Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Great Vision

There are a few things I'd do if I were an uber-rich gazillionaire that I'd love to go out and tinker with. One of them would be an attempt to build an artificial ecosystem. I can hear the Greenies screaming even now! The problem is if things get loose. That means that either build it somewhere very inhostpitable here on earth or in space. While the idea of doing it on the moon or Mars definitely has its appeal, the costs go, well, nuts.

There's only one place that it'd work here on Earth and still have enough space for a very large ecosystem. You guessed it: it'd have to be Antarctica! Y'know, this has promise as a novel premise.

Imagine a gazillionaire with vision. Real vision. Even vision that lasts past even the lifetime of humanity as a species. A vision that wants to paint on the geological time frames. This individual's vision is for when humanity is finally kaputt and Antarctica has moved off the South Pole, thus, warming up. This rich and nutty person has decided that he or she wants to place the seed for the ecology to come. How to make it happen?

You would have to build structures and energy sources that culd provide heat, light and safety (in essence a friendly environment) for ten million plus years. That would be the minimum time frame before Antarctica could move off its current polar position. Most likely it'd need to continue to provide a haven even after the initial ten million years. The haven would have to be huge: thousands of square kilometers! It'd have to be up above at least 30 meters above sea level just to be sure that it'd not end up being submerged.

There'd be a lot more.

Wow.

I'll have to ponder this one.


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