Fishing For Answers

We are headed for massively tough times. Billions will die as a result of how the climate crisis will change the entire planet. Today I learned that the colonization of Mars and even the Moon is something that takes far more time than we have. And it is not the utopian answer some science fictionists tend to offer. We have to master living in fishbowls, contained environments, and terrarium-type reverse aquariums.

I am brainstorming my own survivalist fiction now thinking not about life in space, but about life in reverse aquariums… underwater at the bottom of the oceans.

Of course, to do this, we have a number of problems to overcome… yesterday. The oceans are turning to acid which is generally inhospitable to life… and to the things we would have to build underwater to survive. We don’t want those things to dissolve. So a massive effort at deacidification needs to be already underway. As large areas of land will be covered with water, there will need to be industrial-sized efforts to desalinate ocean water to create fresh water to sustain not only us but also all the non-salt-water breathing things we take with us under the waves. And living in fishbowls under the sea will take a concerted effort to compensate for the pressures experienced underneath tons and tons of water.

The technology already exists to build underwater domed cities, safe from surface weather. And it may soon be the only safe place to build. The problem is that we are way behind in building such habitats.

And we would have to adapt undersea farming, raising food fish, edible seaweed, and surface plants in bubble farms at the bottom of the ocean growing vegetables under artificial sun sources. Underwater tramsportation would need to be inserted; tube trains, submersibles, pressurized undersea suits, and amphibious vehicles that can transition from underwater travel to surface sailing and even land roving.

Our society would undergo significant changes as culture and behavior have to become sea centered.

So, there you have it. Sufficient notes to begin contemplating the science fiction stories of nautical life in the great undersea of a climate-disaster future.