Isn't it about time to start digging?

[pscot]

If global temps are going to go up 6 or 8 degrees centigrade with methane firestorms raging across the surface, wouldn't it be prudent to be deep underground? Sort of a back to the caves movement. It's obvious we're not going to do anything to prevent it happening and it may already be too late anyway.

[patrice]

1. There are some beautiful underground home designs around & at least Earth-bermed makes

much sense.

Grow food on your roof!

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. Re: Grow food on your roof!

If the climate is so disturbed that we need to move underground, food may not grow very well on our “roofs.”

[GliderGuider]

3. Where we will live isn't as much of an issue

as where we will grow our food. There is land close to both poles that will be shirt-sleeve habitable - enough to let a critical mass of humans continue living above ground. Food production is likely to become a "Liebig Limit" for the human race, though.

[NoOneMan]

4. Speaking of where you grow your food...

I was discussing the implications of warming last night and our favourite E&E optimist pointed out that we could just move agriculture northward, while not taking into account the soil quality, harsher winters and less viable growing area in Canada would make this transition less than plausible. But another thought occurred to me: the indirect land use change would carry an insane carbon impact. Humans converting that amount of forest acreage into farmland would have incredible emissions by destroying carbon sequestration in the soil and the forests.

It would be a massive man-made feedback loop from the warming. Have you seen this modelled anywhere?

That aside, I find it interesting how some cornucopiasts Americans are comfortable with the idea of importing vasts amount of food from another country that practices different levels of subsidization and uses different laws. Food is more expensive in Canada; significantly so. Just in terms of dairy (due to quotas) milk is $4 a gallon and a block of cheese can be over $10 dollars. If the Loonie keeps climbing as Canada becomes America/China's one stop shop for everything, the price of food can very well sky-rocket for Americans.

[GliderGuider]

5. No, I haven't seen it modeled yet.

A lot of the land that such people casually envision growing food on is currently permafrost. I suspect that in the process of becoming arable (?) it's going to emit enough carbon to make the whole thing moot.

Canadian food is more expensive, Canadian fucking everything is more expensive. I "rescued" my partner from Los Angeles and brought her back up here to Ottawa. She absolutely freaked from the sticker shock. Living here is 50% to 75% more expensive. And no Trader Joe's...

[NoOneMan]

7. Trader Joe's wont come because of 2 Buck-Chuck

That's what we've been told at least. They make a lot of money with alcohol sales and its too much red-tape coming up north (at least in BC).

Even beer is more expensive--sometimes twice as much (congratulations, I've quit drinking).

Canadian housing...don't get me started.

The only pull the US still has on me relates only to my pocketbook. I don't have money to buy the land I need to live the way I want, and the crown hoards most of it (probably better that way as long as they aren't leasing it out for devastation)

[pscot]

6. Most of Canada outside the prairies

is covered by le Bouclier Canadien, or Laurentien shield. The last glaciation scraped the area clean, right down to bedrock. It can get as warm as Texas and you still aren't going to grow much on it.