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Yes, it's like arguing on a crowded bus. Everyone hears you, nobody cares and they either want you put in your place or told to STFU. I'm more dubious of the p

Yes, it's like arguing on a crowded bus. Everyone hears you, nobody cares and they either want you put in your place or told to STFU. I'm more dubious of the proposed solutions to global warming than anything as it looks highly like a band-aid infused with arsenic to me. Sure it'll kill the infection, but it could well kill you too. Go nuclear, it's the lesser of the evils. Existing infrastructure can be cannibalized for it (access to roadways, rail or river, cooling pools, cooling towers, etc.) even if the power plant itself cannot be. Furthermore, the totality of all nuclear accidents in the world has caused less deaths than coal soot alone. Disregard the fact that coal contains radioactive compounds that are being vaporised and inhaled. Interestingly, I know here in Canada at least, that many of the nuclear plants have become their own sort of nature preserve.

kiba 16y ago
How about building partially underwater coastline? Though, it could be an issue if there is a crack in the window. Instead of trying to stop global warming, maybe we should try living with it.
- electromagnetic 16y ago
  I've been fascinated with the idea of an ocean arcology being built in shallow waters and instead of starting 'ground' up, but simply start construction of several concrete boat foundations. When positioned, simply continue constructing. As the boat gets taller, it will displace to a greater depth until it eventually hits the ocean floor. It would be a very modular way to construct an ocean city. Get them within 500m of each other and you'll be breaking no new ground to bridge the two modules. Get them within 200m and you've hit mundane in connecting them. What's more interesting is if you could use the span distances as agricultural land and keep the human sectors within the module footprint. Considering the Petronius platform reaches about 530m underwater to a stable foundation and Burj Khalifa reaches 828m above ground, and the longest bridge is 552m. We could make a monstrous city without breaking any new ground. Who cares if the ocean is rising if your city is built astride it?
  - nutjob123 16y ago
    I'm in. Can we call it Atlantis?
    - jjs 16y ago
      How 'bout Rapture? (cf. Bioshock)
  - sammyo 16y ago
    I hang with old ship guys and all of the 'underwater archology' ideas seem to be presented by folks with little real life experience with oceans. Sea water is incredibly powerful and corrosive. Just watch the shoreline, if not maintained someplaces you'll see a huge bolder up out of place and you think "it took a huge crane to put that there" but no, just a storm.
    - jonnathanson 16y ago
      Exactly. A coastline is probably the most volatile and inhospitable location for an underwater colony of any sort. Frankly, to get an even remotely stable underwater city in place, you'd need to do it fairly deep in the open ocean -- far beneath surface turmoil and major currents. Of course, this would pose its own nigh-insurmountable problems, such as ease of transportation into and out of the colony, pressurization, expense of maintenance, expense of supply routes, self-sustainability, and so forth. Underwater habitation is a lot further off than people seem to think it is.
    - electromagnetic 16y ago
      > Sea water is incredibly powerful and corrosive. I'd point you to the Maunsell Sea Forts. Every single one has survived ~70 years in the open ocean, the ones that haven't were plowed into by boats. My suggestion is specifically to be a giant sea fort, and to build inside of the column and above it. My idea would be to go ridiculously large and create a second interior wall after sinking as a sort of levy from the true interior in case the exterior is damaged. I think a good 100 year zero-maintenance survival of an ocean arcology is amazing. Beyond initial construction the idea would be to expand and build a harbor, which would further expand the lifetime by taking any mechanical wear off of the main structure and place it onto the harbor walls. Furthermore, if you had a crane on one of the towers (which would be mandatory if you're building as you go) it would be a simple matter to move soil around in the water to create an artificial reef. The real problem would come with what materials to use for construction of the rest of the arcology. If you go with steel, it means you're going to require a lot of maintenance because of the sea air. It has longevity, (think all oil rigs) however it won't last forever. However, if you go with aluminum it will genuinely last for ever. The oxidization rate for aluminum is pitifully small (I work with it, I know, we remove 3/16ths aluminum that has only begun chalking after 40 years - which is the coloring coming off, the metal itself is like new). However, you'll never be able to use steel on the structure in the presence of salt water. Even insulating them won't work if the joints are capable of being covered in ocean spray as the galvanic reaction will eat the aluminum as aluminum is used as a sacrificial anode for steel. Impressed Current could be used, but that would mean electrifying your entire superstructure, which would defeat the point of making your arcology survivable.
- nfg 16y ago
  Does your "we" include the people of, for example, Bangladesh?
ewjordan 16y ago
Furthermore, the totality of all nuclear accidents in the world has caused less deaths than coal soot alone. This is where the current environmentalist movement has really failed: "Don't burn shit, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for us" was a compelling story, because it's pretty obviously true and hard to fight back against. When environmentalism was all about smog, coal burning, and all that nasty stuff, it was hard to find much fault with it. But now it's all about carbon. And global warming involves a lot more analysis to evaluate, to the point that even the most scientifically minded non-experts can't claim to fully understand the evidence for or against it (if they even have access to that raw evidence), not to mention all the possibilities of fudged data, which turn this more into a guessing game about who's telling the truth than a matter of science.
- rue 16y ago
  The (mostly) factual world is a tough place to live in. No convenient simplistic arguments that everyone can understand, for starters.

kiba 16y ago

How about building partially underwater coastline? Though, it could be an issue if there is a crack in the window. Instead of trying to stop global warming, maybe we should try living with it.

electromagnetic 16y ago
I've been fascinated with the idea of an ocean arcology being built in shallow waters and instead of starting 'ground' up, but simply start construction of several concrete boat foundations. When positioned, simply continue constructing. As the boat gets taller, it will displace to a greater depth until it eventually hits the ocean floor. It would be a very modular way to construct an ocean city. Get them within 500m of each other and you'll be breaking no new ground to bridge the two modules. Get them within 200m and you've hit mundane in connecting them. What's more interesting is if you could use the span distances as agricultural land and keep the human sectors within the module footprint. Considering the Petronius platform reaches about 530m underwater to a stable foundation and Burj Khalifa reaches 828m above ground, and the longest bridge is 552m. We could make a monstrous city without breaking any new ground. Who cares if the ocean is rising if your city is built astride it?
- nutjob123 16y ago
  I'm in. Can we call it Atlantis?
  - jjs 16y ago
    How 'bout Rapture? (cf. Bioshock)
- sammyo 16y ago
  I hang with old ship guys and all of the 'underwater archology' ideas seem to be presented by folks with little real life experience with oceans. Sea water is incredibly powerful and corrosive. Just watch the shoreline, if not maintained someplaces you'll see a huge bolder up out of place and you think "it took a huge crane to put that there" but no, just a storm.
  - jonnathanson 16y ago
    Exactly. A coastline is probably the most volatile and inhospitable location for an underwater colony of any sort. Frankly, to get an even remotely stable underwater city in place, you'd need to do it fairly deep in the open ocean -- far beneath surface turmoil and major currents. Of course, this would pose its own nigh-insurmountable problems, such as ease of transportation into and out of the colony, pressurization, expense of maintenance, expense of supply routes, self-sustainability, and so forth. Underwater habitation is a lot further off than people seem to think it is.
  - electromagnetic 16y ago
    > Sea water is incredibly powerful and corrosive. I'd point you to the Maunsell Sea Forts. Every single one has survived ~70 years in the open ocean, the ones that haven't were plowed into by boats. My suggestion is specifically to be a giant sea fort, and to build inside of the column and above it. My idea would be to go ridiculously large and create a second interior wall after sinking as a sort of levy from the true interior in case the exterior is damaged. I think a good 100 year zero-maintenance survival of an ocean arcology is amazing. Beyond initial construction the idea would be to expand and build a harbor, which would further expand the lifetime by taking any mechanical wear off of the main structure and place it onto the harbor walls. Furthermore, if you had a crane on one of the towers (which would be mandatory if you're building as you go) it would be a simple matter to move soil around in the water to create an artificial reef. The real problem would come with what materials to use for construction of the rest of the arcology. If you go with steel, it means you're going to require a lot of maintenance because of the sea air. It has longevity, (think all oil rigs) however it won't last forever. However, if you go with aluminum it will genuinely last for ever. The oxidization rate for aluminum is pitifully small (I work with it, I know, we remove 3/16ths aluminum that has only begun chalking after 40 years - which is the coloring coming off, the metal itself is like new). However, you'll never be able to use steel on the structure in the presence of salt water. Even insulating them won't work if the joints are capable of being covered in ocean spray as the galvanic reaction will eat the aluminum as aluminum is used as a sacrificial anode for steel. Impressed Current could be used, but that would mean electrifying your entire superstructure, which would defeat the point of making your arcology survivable.
nfg 16y ago
Does your "we" include the people of, for example, Bangladesh?

ewjordan 16y ago

Furthermore, the totality of all nuclear accidents in the world has caused less deaths than coal soot alone. This is where the current environmentalist movement has really failed: "Don't burn shit, it's bad for the environment and it's bad for us" was a compelling story, because it's pretty obviously true and hard to fight back against. When environmentalism was all about smog, coal burning, and all that nasty stuff, it was hard to find much fault with it. But now it's all about carbon. And global warming involves a lot more analysis to evaluate, to the point that even the most scientifically minded non-experts can't claim to fully understand the evidence for or against it (if they even have access to that raw evidence), not to mention all the possibilities of fudged data, which turn this more into a guessing game about who's telling the truth than a matter of science.

rue 16y ago
The (mostly) factual world is a tough place to live in. No convenient simplistic arguments that everyone can understand, for starters.