Friday, 30 March 2012

FLOATING HOMES - NOAH'S ARK 2012

USING POLYETHYLENE PIPES AS RAFTS, ENTIRE CITIES
CAN BE DESIGNED TO FLOAT ON RISING SEA-LEVELS
Have you started to build an Ark, yet? New Scientist magazine 31 March 2012, reports that "...Arctic sea ice may already have passed a tipping point" ( newscientist.com/news ). We sailed the legendary North-West Passage last year but thought the ice would repair itself in the winter. It did not; and it continues to melt away. But, this is sea ice which already floats - so melting it does not raise the sea-level. But the sea ice holds back the mountains of land ice on Greenland, some 3km thick or high. That is a lot of water and the land ice is on its way down the mountains. Best advice is to move to higher ground - or build floating cities like the Dutch. The south-pole land ice in Antarctica is 5km high across 2,000 x 2,000 kilometers. Which is a hell of a lot more water, on the move.

The good news is we may not last long enough to have to migrate away from the coastal margins. New Scientist also tells us that the killer flu virus that is variously called Bird Flu, Swine Flu, and Spanish or Trench Flu from the 1914-18 World War One, is still dodging the best efforts of virologists to understand and confine it. The experts have identified that people with a faulty version of a protein, IFITM3, are more likely to die from the 2009 version of flu.

Move to higher ground to avoid the floods and wear a gas mask to stop the viruses. How high? And when? my e-book OUT OF THE DEPTHS gives you chapter and verse in the factoid summaries above each chapter, as well as showing how people might survive in London and New York.

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