turn into the "first world" (already well underway), let rising living standards and personal choice restrain birthrates (pretty much "just happens"), then we figure out how to generate a bunch of clean energy-- which we already know how to do, we just need to convince the anti-nuclear activists that they're the creationists of the left, and somehow pry the world's economy out of the grip of the fossil fuel industry--
And there we hit another wall of practical knowledge. I'll get back to you.
Re: (Score:2)
So are you on the side of "let them all die" or "let's kill them all off"?
Or maybe, forced sterilization?
I'm on the side of generate a lot of clean energy plus efficiency improvements.in how we use it.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm completely with you, it's the most obvious solution to many resource problems, pollution problems, cramped living problems, over-fishing etc etc.
But people don't think with their heads when it comes to breeding, China did a great job of halting population growth, they estimate they'd have 300 million more people if they didn't have 35 years of one-child policy.
This already exists. It's a dystopia nightmare. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Rich fucks need the UN to pay their house boats? (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt that. A city like this would basically built from floating concrete slaps.
I saw this move... (Score:2)
but its sounds like none of these UN people have.
Sea level rise is just one of the problems (Score:5, Insightful)
and not the most serious one.
Throughout history (and prehistory) the weather phenomenon that has killed the most people is drought.
The EU ... (Score:2)
Correction to title (Score:3, Interesting)
" 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
Details, details (Score:2)
Who pays for it
Who gets the contracts to build it
Who owns it
Who gets to live in it
Re: (Score:2)
The answer to all your questions is the same, "associates" of the people making the decision to do it.
Re: (Score:2)
Except that first one... that's us.
Floating city, floating city (Score:3)
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.
This would be amusing to watch (Score:2)
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 qui
Where do you move an entire island nation? (Score:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
By the middle of the next century, many of the world's major cities will be flooded, and in some cases, entire island nations will be underwater. The people who live there will have to relocate. But to where?
I broke my moderation to point something out here. Does any one really think that we are going to sit by and let major cities flood? We have had this technology for centuries called dikes. Many cities are built below sea level and surrounded by dikes that do just fine.
Of course this doesn't mean there won't be other problems. *cough*New Orleans*cough* But I don't see us just sitting around and letting billions of dollars worth of realestate flood when it can be prevented.
Re: (Score:2)
Dikes leak. There are limits
Some places they can't work at all. Miami, in particular evidently is built on porus rock.
No one is going to build a wall around the Marshal Islands.
Re: (Score:2)
Ummm.... anywhere in the 90% of the land mass of the worlds which are currently not very populated?
These people living in big cities need to get outside to the countryside more often...
Re: (Score:2)
Great so we'll give, say, half of Arizona to the nation of the Marshall Islands. The present inhabitants of Arizona won't have any problem with that, right? And there won't be any difficulties with simultaneously relocating most of the population of Los Angeles in that region, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Great so we'll give, say, half of Arizona to the nation of the Marshall Islands.
Wat? Arithmetic is evidently beyond your grasp. The total land area of the Marshall Islands is 70 square miles. The land area of Phoenix, Arizona is 517 square miles. The entire population of the Marshall Islands would fit in a suburb of Phoenix without hardship. There's barely 50,000 of them.
And there won't be any difficulties with simultaneously relocating most of the population of Los Angeles in that region, right?
Arizona is 113,998 square miles. Los Angeles is 503 square miles. Transplanting LA to Arizona would use up... 0.5% of the available land. And the present inhabitants wouldn't even notice. Arizona is vastly emp
Assuming Global Warming is Real (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
This idea (Score:2)
Sounds like Mr. Ingels (Score:3)
and his colleagues have been reading Snow Crash. Or maybe they haven't?
Something stinks (Score:2)
eat only plant-based food, produce zero waste,
Better not eat any beans!
Brink (Score:2)
I've seen this idea before, it's called The Ark [wikipedia.org].
Finally (Score:2)
Mineral? (Score:2)
Cities that are tethered to the ocean floor with a mineral 'anchor' are called 'islands'.
Oil & gas drilling platforms (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So the are going to build new prisons on high ground around Houston and wait.
Re: (Score:2)
There are no territorial disputes over cruise ships.
Why would this be different?
Re: (Score:3)
1.) You can't live on a cruise ship.
Yes you can [forbes.com].
Re: (Score:2)
Chances are, you would be eating a lot of meat, since fish is meat.
Re: (Score:2)
They can house refugee populations without symbolically infringing on the territory of an already existing nation.
These existing nations with plenty of dry land are expected to be dealing with their own problems of moving everyone from their coastal cities up to that dry land.