We have made incursions into territories not meant for us – this century will make that clear, says futurist and psychic medium, Belinda Silbert.
She believes adapting to the environment, and not trying to adapt the environment to us, plus a mix of tech and sustainable energy, will be vital. In her predictions on what alternative living conditions could look like given the climate change trajectory, Silbert says while we are looking at terraforming on other planets, we will also begin to look at doing this on Earth.
Silbert talks of synthetic islands, genetically modified trees that can grow fast and floating homes. Underground cities are also on her list of possible future scenarios. “Coober Pedy in Australia is a great example of an underground city,” says Silbert.
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“When you approach it, it looks like a Martian landscape, but people are living there in dugouts deep in the earth. The architecture has been explained as Fred Flintstone-style but it works well for extreme temperatures.
“There, in the middle of nowhere and completely off the grid, using wind and solar power and technology, the residents have made a life. It is not a Luddite set-up at all – they have all the tech they need, including highspeed internet via satellite.”
Old methods of building will come into the spotlight as we go back to basics and see things through new eyes, tweaking them for a new world. In Africa, mud huts, for example, have worked for many centuries, and “we should not ignore methods such as these that have been used effectively before”.
It will become clear that “we cannot build in places where we are not supposed to be – millions of people will be displaced by rising sea levels, earthquakes and other disasters”. To mitigate this, Silbert predicts an increase in the building of synthetic islands such as in Dubai – not for luxury living but out of necessity.
“Plastic waste can be used to form these islands and new forests can be planted – not natural but terraforming ones… We do not need to go to new planets to do this, we can do it right here in areas not at risk of rising sea levels and other natural disasters.
“Genetically modified seeds can be used to plant tropical forests where trees grow 100 times more rapidly than the ones we have. These trees won’t necessarily be fruit bearing but will be used to help restore the climate.”
Silbert foresees floating cities being built on ships. “While once the domain of the rich, it will become more prevalent with ships having superior tech so they can be adapted to submarine mode.
“Cruise liners can be adapted as permanent living spaces and huge cruise liners could become independent cities of their own.” We are likely to continue to see visionary architects teaming up with urban planners to come up with living solutions to cope with climate change.
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