Polar Cities Remain Off the Radar

http://audio.isg.si/audiox/?q=node/13377
HOW ON EARTH: Global Warming Spoken Word Song

An interview with the creator of http://climatechange3000.blogspot.com/, a blog about polar warming, climate change and sustainable polar cities.

Q: Your proposal about polar cities has not received any attention at all from either the mainstream media or the blogosphere, other than a few offbeat comments here and there. Do you have any idea why nobody is taking your ideas seriously?

Danny: Yes, I understand why. The idea is simply too radical, too far out, too off the wall, for most journalists to take seriously.

As a friend of mine in San Francisco, a well known poet, said about all this: "It's the 1000-pound gorilla in the room that no one wants to talk about."

Even bloggers shy away from talking about what I am proposing. It's just a proposal, to make people think, food for thought, as they say. But I fully understand why nobody is picking up any news about my blog. It's just too hard to think about.

Another blogger emailed me and said: "Your ideas are thought-provoking. I'll give your blog a go, give me somke time to get across some of Lovelock's details. Of course we have got to make plans for climate change survival now. I admire your passion."

Q: Do you think some mainstream media people might pick up your story later? Or bloggers?
A: One of these days, some reporter will do a story about my blog, and the ideas within. But it might not be tomorrow. It might take a long time for anyone to take my blog seriously. Meanwhile, I am actively courting the media, and the blogosphere, asking people to at least read my blog and make some comments, pro or con.

Q: How old are you?
A: I am 58, going on 18, and I don't have very long to live. Maybe another ten years, if I am healthy. So this is my final life's work, this blog, this idea, these ideas, and after I am gone and pushing up daises, maybe someone will take my ideas and move them further up the chain. And of course, I got all my inspiration from Sir James Lovelock, the British environmentalist who first spoke about "breeding pairs in the Arctic." He is the person who set me on this course. So thanks, Sir James. He is a Sir, isn't he?

Q: What are your hopes for your blog and the ideas it contains?
A: I hope that eventually it can generate some discussion in some news stories in publications like the New York Times, where reporter Andrew Revkin does a great job charting the ups and downs of the global warming war. I hope the AP and Reuters will ask for a quote or two one day, and tell readers about this off the wall proposal that just might have some meat in it. The Los Angeles Times, some papers in London, Paris, Sweden, and some good blogs, too. But I am not expecting much to happen. I know this concept is just too too far out for most people to fathom today. Most media outlets would shy away from this. But if just one newspaper bites, that's great. I am not doing this for money or fame. This is my final life's work. Some people do things like this. It's just the way I do things.

Q: Are you an optimist or a pessimist?
A: From my blog, you might think I am bleak, despairing pessismist, a nihilist. In fact, I am an optimist. I want to believe that these polar cities will help. They won't be needed until at least 2500 or so, maybe even later, so I won't be around the see them. But I do envision them, and I hope someone will be inspired by my blog and take it all one step further, and so on. That's what life is all about. I am a dreamer. Always was.

Q: So you believe that global warming is for real, that climate change will occur, and that there will be a need for sustainable polar city retreats to house remnants of humankind so that they can later go back down to the middle and central regions of the Earth and start to repopulate the Earth once again?
A: I do believe all that. And I think the time to start "thinking" about polar cities is now, and to start planning and designing them and maybe even building them now. While we still have fuel and transport and resources and food and civilization. It's getting later, earlier and earlier. But I am not an alarmist and I am not a pessimist. I love life, I love humanity, I love this world. I have had a wonderful life, a fantastic life, and I am a cheerful, positive person. Always was, always will be. Just a dreamer stuck in a everyday body doing what comes naturally for me to do. I think there's a good media story here, but who knows if anyone will ever pick it up.

Q: Do you believe in God?
A: No. Stopped believing in superstitions and supernatural theologies when I was 13. But I am not against religion or against religious people. Religion is important for a lot of people. I respect that. But I outgrew it. I wish there was a God, or lots of gods. But alas, there's just us. And at the moment, we are in deep doo-doo.

Q: Thank you for your time, sir.
A: Plenty of time on my hands, as you can see, plenty of time on my hands.

Q: Wew heard that Wikipedia has picked up some of your ideas.
A: Yes, you can see a brief entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Cities

Q: You wrote a letter to the Guardian once, about all this, didn't you?
Danny: Yes. I wrote: "In a recent the Guardian ran about James Lovelock, the British expert on global warming ("It's the end of the world as we know it"), it was implied that humankind is responsible for global warming and that it is already too late to do anything to reverse the impact it is having on life on Earth. Lovelock says it is already too late to act to reverse the problems of global warming. Why? Because we are all addicted to our post-modern lives of cars, scooters, computers, airplanes, trains and ships, not to mention the thousands of coal-burning plants around the world that help fuel our addiction and pollute the planet. The huge carbon dioxide emissions faucet cannot be turned off. While I am an optimist about most things in life, after reading Lovelock's books I have come to agree with him and now believe that humankind will cease to exist on Earth by the year 2500, or 3000 at the latest. I know this is not a popular thing to say, and it is just a personal opinion, but readers who are concerned about these issues can read my take on them at http://climatechange3000.blogspot.com, with feedback welcome, of course. If there is any hope -- and we must hold to hope, despite the odds -- it is for leaders and visionaries to start planning now to build vast polar cities to house the future survivors of climate change in the hopes that their descendants can one day come out from the polar regions and repopulate the Earth. We should be listening to Lovelock, but most people couldn't be bothered. That's our problem."

Q: Could you say a few words in Chinese for our readers in Taiwan and Hong Kong and China?
A: Sure. 您讀的新聞或報紙或網際網路所說的氣候的異常是真的。現在這些問題必須解決 :上千群眾將必須居住北極或南極 , 從地球中部 , 譬如臺灣, 和美國和歐洲, 將是不合適的在人生。所以理解以下這些問題:1. 誰將去居住在北極和南極?2. 誰將決定誰能得到土地? 聯合國 ? 富有的國家 ?3. 誰要設計或修改這些極端的城市和鄉鎮?4. 他們應該現在就開始改造, 當我們有時間和資源和空運和加油的方式 , 並且他們準備好為將來當世界也許需要他們 .....或應該等我們以後 ....當它也許會太晚以至於不能蓋東西或運輸材料嗎 ?5. 多少個人會支持這個極端的城市和鄉鎮? 100,000 人?一百萬人 ?6. 。誰將會治理這些極性城市?7. 富有和有權力的人的孩子會先從發達國家去這些極端城市嗎?10. 誰要計劃食物資源, 娛樂 , 電視 , 收音機, 報紙, 網際網路, 金錢在這些極端城市 ?11. 多久全球性冬天將持續?10,000年 ?100,000年 ?或更多 ?12. 我們是製造主要問題的人, 是由我們自己親手造成二氧化碳 .我們可以做什麼解決問題 ?13. 一旦好的氣候回來,地球的中部地區 ,那些區域在長期的全球性冬天以後 ,人們怎麼居住於地球的中部地區 ?14. 什麼將被留在中部地區? 荒原 ?

(c) 2007

Thinking About Polar Cities -- Or Trying To

By Kit Stolz

A journalist named Dan Bloom, now based in Taiwan, has been agitating for consideration of one of James Lovelock's more alarming ideas -- polar cities. (Here's his site on the subject.) I don't have answers for Mr. Bloom but take a look: ...<http://achangeinthewind.typepad.com/achangeinthewind/2007/06/thinking-about-.html>A Change in the Wind<http://achangeinthewind.typepad.com/achangeinthewind/>