Saturday, December 13, 2008

Floating designs for climate refugees

Stumbled upon a site for a green architect, trying to design buildings that clean the atmosphere rather than polluting it, and saw this fascinating design for a floating city for climate refugees. If the predicted global rise in sea levels takes place, some places (Maldives for example) will disappear. If they still "own" the territory, then this may be a workable solution, who knows?

I heard Rachel Brett from the Quaker United Nations Office talk about the new discussions which are taking place about climate refugees and how this will differ from refugees displaced by war or famine. It hadn't ocurred to me that there might be a difference until she pointed out that the choices for someone whose homeland has literally disappeared (or become completely inhospitable to human life) would be somewhat different from those driven out of their homes for some other reason.