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Climate change means floating cities are no longer science fiction


Climate change means floating cities are no longer science fiction

‘Slightly crazy’ project draws flak though

A rendered image of floating islands via The Seasteading Institute

As climate change incontrovertibly makes itself felt from pole to pole, the tech industry is floating ideas about adapting to a catastrophe induced by global warming.

One of these is the notion of moving residents from low-lying Pacific islands, on the front-lines of rising sea levels, to seasteads, i.e. floating platforms that serve as permanent dwellings at sea. Once the realm of science fiction, the idea of floating islands is coming to pass as the world’s ice caps continue to melt at a worrying pace.

The government of Kiribati is already considering such floating platforms, while French Polynesia is working on a similar project with the California-based nonprofit named The Seasteading Institute, The New York Times reported. Randolph Hencken, the institute’s executive director, said the project is just awaiting the results of some environmental and economic feasibility studies.

“We have a vision that we’re going to create an industry that provides floating islands to people who are threatened by rising sea levels,” Hencken told the Times.

More: Could Nickelodeon’s newest theme park destroy these Philippine islands?

The Seasteading Institute claimed to have raised USD2.5 million already from more than 1,000 interested donors. Early donors of the project include PayPal founder Peter Thiel, who has since stopped contributing to the project.

More than 1,000 people wanted to reside in the islands, according to a survey conducted by the institute in 2013.

Designed by aquatic engineering firm DeltaSync, the platforms that make up the institute’s seasteads can bear the weight of up to three-storey buildings. Eleven platforms can carry as much as 250 residents. Ocean-based wind farms, among other renewable energy sources, will ensure that island dwellers live off the grid.

Rendered images of the artificial floating islands in French Polynesia. Image: Seasteading Institute

Each platform is estimated to cost less than USD15 million dollars or USD500 per square foot, less than average land prices in London or New York City, the institute pointed out in a video.

The plan is not without its critics, with one radio host calling it a “slightly crazy project,” the Times noted.

“What do we want to save? How much money do we want to spend on it, and what does it bring for those people?” Koen Olthuis, an architect in the Netherlands who specializes in water-based projects, told the Times. “With billions, you can save 300,000 people. But you can also take them away and put them in other countries and use those buildings to help people in slums worldwide.”

The world’s oceans may rise up to six feet by 2100, according to recent climate models.

Read next: How to own an island in the Philippines

Source: Property Report