Arcologies and the 21st Century

[Orionblamblam]

AHEM! - Back to the subject at hand.

Regarding uses/utility of arcologies, could a (fixed site) arcology be used as the anchor point for a space elevator, do you think?

Only if it was an equatorial arcology, of course. I'm not sure that there'd be any particular advantage for either the elevator or the arcology, however. No forseeable space elevator is going to be able to support much in the way of traffic... perhaps the equivalent of some out of the way dusty airport, rather than a major transportation hub. So the elevator wouldn't *need* that much in the way of ground infrastructure.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Far too subtle for me - you lost me in the first sentence ???

Translation:
1) take a well-established phenomenon that has modest, variable, and not-well-predictable results.
2)Then make wild and wacky over the top predictions for said phenomenon.
3) When someone doubts your far-end-of-the-bell-curve predictions, claim that this means they doubt that the phenomenon exists.
4)...
5) Profit!

Any human geoengineering effort is going to start off small and build slowly - at least in terms of comparison to the planet as a whole. Adding sulfur compounds to jet engine exhaust in order to increase high altitude reflection of sunlight, for example. Positing that that will cause the environment to go bugnuts makes *zero* sense since the environment didn't go bugnuts after Mt. Pinatubo went off; the planetary temperature merely dipped by a degree or so for about a year. The vastly bigger Tambora eruption gave us a year without a summer... bad, but hardly catastrophic for humanity, and it only lasted a year. WWII burned Odin knows how many megatons of buildings and farms and fields and such, yet the planetary climate didn't go wacky.

Planetary collapse stories might be entertaining, but if they're based on unreasonable scenarios, they transition from science fiction into fantasy. Pandemic stories can be sci-fi, but when they become zombie apocalypse, they're fantasy. Your story as described is akin to Baxter's "Flood" and "Ark" in terms of being based on an unrealistic basis. Didn't stop Flood/Ark from being entertaining, but they were nevertheless fantasy.

 

[Tony Williams]

1) take a well-established phenomenon that has modest, variable, and not-well-predictable results.
2)Then make wild and wacky over the top predictions for said phenomenon.
3) When someone doubts your far-end-of-the-bell-curve predictions, claim that this means they doubt that the phenomenon exists.

"My predictions" were based on what a lot of climate scientists are saying. I'm not one of them, but I follow the reports of their findings with interest, and developments so far (particularly concerning the drastic shrinkage of the summer Arctic ice cover, in both thickness and extent) have been a lot closer to the worst-case than the best-case predictions of a few years ago. The next IPCC report is clearly going to be a lot more pessimistic than the last one. So far, we seem to be on track for a rise in global average temperatures of up to 4 degrees C by the end of the century unless we change course, and that will have serious consequences for many parts of the world.

Geoengineering sounds simple, but the global climate is an incredibly complex system - we are still learning a great deal concerning all of the different influences on it, and don't yet know enough about it to reach anything other than very broad-brush and tentative conclusions. Which means that we have no idea what might actually happen if we start messing about with geoengineering and most especially how different approaches to geoengineering might interact. It is impossible to predict the outcomes, but we can reasonably expect that it would produce some unanticipated and probably unwelcome results.

So, the background to my story (and it is only the background, not what the novel is about) is of course speculative, but is within the scope of SF rather than fantasy.

 

[Arjen]

A drastic climate change is not needed for disaster. Local droughts, as experienced in Africa's Sahel zone, will cause wide-spread famine.

Furthermore, meaningful weather forecasts are limited to less than a week. Predicting the weather is difficult enough, reliably influencing it is beyond our means. I think that will elude us for quite some time.

Adding sulfur compounds to jetliner fuel; adding sheets of floating white reflective material to the equatorial oceans; spraying water into the air to increase evaporation and cloud formation; even salting L1 with dust would all be a hell of a lot cheaper than a single decent arcology, while benefitting the *entire* planet.

Since you are suggesting climate control on (eventually) a global scale, and taking into account that the Pinatubo eruption, big as it was, did not make any lasting change to world climate, that would call for an enormous effort, equivalent to tens? hundreds? thousands? of Pinatubo-like events.

There is the concept of punctuated equilibrium. At one time you're looking at, say Lake Baikal, with the odd cellulose-plant churning away on its coast. Return some years later, and you're confronted with dead seals and ships stuck in what is now a desert but used to be lake bottom. We humans really do have a grand tradition of screwing up.

In our own solar system, we have two examples of planets that suffered runaway processes that culminated in both planets being stuck with environments hostile to life as we know it. We don't know exactly what happened to Venus and Mars. We do suspect that some 650 million years ago, Earth itself suffered another runaway process that turned our planet into a giant snowball. Sometimes a planet has a way of recovering. Sometimes it doesn't. We don't know what causes some of these runaway processes, we don't know which processes are irreversible. Until we do, global cimate control is a bridge too far.

In this context, developing arcologies looks like a low-risk strategy. Quite unlike climate control.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Geoengineering sounds simple, but the global climate is an incredibly complex system - we are still learning a great deal concerning all of the different influences on it, and don't yet know enough about it to reach anything other than very broad-brush and tentative conclusions. Which means that we have no idea what might actually happen if we start messing about with geoengineering...

You are willing to accept that a minor and intentional *human* input will have a greater and longer-lasting effect than a much more massive *non-human* or unintentional input. There is no rational basis for this belief. Thus, fantasy.

If we have no idea what will happen if we try to reverse the effects of global warming, then any effort to reduce fossil fuel consumption will lead to glaciers a mile thick in North Dakota within ten years and average winter temperatures in London of 40 below. Therefore the logical choice is to burn as much carbon as possible, since life on Earth is better off with things warm and wet than cold and dry.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Since you are suggesting climate control on (eventually) a global scale, and taking into account that the Pinatubo eruption, big as it was, did not make any lasting change to world climate, that would call for an enormous effort, equivalent to tens? hundreds? thousands? of Pinatubo-like events.

Nope. Pinatubo dropped planetary temps by a degree due to sulfur compounds in the stratosphere reflectign sunlight. The tonnage of that was relatively trivial, in terms of what jetliners could add just by tinkering with their fuel. The Pinatubo sulfur was washed otu within a year, but jetliners will be flying for the forseeable future.

global cimate control is a bridge too far.

So, what sanction do you propose for the environemntalist lobby that wants to enact carbon controls? They are putting the world on the path to Snowball Earth. Arcologies will not stand against the massive glaciers which will sweep in from the poles and crush them.

 

[Arjen]

No minor input, and certainly not with the intention to raise greenhouse compound content of the atmosphere.

We are currently burning in decades the remains of hundreds of millions of years production of organic material. There are signs that we are influencing world climate. To what extent, we don't know yet. Common sense suggests that to reduce risks, it would be wise not to raise greenhouse compound content of the atmosphere any further - at least until we know what we are doing. To some extent, the oceans act as a sink for greenhouse gases, but again, there are signs we are reaching the limits of what the oceans can handle. I would suggest caution.

So, what sanction do you propose for the environemntalist lobby that wants to enact carbon controls?

None.

They are putting the world on the path to Snowball Earth. Arcologies will not stand against the massive glaciers which will sweep in from the poles and crush them.

...or turn Earth into Venus Revisited. I'm rather uncomfortable with that too.

 

[Tony Williams]

You are willing to accept that a minor and intentional *human* input will have a greater and longer-lasting effect than a much more massive *non-human* or unintentional input. There is no rational basis for this belief. Thus, fantasy.

Straw man argument. All I have said about the effects of geoengineering is that they will be unpredictable, especially in how they might interact.

If we have no idea what will happen if we try to reverse the effects of global warming, then any effort to reduce fossil fuel consumption will lead to glaciers a mile thick in North Dakota within ten years and average winter temperatures in London of 40 below. Therefore the logical choice is to burn as much carbon as possible, since life on Earth is better off with things warm and wet than cold and dry.

You do like your straw men, not to say ridiculous exaggeration :. We do know that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere influences global average temperature, that the level has been steadily rising for a long time, and that the global average temperature has been following suit. It is predicted that even if the increase in CO2 production could be stopped now, the temperature would continue to rise for some time. So reducing CO2 output is the most obvious (and in the long run, the cheapest) way of trying to reduce the scale of the rise in temperatures.

 

[Orionblamblam]

So, what sanction do you propose for the environemntalist lobby that wants to enact carbon controls?

None.

Why do you want to cover the world in ice?

[quote author=Tony Williams]

You do like your straw men, not to say ridiculous exaggeration [/quote]


THAT'S THE POINT. Your storyline is itself a ridiculous exaggeration. Your story is based on unfounded non-scientific speculation. And that's *fine;* my point is that it's fantasy, not science fiction.

Nobody, so far as I'm aware, has proposed a geoengineering solution that even comes close to the sort of impact that Tambora had. And Tambora had no lasting impact on planetary climate. So what rational reason (beyond "we just don't know" or "maybe" or "who knows" or "why not") would you have to suspect that geoengineering would cause the world to go straight to hell when Pinatubo didn't, Tambora didn't, WWII didn't and a century of burning oil hasn't?

 

[Grey Havoc]

Here are some projects from a certain Mr. Paolo Soleri.

And Norman Foster's Crystal Island project, which seemed to be still on track as of early 2008, but seems to have vanished since then.

And here's a few more arcology related links:

http://www.popsci.com.au/galleries/state-of-the-arcology/urban-utopias
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=61
http://www.allaboutskyscrapers.com/culture/archology
http://www.cityfarmer.org/frick.html
http://www.arcology.com/

 

[The Artist]

This is the first of two batches of scans from the book Arcology: The City In The Image Of Man. These first three are from the first part of the book where he explains his theories. Clear and concise. Right?

 

[The Artist]

These three are taken from the selection of example Arcologies.

About these scans. The book is oversize and I had to select portions of pages to scan. Additionally, as you can see from these cropped images, there is a lot of overlap and confusion in this part of the book.

 

[Tony Williams]

THAT'S THE POINT. Your storyline is itself a ridiculous exaggeration. Your story is based on unfounded non-scientific speculation. And that's *fine;* my point is that it's fantasy, not science fiction.

Nobody, so far as I'm aware, has proposed a geoengineering solution that even comes close to the sort of impact that Tambora had. And Tambora had no lasting impact on planetary climate. So what rational reason (beyond "we just don't know" or "maybe" or "who knows" or "why not") would you have to suspect that geoengineering would cause the world to go straight to hell when Pinatubo didn't, Tambora didn't, WWII didn't and a century of burning oil hasn't?

In a previous post you suggested various methods of geoengineering as a potential solution to the problem of global warming. Which implies that you think it can be effective in changing the planet's climate. But you don't believe that geoengineering has the power to cause any problems if the usual "unintended consequences" occur. Which implies that you think it can't be effective. Which is it?

Besides, you're exaggerating your straw men again. Who said anything about the world going "straight to hell"? All I have said in various posts was this:

"changing climate and sea levels have led to lots of displaced people trying to survive in a harsher environment."

"Already in the UK decisions have been made to stop protecting some of the most vulnerable coastal areas and move people out instead, and that's with a very small rise in sea level. Once the Greenland ice cap starts slipping into the Atlantic, these kind of problems will rocket. Add a harsher environment and problems with energy shortages and the efficiency of providing replacement accommodation in a low-energy arcology becomes a lot more attractive."

"the background to my novel is that global warming has reached various tipping points, causing (among other things) a rapid acceleration in the flow of ice from the Greenland ice cap into the North Atlantic and a subsequent rise in sea level (this is already beginning to happen). The large flow of fresh water from Greenland blocks the North Atlantic Drift, causing a drop in temperatures in NW Europe. These changes cause panic among various governments which rush into every climate engineering project they can think of, causing wild swings in the climate over relatively short periods."

The rate of flow of most glaciers from the Greenland ice cap has already accelerated significantly. This isn't even SF - it's fact. The risk of the flood of fresh water into the North Atlantic slowing or stopping the North Atlantic Drift is genuine - it's happened before. The response of governments to events like this - well, just how rationally have most governments responded to the issue of global warming so far?

If you want a fantasy about climate change, watch The Day After Tomorrow. The events which take place in that film are scientifically impossible to a ridiculous degree. There is nothing scientifically impossible in my scenario.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Some way-out concepts can be found among the entries for the recent eVolo Magazine 2013 Skyscraper Competition.

 

[Orionblamblam]

In a previous post you suggested various methods of geoengineering as a potential solution to the problem of global warming. Which implies that you think it can be effective in changing the planet's climate. But you don't believe that geoengineering has the power to cause any problems if the usual "unintended consequences" occur. Which implies that you think it can't be effective. Which is it?

That by you is logic?

Look, none of the geoengineering suggestions have even the *potential* of an overwhelming, immediate effect. If you truly believe that, say, laying down ten square meters of white plastic at a time on the oceans surface has the potential to drive the wrold into an ige age overnight, then you are a believer in *magic.*

Who said anything about the world going "straight to hell"?

Why else would people lock themselves up in specially build arks for environmental reasons?

"changing climate and sea levels have led to lots of displaced people trying to survive in a harsher environment."

"Already in the UK decisions have been made to stop protecting some of the most vulnerable coastal areas and move people out instead, and that's with a very small rise in sea level. Once the Greenland ice cap starts slipping into the Atlantic, these kind of problems will rocket. Add a harsher environment and problems with energy shortages and the efficiency of providing replacement accommodation in a low-energy arcology becomes a lot more attractive."

Doesn't follow. The western world is already in population decline. If Greenland started melting and the oceans started rising, moving inland slightly would be the easy and cost effective solution. Once again, look at New Orleans. The city was below sea level *before* Katrina hit. After, the "dispalced" either rebuilt where they were, or rebuilt a few feet further uphill, or simply moved.

In the hypothetical warmer, wetter world you posit, the populations of Britain and the US and Europe and such would very likely be lower than they are today. Much of the population gains in the western world *now* are due to third world immigration; close that off, and dealing with sea level rise becomes fairly easy for the west. Sucks for, say, Somalians, but it wasn't like they were going to build an arcology at Mogadishu anyway.

These changes cause panic among various governments which rush into every climate engineering project they can think of, causing wild swings in the climate over relatively short periods."

What geoengineeing solutions can be cobbled together quickly that would have that sort of forcing ability?

well, just how rationally have most governments responded to the issue of global warming so far?

Oh, agreed. Look at all the governmental initiatives to reduce fossil fuel burning, even though evidence suggests that the rise of the industrial revolution and the CO2 it pumped out was the only thing that held off the return of the ice age. You want climate nightmare? An ice age is far, far worse than a warmer planet.

So maybe *that* would be your hook: the envirnmentalists have killed human civilization, and the few survivors need to huddle in arcologies to survive the minus-80-degree summers brought on by the "geoengineering" of ending fossil fuel burning. Of course, environmentalists being the political beasts they are, they've actually taken over, and they blame the new ice age on the few survive astronauts hanging on in cobbled-together space station habitats in low Earth orbit: "They're stealing our air!" Maybe have a few astronauts crash land on the glacier in North Dakota, being rescued by some science fiction fans... hmmm...

There is nothing scientifically impossible in my scenario.

Except having a geoengineering effort that's more powerful than Tambora and global warming combined. What, do they put a mirrored force field around the entire planet?

 

[bobbymike]

So, what sanction do you propose for the environemntalist lobby that wants to enact carbon controls?

None.

Why do you want to cover the world in ice?

[quote author=Tony Williams]

You do like your straw men, not to say ridiculous exaggeration

THAT'S THE POINT. Your storyline is itself a ridiculous exaggeration. Your story is based on unfounded non-scientific speculation. And that's *fine;* my point is that it's fantasy, not science fiction.

Nobody, so far as I'm aware, has proposed a geoengineering solution that even comes close to the sort of impact that Tambora had. And Tambora had no lasting impact on planetary climate. So what rational reason (beyond "we just don't know" or "maybe" or "who knows" or "why not") would you have to suspect that geoengineering would cause the world to go straight to hell when Pinatubo didn't, Tambora didn't, WWII didn't and a century of burning oil hasn't?
[/quote]

And how many hundreds of above ground, under water and atmospheric nuclear weapons tests some, Zsar Bomba of 50+ Mt?

 

[Arjen]

Nuclear explosions do not release any significant amounts of greenhouse compounds into the atmosphere. Dust - maybe, from underground explosions. But that's the stuff that settles in fairly short order.

On the one hand OBB writes of climate control as an option, On the other hand, "Nobody, so far as I'm aware, has proposed a geoengineering solution that even comes close to the sort of impact that Tambora had. And Tambora had no lasting impact on planetary climate" speaks of serious doubts about humanity's ability to do anything about climate control.

I repeat: a drastic climate change is not needed for disaster. Local droughts, as experienced in Africa's Sahel zone, will cause wide-spread famine. Small changes in climate can wreak havoc on agriculture. As Tony has already pointed out, glaciers are retreating worldwide. In palaeontology, tracking glaciers is a fairly reliable way - among other tools - for tracing climate change.

Why do you want to cover the world in ice?

Straw man.

 

[bobbymike]

Nuclear explosions do not release any significant amounts of greenhouse compounds into the atmosphere. Dust - maybe, from underground explosions. But that's the stuff that settles in fairly short order.

On the one hand OBB writes of climate control as an option, On the other hand, "Nobody, so far as I'm aware, has proposed a geoengineering solution that even comes close to the sort of impact that Tambora had. And Tambora had no lasting impact on planetary climate" speaks of serious doubts about humanity's ability to do anything about climate control.

I repeat: a drastic climate change is not needed for disaster. Local droughts, as experienced in Africa's Sahel zone, will cause wide-spread famine. Small changes in climate can wreak havoc on agriculture. As Tony has already pointed out, glaciers are retreating worldwide. In palaeontology, tracking glaciers is a fairly reliable way - among other tools - for tracing climate change.

Why do you want to cover the world in ice?

Straw man.

Just talking about general planetary abuse and how small an impact it had in conjunction with everything else we were doing like OBB said.

 

[Tony Williams]

Look, none of the geoengineering suggestions have even the *potential* of an overwhelming, immediate effect.

Straw man exaggeration again - I never said anything about "overwhelming, immediate"; I said "causing wild swings in the climate over relatively short periods". Since my novel is set around the end of the century, we are talking about a timespan of several decades for all of this to take effect (which is a very short period for climatic changes to happen). We are already seeing climate swings in the UK, with weather records regularly being broken - hottest, coldest, wettest and driest month records have all been notched up in recent years.

Who said anything about the world going "straight to hell"?

Why else would people lock themselves up in specially build arks for environmental reasons?

You manufacture so many straw men in your arguments I can only assume that you have a combine harvester you can't resist playing with. It isn't an "ark" and the people aren't "locked in". Furthermore, as I've said already, only a small percentage of the population live in them. The arcology is simply a very energy and space efficient way to accommodate a lot of people.

The western world is already in population decline. If Greenland started melting and the oceans started rising, moving inland slightly would be the easy and cost effective solution.

The UK's population is rising. And in my scenario, the people are being moved inland - it's just that arcologies are built to house them rather than conventional cities. Unlike the USA, we don't have much empty space in the UK except for mountain and other barren upland areas - land which can be built on is very expensive.

Much of the population gains in the western world *now* are due to third world immigration; close that off, and dealing with sea level rise becomes fairly easy for the west.

As the planet generally heats up (with regional exceptions), rainfall patterns will shift and some populated areas will become effectively uninhabitable. So the expectation is that more fortunate areas might get more immigration, not less. As far as "close that off" is concerned, just consider the success that the USA has in preventing immigration from Mexico. :

 

[Orionblamblam]

I never said anything about "overwhelming, immediate"; I said "causing wild swings in the climate over relatively short periods".

Different words for the same thing.

It isn't an "ark" and the people aren't "locked in".

It was a simplification on my part.

Furthermore, as I've said already, only a small percentage of the population live in them. The arcology is simply a very energy and space efficient way to accommodate a lot of people.

Warehousing.

The UK's population is rising.

Due to immigration, not Brits breedin' like bunnies. Birth rate appears to be 1.9 per woman in Britain, well below replacement rate. A population increase would therefore be due to immigration.

So the expectation is that more fortunate areas might get more immigration, not less.

Not for long...

As far as "close that off" is concerned, just consider the success that the USA has in preventing immigration from Mexico. :

The USA hasn't *tried* to prevent immigration from Mexico. For starters, legal immigration from Mexico is pretty straightforward, and for seconds illegal immigration is something the US FedGuv not only doesn't care about, it's something it will actively work against the *states* that try to reign it in. Illegal imigrants are somethign both parties in the US actually *want.* But if it came about that it became politically important to stop immigration, illegal or otherwise, you'd see some action.

Britain is in a different position WRT immigration or "climate refugees." Y'all can simply wall up the Chunnel and set the Royal Navy the task of blowing up unwanted ships and aircraft. And don't try to deny that the Brits *wouldn't* do such a thing if the climate went to hell and half the world decided to go camp out in Englandland. It's not looking too unlikely that much of Europe is soon going to lose that postwar warm fuzziness about refugees and immigrants, and go back to the Old Ways.

 

[Orionblamblam]

On the one hand OBB writes of climate control as an option, On the other hand, "Nobody, so far as I'm aware, has proposed a geoengineering solution that even comes close to the sort of impact that Tambora had. And Tambora had no lasting impact on planetary climate" speaks of serious doubts about humanity's ability to do anything about climate control.

Tambora was a massive, *immediate* pulse of environmental modification. No geoengineering project is going to be able to build up that fast. Humanity could well be able to produce a geoengineering solution with much *greater* forcing effect than Tambora - a couple million square km of white plastic floting on the ocean, say - but it'll take a *long* time to build up to it, and likely could be stopped or even reversed fairly quickly.

Consequently: I have no doubt that mankind could engineer a cooler planet if we so chose to do so. But we cannot do so *quickly.* Certainly nowhere near as fast as the Earth can do seemingly on a whim. Thus the idea of geoengineering efforts causing massive long-term unforseen ruckuses (ruckii?) is just plain silly.

There *are* ways humanity could fark up the climate in a hurry. Nuke the bejeebers out of Panama, re-ordering the Gulf Stream. A nice global war or pandemic that both kicks up dust & smoke, cooling the planet, and shutting down fossil fuel burning, lowering CO2, thus cooling the planet. The planet would very likely plunge into an ice age, which we seemed heading for.

Why do you want to cover the world in ice?

Straw man.

Not so much.

 

[Tony Williams]

I never said anything about "overwhelming, immediate"; I said "causing wild swings in the climate over relatively short periods".

Different words for the same thing.

Which confirms a growing suspicion that we are actually speaking different languages...

Furthermore, as I've said already, only a small percentage of the population live in them. The arcology is simply a very energy and space efficient way to accommodate a lot of people.

Warehousing.

This is either further evidence that we are using different languages, or you have decided to ignore the information I have posted about Torus.

The UK's population is rising.

Due to immigration, not Brits breedin' like bunnies. Birth rate appears to be 1.9 per woman in Britain, well below replacement rate. A population increase would therefore be due to immigration.

Not directly. A news item last night stated that the country needs 250,000 more primary school places this autumn just to accommodate the extra children. The families producing many of the extra children might well have been immigrants, but many of them are settled here now and their children are being born here. The situation is similar to the USA, which also has a higher birthrate among immigrants than among others. So closing the borders, even if that were possible, wouldn't cause the numbers to shrink in the foreseeable future.

 

[Arjen]

The current interglacial period has lasted for some 11,400 years now. Estimates as to how long this period is likely to last, have ranged from older estimates of less than a thousand years to more recent estimates of as much as 50,000-70,000 years.
ftp://ftp.soest.hawaii.edu/engels/Stanley/Textbook_update/Science_297/Berger-02.pdf

When paleoclimatologists gathered in 1972 to discuss how and when the present warm period would end (1), a slide into the next glacial seemed imminent. But more recent studies point toward a different future: a long interglacial that may last another 50,000 years.

An interglacial is an uninterrupted warm interval during which global climatereaches at least the preindustrial level of warmth. Based on geological records available in 1972, the last two interglacials (including the Eemian, ~125,000 years ago) were believed to have lasted about 10,000 years. This is about the length of the current warm interval—the Holocene—to date. Assuming a similar duration for all interglacials, the scientists concluded that “it is likely that the present-day warm epoch will terminate relatively soon if man does not intervene” (1, p. 267).
Some assumptions made 30 years ago have since been questioned. Past interglacials may have been longer than originally assumed (2). Some, including marine isotope stage 11 (MIS-11, 400,000 years ago), may have been warmer than at present (3). We are also increasingly aware of the intensification of the greenhouse effect by human activities (4). But even without human perturbation, future climate may not develop as in past interglacials (5) because the forcings and mechanisms that produced these earlier warm periods may have been quite different from today’s.

Most early attempts to predict future climate at the geological time scale (6,7) prolonged the cooling that started at the peak of the Holocene some 6000 years ago, predicting a cold interval in about 25,000 years and a glaciation in about 55,000 years.

These projections were based on statistical rules or simple models that did not include any CO2 forcing. They thus implicitly assumed a value equal to the average of the last glacial-interglacial cycles [∼225 partsper million by volume (ppmv) (8)].
But some studies disagreed with these projections. With a simple ice-sheet model, Oerlemans and Van der Veen (9) predicted a long interglacial lasting another 50,000 years, followed by a first glacial maximum in about 65,000 years. Ledley also stated that an ice age is unlikely to begin in the next 70,000 years (10), based on the relation between the observed rateof change of ice volume and the summer solstice radiation.

Are we heading for a new Ice Age? Maybe. When? The jury is out on that, but it doesn't look like soon.

For the past ~34 million years, Earth climate has been in an Earth Icehouse state, as opposed to an Earth Greenhouse state. Earth Icehouse is characterised by glacial and interglacial periods, in Earth Greenhouse, temperature may rise worldwide in the order of ten centigrade relative to current temperature: no glaciers or icecaps at all, with all of the melted ice contributing to rising sea levels, and Earth a much wetter place.

Changes from Icehouse to Greenhouse - or back - coincide with mass extinctions of species.

Factors likely to cause a change from Icehouse to Greenhouse and back, not an exhaustive list:
- tectonic movements
- solar activity
- precession of the Earth's axis and changes in Earth's orbit
- changes in atmospheric composition

Most factors are completely beyond humanity's control.

The last factor is being influenced by us, there is a theoretical possibility this might avert a next Ice Age, but the process is completely uncontrolled. There is the possibility of overcompensation, which might, then again, might not, lead to Greenhouse Earth. Earth climate is a complex of metastable systems, go beyond tipping point of those systems and all kind of interesting things start happening.

Reducing carbon emissions worldwide to zero - an unlikely event - will lead to some reduction in carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, but the results of raised CO2 levels will be with us for a long time.
http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1704.long

The severity of damaging human-induced climate change depends not only on the magnitude of the change but also on the potential for irreversibility. This paper shows that the climate change that takes place due to increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Following cessation of emissions, removal of atmospheric carbon dioxide decreases radiative forcing, but is largely compensated by slower loss of heat to the ocean, so that atmospheric temperatures do not drop significantly for at least 1,000 years. Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450–600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the “dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise. Thermal expansion of the warming ocean provides a conservative lower limit to irreversible global average sea level rise of at least 0.4–1.0 m if 21st century CO2 concentrations exceed 600 ppmv and 0.6–1.9 m for peak CO2 concentrations exceeding ≈1,000 ppmv. Additional contributions from glaciers and ice sheet contributions to future sea level rise are uncertain but may equal or exceed several meters over the next millennium or longer.

<edit2> from the same source:

On a lighter note, Solomon, Plattner, Knutti and Friedlingstein do not predict a change from Icehouse Earth to Greenhouse Earth.
</edit2>
OBB's question:

Why do you want to cover the world in ice?

I don't. OBB implies cutting carbon emissions will lead to carbondioxide content of the atmosphere so low, it will cause a new Ice Age. Not in our lifetime. Deliberately causing an Ice Age by lowering carbondioxide content of the atmosphere? Straw man.

<edit> In fact, OBB says cutting carbon emissions will lead to lower carbondioxide content of the atmosphere, literally, right here:

There *are* ways humanity could fark up the climate in a hurry. Nuke the bejeebers out of Panama, re-ordering the Gulf Stream. A nice global war or pandemic that both kicks up dust & smoke, cooling the planet, and shutting down fossil fuel burning, lowering CO2, thus cooling the planet. The planet would very likely plunge into an ice age, which we seemed heading for.

On PNAS, Solomon, Plattner, Knutti and Friedlingstein disagree.
<edit>

 

[RanulfC]

AHEM! - Back to the subject at hand.

Regarding uses/utility of arcologies, could a (fixed site) arcology be used as the anchor point for a space elevator, do you think?

Only if it was an equatorial arcology, of course. I'm not sure that there'd be any particular advantage for either the elevator or the arcology, however. No forseeable space elevator is going to be able to support much in the way of traffic... perhaps the equivalent of some out of the way dusty airport, rather than a major transportation hub. So the elevator wouldn't *need* that much in the way of ground infrastructure.

Despite OBB's "assesment" of the capability of a supposed space-elevator the are in facts supposed to support a good amount of traffic and all transfer, storage, and interface with all other transportation services so yes an "acology" type "down-port" has been suggested.

(OBB can "forsee" super-smart nano-tech dis-/assemblers but not multi-track close-spaced Space Elevators? )

The "current" plan is for a sea-borne "down-port" with the SE cargo assembly and rigging section supporting multiple "ribbons" with cargo movers alternating between them. Outside this has to be the docking points for shipping, and air-transport as well as transfer warehouses and stock assembly facilities. There is going to have to be climber servicing and repair facilities as well as power generation and support services.

Power beaming systems would be located on another platform, and then you'd probably want a third for houseing the workers and/or families and supporting personnel and facilities.

The "idea" is to start by using a re-purposed or "standard" oil platform but that kind of set up would soon run into the issue that those kind of platforms are not suited to easy cargo transfer and of limited capability to support any kind of expanded operations.

Randy

 

[RanulfC]

I've dug out my copy of Paolo Soleri's book. (Soft cover, so I got it in 1973.) Looking through it brings back memories of trying to read it as a fourteen year-old. Still seems confusing to me today and I should point out that Peter Blake, who wrote the forward to the book, admits within that forward that he doesn't understand Paolo's book. One thing that seems clear to me though is that Paolo's desire was to change Mankind and lead us away from our still current trend toward megacities. He seems to have made the assumption that Mankind is ready to be led into a new social order.

As in a LOT of writings of that time period there was/is a general "assumption" that people were finally going to take a good hard look at the way they had been living for thousands of years and everyone would suddenly "realize" all the mistakes we'd made and be willing and eager to throw the majority of ways we "normally" did things for radical (and often illogical, or less than well developed) changes to just about every aspect of "modern" life.

A good amount of people DID exactly that too, and it lasted about as long as you'd expect the majority of such "experiments" would which is to say about a decade or less for the most part
In the meantime however a lot of good work was done by a lot of good people on various aspects of how people lived both in pre-modern and modern times an a lot of good information was gathered and disseminated on how people interact with each other and the environment and vice-versa.

Paolo was far from the only person to suddenly "get" that a city was a more "biological" entity than anyone had previously thought, but like most of them he "missed" the point that cities are far more oganic in nature than he or anyone else gave them credit for. Their idea was to make a complete an utter break from the past nature of cities and their organic growth and expansion and design a city as single monolithic entity starting out almost fully grown instead of randomly expanding as in the past.
Unfortunatly for them however such a move and especially such a huge up-front need for infrastructure and costs was not something that was 'doable' at the time and still isn't overall "practical" in such a large scale. Worse from their perspective of course is that the majority of Western civilization is NOT ready for or willing to make the "leap" to the "New Social Order" that was envisioned and with good reason

The major issue with Paolo and others who promoted radical and major social and living style changes at the time was that it was all based on limitations and pretty depressing and bleak outlooks for the future. And they therefore ended up overshadowing their own work in organic, open, cleaner, healthyier LIVING styles with heavy, restricting, suppressing, gloom-and-doom SOCIAL orders. Thereby ensuring that a majority of people would MISS the actual "point" of the whole exercise

(Worse yet of course the majority of people who ended up supporting and promiting their work would end up embracing one "side" of the other of the basic conflicting nature and confusing the entire message even more. And of course it doesn't help a bit that Paolo and others neither appeared to be capable or willing to expand upon and explain their work enough to actually settle the matters )

While Paolo states that the Arcologies illustrated are more thought experiments and shouldn't be taken as firm plans, these illustrations are interesting to look at for what they reveal of the level of thinking behind the idea. As with the text, there is a lot of hand waving and assumptions of technologies that still are not in place (as far as I know). We see light shafts that can extend for a hundred meters, or more, using mirrors and/or lenses to split or redirect the light. I remember something from my school days about the inverse square law and about how a small percentage of light is lost for each object it passes through. Then there is the question of wind. Some of the shafts (both for light and those for ventilation) look large enough to run two way vehicle traffic through them. Might these shafts become wind tunnels?

As Paolo found out when he started Arcosanti (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcosanti) going from "thought-experiment" to reality is a very sobering trip and not at all easy

I've only read the book once, (a long time ago at a library) and don't recall much in detail. What I know NOW though is that he had a lot of "vague" ideas about technologies and was trying to express in pictures the concpts he had in mind. The various light-and-air-shafts would have added technology today, such as fiber optics, ionic effect air circuation and other "assists" to make them more effective an less of a large scale compared to the early illustrations.
Wind tunnels? Oh ya, probably if the conditions were right I come from a place in California where the wind picks up every afternoon around 2pm. (16.96 "average" wind speed every day http://www.usa.com/soledad-ca-weather.htm) and we have a nice "drainage" tunnel built under one of the roadways into town. On a "normal" day in summer (no water in the tunnel) you can hang off the railing of the bridge and "fly" in the output!

This book presents the results of studies conducted during the mid Sixties - most of it before they learned about the problems with weather around and within the Vehicle Assembly Building. Using the simple line drawing of the Empire State Building as a guide, I see some open interior spaces that are larger than the VAB interior and I can imagine the energy requirements needed to prevent unwanted weather events from happening within those spaces.

Probably the worst "downside" of Paolo's books is they have never been properly updated, nor for that matter did he or his foundation seem all that interested in detailing anything LESS than a city sized Arcology. We know about internal "weather" now far more than we did when the "thought-studies" were done, probably enough to engineer around them. One of the reasons I pointed out the "Moon Miners Manifesto" folks is because they have been doing a lot of work over the past decades for "interior" ecology and design that are applicable to large structure interiors such as Arcologies.

Randy

 

[Orionblamblam]

(OBB can "forsee" super-smart nano-tech dis-/assemblers but not multi-track close-spaced Space Elevators? )

Each "track" adds the mass of an entire space elevator. With forseeable materials, *one* elevator is going to be massive enough. Add in the actual *dynamics* of a space elevator, where winds, gravitational tides from the sun, moon, Jupiter, etc. and other perterbations cause the elevators to bend and flex... now you have several closely-spaced elevators bending and flexing over a span of tens of thousands of kilometers. Keeping them from banging into each other would require them to be some distance apart. What is that distance? Kilometers? Tens of kilometers?

I can forsee lots of things. I can also forsee the difficulties lots of things present.

I still haven't seen a good plan for how the elevator "car" itself will actually work. How do you climb up a thread or ribbon that starts with a cross sectional area of less than 1 cm2, but which goes to several square m in section, is probably prefectly smooth and made from incredibly rigid and slick material? How do you keep passengers from going bugnuts in a small car that may take *months* to crawl from the surface to GEO?

 

[Justo Miranda]

Professional arcologists :

 

[RanulfC]

Not to dive too deeply into the "side" debate about "disaster," "climate-change," and "logic" behind a NEED for an Arcology, (because frankly I doubt anyone's actually going to listen to MY opinion since most folks have made up their minds let me just go back and quote this:

A drastic climate change is not needed for disaster. Local droughts, as experienced in Africa's Sahel zone, will cause wide-spread famine.

It can be "part-of" such as Yosemite suddenly going off and plunging the world into an extended cool period, or the sun getting suddenly a lot more active due to unforseen circumstances. (I recall a story that postulted what might happen to solar output if the solar system suddenly ran into a section of cosmic dust or a higher hydrogen count) One rather worrying possibility is the methane-hydrates under the mud on the continential shelves, (methane being so much better at being a 'greenhouse gas" than whimpy CO2 ) if you could figure out how to do it in, say a few days rather than the expected "hundreds of years" that it would normally occur. (It would be a rather explosived mixture too at that point over such a short period... Hmmmm.... )
However for the most part the idea of "sudden" world weather changes is wrapped tightly around the VERY vauge "theory" of "tipping-points" or conditions where the effects become "run-away" and accellerate rapidly.

Unfortunatly, what it is ACTUALLY meant by "Abrubt Climate Change" and how it is actually applied are two very different, distinct and things. For the most part the idea of "run-away" effects, "Abrupt" climate change, etc MEAN one thing scientifically and (again unfortunatly) are MEANT when spoken in context to the entire Climate Change "debate" as something entirly different. The former is a known and accepted form of science and the latter is extremly out of context, wrong, and out-right dishonest in its nature.

Making this "official" we'll run here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change

Probably not the "best" resource but it DOES prove out my point quite handly. First lets look at the definition:
According to the Committee on Abrupt Climate Change of the National Research Council:[1][9]
<blockquote>"There are essentially two definitions of abrupt climate change:
</blockquote>

• In terms of physics, it is a transition of the climate system into a different mode on a time scale that is faster than the responsible forcing.
• In terms of impacts, "an abrupt change is one that takes place so rapidly and unexpectedly that human or natural systems have difficulty adapting to it".

These definitions are complementary: the former gives some insight into how abrupt climate change comes about ; the latter explains why there is so much research devoted to it."
<blockquote></blockquote>More to the point I made a little above there is the "scientific" reason FOR the phenomon, followed by the "reason-to-panic" about it as a "rational" for worrying about it.

The article then goes on to explain that we have scientifically determined that there have been three "periods" of Abrubt Climate Change for sure and one "maybe" all of which took thousands of years to actualy CHANGE the climate, but in doing so caused great dislocations, die-offs and mass extictions of species.

The problem is there is a consistant attempt to tie "local/regional" climate effects and observations into a whole model for GLOBAL weather and climate. While they ARE all part of the same system and DO have some intereffects the ACTUAL interaction is far less than is claimed and the idea of "tipping points" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point_(climatology)) is in and of itself ill-defined and almost impossible to catagorize.

Furthermore, meaningful weather forecasts are limited to less than a week. Predicting the weather is difficult enough, reliably influencing it is beyond our means. I think that will elude us for quite some time.

If you "believe" this then you have a problem... You state later:

In our own solar system, we have two examples of planets that suffered runaway processes that culminated in both planets being stuck with environments hostile to life as we know it. We don't know exactly what happened to Venus and Mars. We do suspect that some 650 million years ago, Earth itself suffered another runaway process that turned our planet into a giant snowball. Sometimes a planet has a way of recovering. Sometimes it doesn't. We don't know what causes some of these runaway processes, we don't know which processes are irreversible. Until we do, global cimate control is a bridge too far.

First of all, let me point out to you and everyone else an important fact: Mars is NOT and "example" of a planet that suffered "runaway" process' as you imply. It is in fact of an example of a smaller-than-Earth planet that underwent prolonged and natural evolution combined with its distance from the Sun and inability to retain a sufficent atmosphere to allow it to retain liquid water led to the demise of its living conditions. We know pretty much EXACTLY what "happened" to Mars, what we don't know is the specific details and what we DO know is that what happened on Mars can NOT happpen to the Earth.

Second, Venus is not Earth and there is no way for Earth to become Venus. Venus shows no signs of having gone through the phase where a large majority of the Earth's Carbon was locked away into rock. We can not heat the Earth enough without a SIGNIFICANT EXTERNAL input of heat to re-release that carbon whereas Venus has been subjected to a significant heating event that is still evident today. "Global Warming" can NOT turn Earth into Venus because the MAXIMUM temperature possible with ALL the possible inputs (including burning all our "fossil" fuels, adding the total Methane from the oceans, etc) won't raise global temperatures enough to boil off the worlds oceans. (It will in fact be a little less "hot" than when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth) Which is what it would take to introduce enough water-vapor (also a "greenhouse-gas" btw) to overcome the increased albedo effect of high altitude water vapor which would decrease the solar gain of Earth.

Finally if you don't believe we can "influance" the weather/climate I welcome you to the 'club' which while admitting that "Global Warming" is happening do NOT believe that it's mankinds fault which is what most Global Warming "believes" insist upon. Mostly because if people can be "blamed" for Global Warming then those same "believers" don't have to face the possibility that Global Warming is part of the "natural" cycle and that sticking by their "convictions" would mean they have to simply shut up and accept its effect on humans and the Earth.
Having said that though I DO happen to belive humans CAN effect the global climate if we were to try hard enough. I don't see us having the political will and public support to do so however and I for SURE don't believe we should given our current lack of knowledge of how the entire global climate works because we will probably do it wrong. It wouldn't be a "sudden" disaster I"m sure, and I doubt it would lead to great and "sudden" changes as is being suggested since climate doesn't seem to work in that fashion. But given the current non-scientific bias for WHAT we should "do" without the required depth and understanding of what is happening and how global climate works in detail I'm pretty sure any major program (and anything less won't effect any real change) would inevitably be the wrong thing to do.

None of the stuff OBB proposed would "work" on global climate without the scale being "global" in size, (and cost) though it would be pretty easy to "sell" to the general public as "doing-something" at least. However cost-wise a single Arcology would inevitably be much cheaper to build. You just can't "justify" something like that by using "global-warming" or some unspecified possible "disaster" because it is a rather simple fact that those WITH the "money" and power to build an "full-size" Arcology are not going to be able to be convinced by any "realistic" odds. That's what backers have been trying since the '60s to do with everything from the "Population-Bomb" to pollution and failing every time.

Paolo's students and "believers" at least went out and tried to build something which I'll give em But trying to "scare" folks into seeing the "logic" behind a planned human habitat never works and I don't think it ever will.

Now going back to the "begining" here if something like the Ross Ice Shelf let go, some of the Greenland glaciers suddenly came apart, Yellowstone goes up, etc and there are sudden and massive movements of large segments of the population somewhere it's possible that someone would set up an Arcology for reasons of space


Randy

 

[RanulfC]

Professional arcologists :

Don't know... I'd think some of the less professional "supporters" can fall under that catagory too at times

'Course it's not JUST "arcologists" either

Randy

 

[Justo Miranda]

 

[RanulfC]

(OBB can "forsee" super-smart nano-tech dis-/assemblers but not multi-track close-spaced Space Elevators? )

Each "track" adds the mass of an entire space elevator. With forseeable materials, *one* elevator is going to be massive enough. Add in the actual *dynamics* of a space elevator, where winds, gravitational tides from the sun, moon, Jupiter, etc. and other perterbations cause the elevators to bend and flex... now you have several closely-spaced elevators bending and flexing over a span of tens of thousands of kilometers. Keeping them from banging into each other would require them to be some distance apart. What is that distance? Kilometers? Tens of kilometers?

Depending on the various dynamics involved I've seen spacing of less than a dozen meters, the flexing and harmonics aren't that bad really. One suggestion was 4 "ribbons" in a box with an ISO container sized "cargo-climber" climbing/attached to all four. Three more just like it in a "box" with expansions added in a similar manner. As long as the symmetry is maintained along the length they tend to act as a unit.

I can forsee lots of things. I can also forsee the difficulties lots of things present.

Of course Normally though its the ones nobody actually imagines or forsees that end up getting you though

I still haven't seen a good plan for how the elevator "car" itself will actually work. How do you climb up a thread or ribbon that starts with a cross sectional area of less than 1 cm2, but which goes to several square m in section, is probably prefectly smooth and made from incredibly rigid and slick material? How do you keep passengers from going bugnuts in a small car that may take *months* to crawl from the surface to GEO?

They've aready run about a dozen different types through tests. A couple of contests under the belt and a winner of the last prize IIRC. The variable cross-section didn't seem to be an issue and the material isn't perfectly smooth it can and does incorporate a textured surface. And it's not "rigid" either, that was actually the biggest challenge as it's got some flex in it that they had to overcome.

The planned major use of the SE is not going to be passengers for a good long while, cargo mass is much more important than people for a system like an SE. "Months"? Where'd you get that idea? You're assuming somehow that the maxium speed of the climber has to be less than 25mph? Why?

Once passengers become part of the system their cars won't be "small" at all. They can't be, they have to spend at least a couple of days in them and part way they go through the Van Allen belt so they are going to have to be fairly well appointed to get the job done.

Randy

 

[Orionblamblam]

One suggestion was 4 "ribbons" in a box with an ISO container sized "cargo-climber" climbing/attached to all four.

Not really sure how that helps.

They've aready run about a dozen different types through tests. A couple of contests under the belt and a winner of the last prize IIRC. The variable cross-section didn't seem to be an issue...

Did the cross sectional area increase by, say, a factor of 10,000 or so?

and the material isn't perfectly smooth it can and does incorporate a textured surface.

"Texture" winds up being dead weight on the ribbon. A *lot* of dead weight. Something like 22,000 km of "grit" can be quite a mass hit.

And it's not "rigid" either,

Actually, the cable/ribbon/whatever *would* be incredibly rigid. There is *vast* tension on it for most of its length.

You're assuming somehow that the maxium speed of the climber has to be less than 25mph? Why?

The "elevators" I've seen actually built and demonstrated move pretty slow. If you know of one that has been demonstrated to crawl up a textured diamond rod a centimeter in diameter at, say, 100 mph, I'd love to see it. 1,000 mph even better.

 

[Arjen]

I apologise in advance for dragging this back to climate.

It can be "part-of" such as Yosemite suddenly going off and plunging the world into an extended cool period, or the sun getting suddenly a lot more active due to unforseen circumstances. (I recall a story that postulted what might happen to solar output if the solar system suddenly ran into a section of cosmic dust or a higher hydrogen count) One rather worrying possibility is the methane-hydrates under the mud on the continential shelves, (methane being so much better at being a 'greenhouse gas" than whimpy CO2 ) if you could figure out how to do it in, say a few days rather than the expected "hundreds of years" that it would normally occur. (It would be a rather explosived mixture too at that point over such a short period... Hmmmm.... )
However for the most part the idea of "sudden" world weather changes is wrapped tightly around the VERY vauge "theory" of "tipping-points" or conditions where the effects become "run-away" and accellerate rapidly.

I agree that natural disasters like the ones you mention can drop us into sudden climate change.

The problem is there is a consistant attempt to tie "local/regional" climate effects and observations into a whole model for GLOBAL weather and climate. While they ARE all part of the same system and DO have some intereffects the ACTUAL interaction is far less than is claimed and the idea of "tipping points" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipping_point_(climatology)) is in and of itself ill-defined and almost impossible to catagorize.

Furthermore, meaningful weather forecasts are limited to less than a week. Predicting the weather is difficult enough, reliably influencing it is beyond our means. I think that will elude us for quite some time.

If you "believe" this then you have a problem...

I should have been more exact in that statement. Reliably influencing the weather to reach a desired weather change is beyond our means. Maybe sometime in the future we will be able to do that, but not now. Influencing the weather is within our means - just not with results to our liking.

You state later:

In our own solar system, we have two examples of planets that suffered runaway processes that culminated in both planets being stuck with environments hostile to life as we know it. We don't know exactly what happened to Venus and Mars. We do suspect that some 650 million years ago, Earth itself suffered another runaway process that turned our planet into a giant snowball. Sometimes a planet has a way of recovering. Sometimes it doesn't. We don't know what causes some of these runaway processes, we don't know which processes are irreversible. Until we do, global cimate control is a bridge too far.

First of all, let me point out to you and everyone else an important fact: Mars is NOT and "example" of a planet that suffered "runaway" process' as you imply. It is in fact of an example of a smaller-than-Earth planet that underwent prolonged and natural evolution combined with its distance from the Sun and inability to retain a sufficent atmosphere to allow it to retain liquid water led to the demise of its living conditions. We know pretty much EXACTLY what "happened" to Mars, what we don't know is the specific details and what we DO know is that what happened on Mars can NOT happpen to the Earth.

Second, Venus is not Earth and there is no way for Earth to become Venus. Venus shows no signs of having gone through the phase where a large majority of the Earth's Carbon was locked away into rock. We can not heat the Earth enough without a SIGNIFICANT EXTERNAL input of heat to re-release that carbon whereas Venus has been subjected to a significant heating event that is still evident today. "Global Warming" can NOT turn Earth into Venus because the MAXIMUM temperature possible with ALL the possible inputs (including burning all our "fossil" fuels, adding the total Methane from the oceans, etc) won't raise global temperatures enough to boil off the worlds oceans. (It will in fact be a little less "hot" than when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth) Which is what it would take to introduce enough water-vapor (also a "greenhouse-gas" btw) to overcome the increased albedo effect of high altitude water vapor which would decrease the solar gain of Earth.

I stand corrected.

Finally if you don't believe we can "influance" the weather/climate I welcome you to the 'club' which while admitting that "Global Warming" is happening do NOT believe that it's mankinds fault which is what most Global Warming "believes" insist upon. Mostly because if people can be "blamed" for Global Warming then those same "believers" don't have to face the possibility that Global Warming is part of the "natural" cycle and that sticking by their "convictions" would mean they have to simply shut up and accept its effect on humans and the Earth.

I do believe we can influence the climate. I think we are doing so right now, causing the Earth to be slightly hotter. It's an uncontrolled 'experiment' I would like to see the end of, because I think, even at an admittedly limited chance of disaster/runaway-something, it feels far too much like a sorceror's apprentice affair than I'm comfortable with. Plus, my country looks likely to suffer floods that would cover 80% of its cities if we don't start raising our dikes big time.

What set me off, was the 'fantasy' dig. I think there are far too many indications of humanity influencing climate.

 

[Orionblamblam]

It can be "part-of" such as Yosemite suddenly going off and plunging the world into an extended cool period,

A: If you wait for Yellowstone to go foom before building your arcology, it's too late... you'll be too busy fighting the road mutants and the rats for that last scrap of food to be building stuff.
B: If you build the arcology *before* Yellowstoen goes foom, you'd better hope you didn't build it under the ash cloud. The mass of the ash suddenly dumped ont he gleaming glass structure will squash said arcology like a bug.

None of the stuff OBB proposed would "work" on global climate without the scale being "global" in size, (and cost)

Take the sulfur compound idea. Mt. Pinatubo gives us a baseline... about 15 million tons of SO2 were injected more or less at one shot. This dropped the planetary temperature by about 1 degree for about one year. OK, so to pull that off artificially, let's say 10 million tons per year of SO2 would need to be hauled up by aircraft (I'm handwaving the numbers here... I don't know how long the SO2 would stay at altitude) on an annual basis. That would be about 27,000 tons per day. According to THIS, there are about 93,000 scheduled commercial airline flights per day. That would mean each airliner would have to carry and distribute about 330 *kilograms* of SO2 per day. This could no doubt be done by adding sulfur to the jet fuel. That might trash the engines; perhaps better would be to injet the sulfur compound inthe engine exhaust. Another approach would be to bolt pods to the jetliners and finally, at long last, actually spray out "chemtrails."

Adding pods to every jetliner in the world would be problematic. But it would be easier to add larger pods to the larger jetliners; a 747 or A380 would probably harly notice if it had to carry a 300 kg pod and 2,000 kg of SO2 on each flight. Transatlantic and transpacific flights would be the most rational uses... nice high altitudes for long stretches of time on the largest of aircraft.

though it would be pretty easy to "sell" to the general public as "doing-something" at least. However cost-wise a single Arcology would inevitably be much cheaper to build.

A half-built arcology is an expensive waste. Half the jetliners needed to fly pods of SO2 actually flying SO2 actually gets you halfway to your goal. If you need a million sq. km of ocean covered in white plastic to achieve your temperature reduction goals but you only have 500,000 sq km, you're still making progress.

Additionally: the third world can't do doodly squat as far as arcologies. But factories *can* be set up in the Dirt World to produce, say, biodegradable white plastic. Employ the unemployed to just stamp out sheets of this stuff. Employ fishermen to haul it out to the middle of nowehere, dump it off, then fish their way home.


Make the plastic out of soybeans or something. Something that the ocean ecosystem will enjoy munching on. Hell, make 'em white on top, covered in iron rust on the bottom to spur plankton.

 

[Orionblamblam]

I do believe we can influence the climate. I think we are doing so right now, causing the Earth to be slightly hotter. It's an uncontrolled 'experiment' I would like to see the end of...

My question for everyone who thinks that the Earth is being screwed up by global warming: If the Earth is gettign hotter (and the data supports that) and things are getting worse, that means that things were *better* in the past when the plant was cooler. So: presumably, there was some year in the past when the Earth was Just Awesome. What year was that? What temperature was that?

Plus, my country looks likely to suffer floods that would cover 80% of its cities if we don't start raising our dikes big time.

If your cities need dikes *now,* doesn't that mean they're built below sea level? As with New Orleans... you don't need global warming to see that building your cities below sea level might not be the best long-term strategy.

What set me off, was the 'fantasy' dig. I think there are far too many indications of humanity influencing climate.

But there are *no* indications of humanity causing the planet to go completely chaotic, especially via geoengining efforts. *THAT* is the fantasy.

 

[martinbayer]

But trying to "scare" folks into seeing the "logic" behind a planned human habitat never works and I don't think it ever will.

Not to pick an argument here, but what about gated communities?

Martin

 

[RanulfC]

But trying to "scare" folks into seeing the "logic" behind a planned human habitat never works and I don't think it ever will.

Not to pick an argument here, but what about gated communities?

Not picking anything except maybe teaching me to watch my "absoloutes" more carefully

Though to be honest my experiance with a number of gated communities is less a reasoning of "fear" but more of a desire not to interact with people in general.

Randy

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

But trying to "scare" folks into seeing the "logic" behind a planned human habitat never works and I don't think it ever will.

Not to pick an argument here, but what about gated communities?

Not picking anything except maybe teaching me to watch my "absoloutes" more carefully

Though to be honest my experiance with a number of gated communities is less a reasoning of "fear" but more of a desire not to interact with people in general.

Randy

Super Freakonomics pointed out that gated communities were more susceptible to crime because:

A. anything with a gate has something valuable, well worth stealing

B. It doesn't take long for the gates to be penetrated by outsiders, like pizza delivery, UPS, grounds keepers etc. so its only secret and secure for a month or so

C. False sense of security. Its really only a barrier to the horrors of the outside world in the minds of those who pay to live in one.

/lives in a gated community, knows it doesn't stop crap.

 

[TaiidanTomcat]

8) No Pets! That's got to be one of the worst "suggestions" for an Acrology there ever was! People as a general rule LIKE to be around animals and there is no practical reason why they could not be accomodated easily and safetly into an Arcology.

OK, I accept that point. Not having any pets of my own, and being conscious of the way dogs crap all over the place in my town (despite laws against it) and that cats slaughter a significant percentage of the wild life every year, I'm not exactly pet-friendly. However, there would be no reason why small cage pets could not be kept, or at the other end of the scale horses (stables could be provided on the ground floor so horsey folk could walk down to them in a few minutes and ride straight out into the countryside - probably a damn sight more quickly and easily than they can at present, unless they live on a farm). I'm still not sure of the practicalities of keeping dogs and cats, though - I understand it is not unusual for them to be banned from apartment blocks, which is a comparable situation. If they were allowed (as some would be anyway - guide dogs for the blind, for instance) they'd have to be thoroughly house-trained and regulated (as guide dogs are).

I agree with the other points you make. The fact is, every type of place and way of living has its pros and cons, and so far we've been hearing a lot of about the potential cons of an arcology (generally exaggerated). Just consider the following for a moment:

Most people in the First World live in urban areas. These often consist of sprawling residential areas without much else within walking distance (including any countryside). So if you want to get anywhere, you generally have to get the car out. You are likely to live several miles from where you work, and on average spend several hours a week sitting in your car, commuting. You also need to use the car to visit shops, restaurants, cinemas, to take the kids to school or to get to any recreational activities. If you don't want to use a car you either have to take public transport (assuming that there is any) or ride a bike (and risk getting crushed by vehicles) or, if you do live close enough to your destination to walk, you're liable to face the constant proximity of noisy and smelly traffic, the hazards of crossing roads, and the delights (depending on location and season) of rain, ice and snow, very hot weather or darkness.

In contrast, consider a well-designed arcology like my Torus. The living accommodation will all have windows to the tall and wide circulation space which has fresh air pumped through it at a comfortable temperature. You don't have to worry about the weather, you just wear whatever you wish and stroll for a few minutes, without any traffic around, to get to a coffee bar in a large, open square with a window wall to the outside. A few more minutes stroll and you're at your workplace or school. Afterwards, there will be a choice of bars, restaurants, cinemas and other recreational activities, all a few minutes walk away. Or you can just as quickly get to the outside of the building and into the recreational park. Or if the weather's bad, go to the huge central park under a transparent roof.

To me, a well-run arcology like that sounds a damn sight more attractive than living in car-dominated suburbia.

So its a mall that you live in?

Having read through this thread OrionBlamBlam is spot on. At a glimpse an arcology is nothing more than a highly dense city. An entire city crammed into a single building. I've live in the country and the city, Ive lived in big towns and small. To me an arcology seems like the cramped everyone knows everyone of a small town with none of the perks and all the fascism of a big city.

And modern cities are becoming more fascist. Chicago has completely banned guns they just don't have the police force to enforce it, London is packed with CCTV cameras and ("everything is policed except crime" as the joke goes), New York is regulating soda size. The problem with cities is that because they are more tightly packed with people living closer together the social effects are more steep. Fire depts don't exist in big cities to protect your house from fire, they exist to prevent other places from catching on fire after your place has burned up. If I light my barn or farm house on fire no one gives a damn. If I light a fire in my apartment lots of people give a damn. speaking of fire I can do crazy things like smoke a cigar outside a doorway. I think the future of any arcology is a constant state of 50 percent of the population, regulating, taxing, and policing the other half "for the greater good" Its taking all these stupid laws that cities have been unable to enforce but have had no problem policing, and easing the ability to actually enforce it. Fascism is already happening in urban areas all in the name of "public safety" and "public good" an arcology just makes all the fascist dreams come true.

Colorado is about to pass a new gun law and Sheriffs (those people who enforce laws in the places outside cities) have already said they won't enforce it because its unenforceable. this never occured to the people in the cities passing the law. an arcology won't have that problem of course.

Fascist is a strong word. so you call it what you like. Less free. or liberty for security whatever helps you sleep at night, but people in cities have more laws and rules than those that live outside them.

The other part of the equation is with "city folk" Meat doesn't come from animals, it comes from the supermarket. fire from a stove, vegetables come from the super market as well, electricity is from a switch, not from a mine or a plant. but all those things come from the country. Farms produce vegetables, cows and chickens come from the farm as well and coal mines and nuke plants and other things that produce power all come from "the outside" where people that still know how to make candles, and reload ammo, and bow hunt, and survive in the woods, navigate by the stars. these places are also far from cities because livestock farms literally smell like crap. Crops need noisy machines and chemicals, nuke plants and coal mines are dangerous. All these things are from from cities because people in cities can't stand them and their smelly danger.

And that small population of "country yocals" could stop producing those things and be just fine while the city would be eating each other within a week.

So you can talk all day about how people are migrating to cities, (more accurately many are living in the burbs and working in the cities) but the bottom line is, if gas price jumped to 10 dollars a gallon, and all the 18 wheelers pulled over and waited for the price to drop, Cities would be out of food within a day. If you don't believe me go check out a supermarket after a hurricane shopping spree. within about 2 weeks the city is out of food and the crime, black market, violence and riots spreads to the whole thing.

Citys live on the country. You kill that outside line, you kill the city. OBB is completely right about Chicago's relationship with the rest of Illinois. Illinois would be fine without chi town. Chi town wouldn't last a week without Illinois. They have nothing to hunt but each other (rats and pigeons i guess too), no space for veggies or crops. no supplies. I say this as a city dweller now, but its hilarious to me when people in big cities like new york act so tough while their mayor is telling them they aren't smart enough to take care of themselves, thus their soda size needs to be regulated. And they are so tough that no one is allowed to have guns, that they are so tough that they need a police force of 46,000 to "protect them." that they are so tough they can produce food for themselves so long as someone else produces it and someone else delivers it to them and someone else sells it to them.

chicago's finest

 

[Orionblamblam]

A lot of the acological planned communities sure sound a whole lot like malls with apartments tacked on. I've seen malls with apartments tacked on. Ick.