It must have been difficult challenge to come up with creating design plans to save the day when sea levels will rise and drown vulnerable nations because of global warming. International Urban Sea Level Rise Ideas competition for Sydney Harbour had many interesting entries and winners but the co-winner idea – The Embassy of Drowned Nations Concept Plan hits at the right painful nerve.
The basic concept plan is to build a sunken city off Sydney Harbour which will be blend of Atlantis and Eden something like Ellis Island. Such islands will be refuge for displaced population of drowned nations who will then later integrate into harbour nation as refugees and migrants with no roots. It is very sad but true that the reality is not very far when citizens from Maldives and Venice will need transitional homes because we cannot reverse climate change, sea levels will rise with global warming and angry sea will engulf land.
It is very futuristic and real concept indeed because there will be need of Embassy of Drowned Nations too in few decades. The silver lining is, these ideas give hope that for every drowning home there will be a savior.
It is very disturbing that dark competitions are being held to create awareness but darker question is, does collective humanity (which is enjoying state of amnesia and bliss) really care about the planet and future of vulnerable countries? Can we stop the deluge?
Via Gizmodo
While the Earth has always endured natural climate change variability, we are now facing the possibility of irreversible climate change in the near future. The increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth?s atmosphere from industrial processes has enhanced the natural greenhouse effect. This in turn has accentuated the greenhouse ?trap? effect, causing greenhouse gases to form a blanket around the Earth, inhibiting the sun?s heat from leaving the outer atmosphere. This increase of greenhouse gases is causing an additional warming of the Earth?s surface and atmosphere. A direct consequence of this is sea-level rise expansion, which is primarily due to the thermal expansion of oceans (water expands when heated), inducing the melting of ice sheets as global surface temperature increases.
Forecasts for climate change by the 2,000 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project a rise in the global average surface temperature by 1.4 to 5.8°C from 1990 to 2100. This will result in a global mean sea level rise by an average of 5 mm per year over the next 100 years. Consequently, human-induced climate change will have ?deleterious effects? on ecosystems, socio-economic systems and human welfare.At the moment, especially high risks associated with the rise of the oceans are having a particular impact on the two archipelagic states of Western Polynesia: Tuvalu and Kiribati. According to UN forecasts, they may be completely inundated by the rising waters of the Pacific by 2050.According to the vast majority of scientific investigations, warming waters and the melting of polar and high-elevation ice worldwide will steadily raise sea levels. This will likely drive people off islands first by spoiling the fresh groundwater, which will kill most land plants and leave no potable water for humans and their livestock. Low-lying island states like Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives are the most prominent nations threatened in this way.“The biggest challenge is to preserve their nationality without a territory,” said Bogumil Terminski from Geneva. The best solution is continue to recognize deterritorialized states as a normal states in public international law. The case of Kiribati and other small island states is a particularly clear call to action for more secure countries to respond to the situations facing these ‘most vulnerable nations’, as climate change increasingly impacts upon their lives