While it probably won’t help people directly affected by rising ocean levels, one possible answer to that question is to build floating cities.
If you live in a coastal area, you’re probably keenly aware of the threat of rising ocean levels. Between 1993 and 2014, the sea levels have risen 2.6 inches, and they continue to rise at a rate of about one-eighth of an inch per year. That might not seem like a huge deal in the grand scheme of things, but during the last century sea levels rose by nearly 8 inches and that number is likely to increase exponentially as ice sheets continue to melt at unprecedented rates.
It’s a problem that needs to be addressed, and one company thinks it has a way to proceed: floating cities.
A group known as the Seasteading Institute is working to develop autonomous floating cities, located in international waters. The plan is to create a series of floating, connected platforms with multiple buildings on each. The entire structure would then be encircled by a large wall to protect it from rough seas. The floating cities would house several hundred people each.
The city – or cities – would all be sustainable. Power would come from solar, wind, and hydroelectric power. Fresh water would be created through desalinization, while hydroponics farms would help provide vegetables. Materials would need to be brought in (or brought up from the ocean floor), then could be used to 3D print structures. The larger the community grows, the more structures will be created along with it.
At the moment this is still all just theoretical, but the Seasteading project has raised nearly $3 million from 1,000 donors. That’s just a fraction of the $10-$50 million the project would need for the pilot project, although it may have found a partner in French Polynesia, an island nation facing devastation due to rising sea levels. The group is currently surveying locations and looking for potential customers. It will also continue to seek donors via crowdfunding.
While the primary impetus for the floating cities is to combat sea levels, the group is also looking at the new city as a living experiment. It will try out several forms of governments; It will look at new ways to build platforms on the water and create structures that can survive even the worst conditions; It will also experiment with using new power sources
In 2013, climate models predicted that the world’s oceans could rise by as much as six feet by 2100. That’s a worst case scenario, but the threat is real, and floating cities may be one of the answers.