Pneumatic Street Covers

Planning for the Refugee Crisis

By John Taylor; 2009 July 10, Rahmat 16, 166 BE

Precis: Global warming changes everything, including the requirements of buildings and travel. The ominous prospect of an influx of billions of refugees is already putting tremendous pressure on planners. In the meantime, the weather is getting more severe. Architecture and city planning must adopt designs that can protect us from severe weather by covering We can solve many chronic infrastructure problems at once with improved property laws, more high density housing, renewable energy, local agriculture and less wasteful transport.

We all know by now that rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gases are melting the polar icecaps. This will raise sea levels around the world by several metres. Coastal regions are heavily populated, and some of the world's largest cities are ocean trading ports. As they are flooded out there will be dislocation of Biblical proportions. Possibly as many as a billion people will become homeless, penniless refugees. At the same time, global warming is already shifting the monsoons and causing desertification inland. This will erase croplands and permanently reduce our already strained food supply. The result will be soaring food prices and possibly mass famine. At the same time, a massive influx of refugees is likely to degrade natural regions even more, further reducing the population that the land can sustain.

Under the best of circumstances, it would be daunting to provide food, clothing and shelter for huge crowds at short notice. If, as is likely, an influx of flood victims happens concurrently with crop failures and mass starvation, violent confrontations will break out. Military, intelligence and other security professionals are well aware of this looming disaster and are already training for it. The destabilizing effects of global warming are already evident in the most populous affected regions, such as Pakistan, India and North Africa. Even regions that are tranquil and prosperous now are likely to collapse into war, famine and pestilence.

Even with careful planning and preparation, basic infrastructure in inland areas will be strained. The rich will flee early, leaving the poorest refugees to languish in huge refugee camps where hygiene will fall below minimum standards. Nor are the political consequences any more encouraging.

Even wealthy, stable, democratic and freedom-loving nations, forced at short notice to house a large percentage of their population in crowded tent cities, will have no choice but to apply harsh laws and Procrustean emergency measures. Arbitrary measures are notoriously habit forming. An already threatened elite may suspend elections and resort to some kind of authoritarian regime. Even if freedom, democracy and human rights do somehow survive outside the refugee cities, it will be only nominal if, as in Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, millions of citizens are permanently segregated behind barbed wire in concentration camps.

For many years, I have been thinking about radical changes to infrastructure that can turn a rapidly approaching disaster into an opportunity. I have combined some far-out proposals for better building and travel made during past centuries by visionaries like Jules Verne, Buckminster Fuller and John Amos Comenius. Some of them clashed with ruling ideologies, and others were deemed too grandiose and expensive, or without sufficient advantages over existing, traditional ways.

However, global warming is already changing the ground rules for everything, whether we want to or not. So now is a good time to reconsider these proposals.

Domed Cities

In the 1960's Buckminster Fuller proposed that large areas of New York be covered over by his new invention, the geodesic dome. Aside from the savings in heating, roofing and other cost savings gained by complete protection from rain, cold and wind, he suggested that a domed-over city would be immune to nuclear fallout. Now that we are finding out that climate change means in large part climate de-stabilization, we are aware of the need for better protection from the elements. The increased severity of storms, tsunamis and heat waves is making planners appreciate the advantages of covering over large urban areas.

As recently as this spring researchers at the University of Toronto announced that, according to their calculations it is possible to build an elevator to near space on a mountain-top using the same pneumatic techniques that are used to make those bouncy children's play structures to be found at carnivals, fairs and festivals. A platform at the top of this airy tower would give observers a panorama almost as impressive as what astronauts see from the International Space Station. The researchers have patented their idea, which could possibly be made into an elevator to space without the need to invent new, exotic materials required by older elevator designs.

This announcement set me thinking. If it is possible to build an extremely tall tower out of glorified plastic balloons, why not make temporary pneumatic structures to cover over street corners and intersections in city blocks? If it is too expensive to build a permanent geodesic dome, why not cover parks and public spaces over with pneumatic structures? If there is an influx of climate refugees, why subject them to the elements while they wait for a home and job inland?