Polar bears and artificial islands
To my amazement, I discovered that one of the most popular blog posts on the WWF website was titled "Polar bears and artificial islands." This particular post has been running for over 4 years now and as ridiculous as it sounds, people have actually come up with some pretty ingenuous solutions!
One individual, going by the name of tessahenry, has had the idea of creating a entire fleet of artificial icebergs. This person envisioned that this fleet would be
" Designed by a team of artists, engineers, and animal behaviorists, these
beautifully sculpted bergs are durable, self-sustaining ecosystems,
designed to meet the needs of a variety of species above and below the
water. Each berg contains solar/wind-powered positioning motors, a
360-degree webcam, and a weather station. The bergs vary in size, and
contain features such as landing beaches, fishing holes, shelters, and
play areas to provide enriching environments. The high-quality video
feed can be used to study these animals’ behavior, while the weather
station provides valuable climate data.
In the winter, the motors will bring the bergs far enough south to avoid being crushed in pack ice, and the webcams will provide stunning views of the polar night sky.
Along with the launch of the first berg, there will be an accompanying website for people to watch the animals interact. The revenue stream generated by donations and advertising will be used to build additional bergs. In the winter, people can watch the stars and the aurora borealis, as well as highlights from the summer months."
Another individual by the name of Leslie Smyth suggested that
"The artificial floes should be numerous and have sea-anchors which do
not require tethering to the sea bed and do allow for natural drift -
much like natural ice floe. Small locator transmitters would let
monitors know when the floes have drifted out of ideal position or into
shipping lanes and need to be relocated. The incorporation of certain
materials into the design of the floe pieces would allow for natural
light filtration to give the appearance of real ice even from below, and
could possibly reduce the warming of surrounding natural ice.
The idea of webcams is cool, but hardly necessary or realistic on every
piece. However one could easily imagine a sponsorship program where
ordinary people could sponsor the cost of one "berg" each whose location
they could track, or corporations entire chains."
These ideas may seem...well..a little too fantastical to be true. But, how can one dare say that something is impossible with the Richard Branson's and the Elon Musk's of the world are launching spaceships? What crazy things can you think of that exist today that were probably fairly ridiculous? I am not fully convinced that floating islands would be the right solution. In times of desperation, one is willing to consider anything. Would you help sponsor a floating berg or floe?
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