About 450km south-west of London a man-made paradise blooms near the Cornish coast. Called the Eden Project, it is a futuristic microcosm of the world as humans once knew it.
The Eden Project is a collection of giant steel and plastic domes that house more than 250 000 plants from around the world. Clusters of these geodesic domes make up two main biomes housing plants that grow in different climates.
The climate inside the larger biome, measuring 240m by 110m and soaring to a height of 55m, simulates the humid tropics. The domes contain thousands of tropical plants and trees and an artificial waterfall, fuelled by collected rainwater and ground water, that squirts vapour into the atmosphere. It is a simulated tropical jungle.
The smaller biome harbours Mediterranean climate vegetation and is noticeably cooler. A third biome that will feature desert vegetation is expected to be completed by 2005.
These giant greenhouses are not just educational and recreational attractions, they provide a storehouse for the world’s plant life. The project is the brainchild of maverick Anglo-Dutch businessman Tim Smit and has already cost more than £88-million.
People love the Eden Project. Judging by the surge of visitors since it opened its doors to the public in March 2001, this is the world as they would like to see it.
“In the first full year we had 1,97-million visitors,” operations manager George Elworthy told Reuters. “The biggest problem we have had has been coping with the numbers. Our planning catered for 7 000 people a day at the peak, but our average daily throughput has been about that, and the peak has been double.”
Most of the visitors have been British, but Eden has become better known in other parts of the world after it featured in the latest James Bond movie with Pierce Brosnan and Halle Berry. Appropriately, given the symbolism of Eden, the title of the movie was Die Another Day.
In the early 1990s British satirist Ben Elton published a seminal book about the death of the planet, entitled This Other Eden. He writes about how, faced with imminent eco-death at the beginning of the third millennium (now), the rich and famous start buying geodesic domes called claustropheres.
Claustropheres are self-contained Eden Project-like bubbles that protect people from the death of the planet by providing them with ultra-violet screens, pollution-free air and water systems. Eco-death is good business for some people — like the marketing mogul called Plastic Tolstoy who sells claustropheres — and bad news for the people who can’t afford to buy claustropheres.
Elton’s book is a novel, but its reflections on the state of our world are right on the mark. The plot revolves around an all-too-familiar oil spill in the ocean, and we are on track towards the kind of eco-death he predicts as we head towards 2014.
We already have the Eden Project as a model of what claustropheres of the future could be like. We will need to really start worrying, Elton writes, when leaders and governments start investing in these domes — it will be a sign that they have given up trying to save the planet, just as when they set up nuclear-proof bunkers during the Cold War.
In a broad sense, we already live in a world where we create convenient Eden-type spheres for people to live in and leave eco-degradation in our wake. The mass of humanity lives in cities and suburban bubbles, which suck up resources like water from the outlying areas. Many cities in the developed world are busy transplanting their heavy industries to the developing world.
The biggest eco-challenge the world faces at the turn of the third millennium is the disruption of weather systems caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Temperatures are predicted to rise between 1,4°C and 5,8°C this century.
“The fact that 2003 is on track to be one of the warmest years on record should be a warning that we must all take seriously,” said Joke Waller-Hunter, executive secretary of the United Nations Climate Change Convention at a global meeting in early December. The United States is still refusing to sign the Kyoto protocol on reducing man-made climatic changes and Russia is threatening to pull out of any agreements.
Everyone, bar a few sceptics and the US right wing, agrees the collapse of the Kyoto process will be an eco-disaster — not because Kyoto has done much to address the problem of global warming, but because it provided a vital first step for future efforts.
In South Africa the rise in temperatures will lead to an increase in water-borne diseases and malaria will spread. Other diseases and pests, such as rats and mice, will increase. Plant kingdoms will suffer and increased evaporation will lead to a decline in maize production.
Scientists warn that water scarcity and food insecurity are on the increase across sub-Saharan Africa. The challenge is to find innovative ways of producing more food by using less water.
A meeting convened by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) in Nairobi in November painted a bleak picture of the next 20 years. Analysts predicted that by 2025 household water consumption in sub-Saharan Africa will experience the highest proportional increase in the world, but the number of people without access to clean water will more than double to about 400-million.
“The region will face a 23% shortfall in crop yields due to insufficient water supply, and cereal imports will have to more than triple to keep pace with demand. Many poorer African countries will be unable to finance the required imports, leading to rising levels of hunger and malnutrition,” the CGIAR said in a statement.
As water consumption for household and industrial use rises, competition between the water needs of agriculture and the environment is set to increase. Already 40% of the world’s wetlands have been lost in the past 50 years.
Faced with such bleak statistics, what are people supposed to do? Start saving up for a claustrophere, a place in Eden?
Those who can afford it will be drinking from water purifiers powered by windmill generators and solar panels by 2020. They will drive hydrogen-powered cars and their household carbon dioxide emissions will be monitored and taxed by smart cards.
This is the 2020 vision of what life will be like in the more technologically advanced societies, as envisaged by the United Kingdom Environment Agency scientists. The sanctity of wealth will provide lifestyles that are different, but in some ways more convenient.
For example, city slickers will still be able to eat fish at their favourite restaurants — but it will come from fish farms, because over-fishing has caused eco-death in the world’s oceans. The World Wide Fund for Nature recently warned that consumers are busy eating the last of many species left in the seas.
Those who can afford the rising costs of air or road travel will still be able to see the remnants of the charismatic mega-species preserved in zoo-like bubbles called game reserves. Nature in other environs will be virtually non-existent — the IUCN-World Conservation Union announced in November that more than 12 000 species of plants and animals are now threatened with extinction.
Food will be more expensive, but you will be able to programme a “smart fridge” to order replenishments. Domestic assistance will be easier to come by and cheaper because millions of people across the world will be on the move and looking for jobs as a result of droughts and floods.
Large parts of Africa will become uninhabitable because of climate change and the sea will encroach on many low-lying coastal areas, causing a refugee crisis.
If you live on the fringes in the developing world, life in 2014 and beyond looks set to become harder. If you can afford life in a techno-bubble, you will avoid most of the eco-doom.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. It’s enough to make you go out and get yourself a claustrophere.