(ORDO NEWS) — Today, many overcrowded cities face major expansion challenges.
They can no longer build up or out, so they build down. Some countries are investing in underground living quarters, but only for a short time, where people will go, for example, to sleep after a full day of work.
But what if civilization is completely destroyed on the surface due to global warming or a terrible catastrophe? Could humanity live permanently underground?
Would we become technologically advanced and live like the vault dwellers in the Fallout video game series (without all those dubious experiments), or would we regress as a species and turn into gnarled, goblin-like creatures like Wells’ Falmer or Morlocks.
To answer this question, we need to understand a lot, so let’s dig deeper and see if our civilization can completely go underground.
Essential resources (and where to find them)
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking about the possibility of going underground is where we will take water, energy and food. And while these things are necessary for us to survive, they will not be enough if we really live “underground” (we see you, Australia).
For starters, it would be a good idea to plan and stock up on everything you need, have a skilled maintenance team and uninterrupted mechanisms to solve all psychological problems… for a start.
Energy sources
Suppose a catastrophic event forces us to take shelter underground. In this case, it’s safe to say that all the energy sources we relied on while living on the surface are gone (and the people who controlled them are also probably gone, sorry Fantastic).
Installing solar panels may not be possible. Depending on surface conditions after a disaster, we probably won’t be able to go to the surface to service them, and there’s always a chance they won’t get the sun.
For now, the best option would be to dig down instead of up and try to take energy from the Earth itself. We could take advantage of geothermal energy, which is provided by the heat of the core of our planet, extracted from hot water and rocks.
Water
Speaking of water, there is no way we can leave our bunkers and fetch water after the cataclysm. If the surface were hospitable enough, we could install a rainwater collector, but that wouldn’t be enough for everyone (and who knows what’s in the water?).
Fortunately, underground we can find naturally occurring aquifers containing groundwater. This is an excellent source of water, provided we can purify it before drinking it and locate the source before it floods us.
Food
Stocking up on canned food and other non-perishable foods is a great idea, but it won’t last long. If we could take farm animals underground with us, that might work, but we would need to somehow support them so that they support us. But we can’t leave the vegetarians!
Hydroponic gardens are now widely used and can be a valuable source of leafy greens, vegetables, herbs and fruits underground. This agricultural concept will allow us to conserve space and water while providing nutrient-dense food that has the potential to feed us all.
Wastewater
No one ever wants to broach this stinking topic, but we will have to find a way to successfully manage our sewers and wastewater. If we simply allow them to accumulate somewhere around us, this will not lead to anything good, as we will quickly get sick.
Depending on the crops we grow, we could use the waste as fertilizer, but we need adequate ventilation for this.
If we manage to build a house on a mountain or somewhere above sea level, we can try to find a source of water from which waste will drain into the ocean (we won’t worry about the environment after a total disaster).
Mental problems
If we managed to survive underground for a long time, we would have to face a serious strain on our brains. To exist and to “live” are two very different things.
Let’s take a look at some of the psychological and physical problems humanity would face underground and how we might try to deal with them.
Overcoming fears
For many people, the thought of being underground can be terrifying. Not seeing the sun, not being able to breathe fresh air, not being able to get out in the event of a fire or flood, and even the thought that everything will collapse are some of the anxiety-inducing thoughts that go through people’s minds.
Gunnar D. Jenssen, a researcher from SINTEF (Norway), who studies the psychology of underground spaces and space design, found that about 3% of people suffer from claustrophobia. However, there are some ways to overcome their fears.
“If you give these people something that puts them in tangible control of the situation, they will come to terms with the fact that they are in it. That’s the key,” Jenssen told the BBC. He added that clean air and space are very important in such situations. Or at least the perception of space created by the illusion.”
Jenssen has worked on 4 of the longest tunnels in the world, creating the illusion of space by adding well-lit oases with palm trees and illusions of the sky along the route. “You have a feeling of breathing, a feeling that you are outside, despite being 1,000 meters underground, passing through a mountain,” he said.
Lack of sun light
The sun is our greatest source of vitamin D, and without it, we quickly become more depressed and irritable. But our “sunshine” doesn’t have to come from the sun.
As long as we have a stable source of energy, we can use LED bulbs, which provide safe UV light to produce the vitamin D we need. Our crops can benefit from these light sources too! And if that doesn’t work, we can fix the problem by taking supplements or eating fortified foods.
There are also some mental problems associated with a lack of sunlight, such as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), where people feel more depressed as the days get shorter and there is less sunlight during the day.
Fortunately, there are already products on the market that can help manage SAD, such as therapeutic lamps that provide artificial sunlight.
Underground life in the present
Many important components of our daily lives are “buried” underground, such as electrical and information networks, water and sewer pipes, basements, tunnels and subway systems. However, in some places you can already meet people who really live underground.
Coober Pedy, a small town north of Adelaide in South Australia, is practically inhospitable. The temperature here can reach 50ºC, but this has not alienated the residents. This brought them down.
About a century ago, the miners who lived there realized that the air was much cooler underground, so they decided to carve their underground houses out of the rock and have been living there ever since.
Singapore, one of the world’s most populous countries, is considering building an underground science city (USC).
This underground scientific community (40 caves with laboratories and data centers) will be created at a depth of about 80 meters below the surface of Kent Ridge Park and can potentially accommodate more than 4,000 researchers.
Not all existing underground living conditions are so exciting and promising. In Beijing, China, the lack of affordable housing is forcing people to go underground and live in a mixture of bomb shelters and conventional basements converted into small (and illegal) dorm rooms.
So can humanity live underground?
Some of us already live underground, albeit not permanently. Growing cities see underground housing as the only way to solve the problem of overpopulation, while in other places people need to be underground to shelter from harmful environmental conditions.
Annette Kim, director of the USC Spatial Analysis Lab, spent a year studying underground living conditions in China. She believes that underground life may be in store for many of the world’s major cities in the future.
“If we continue to rapidly urbanize and people want to come to the big cities, we will have to [live underground], yes,” Kim told the BBC.
In the event of a complete planetary catastrophe, things will be very different, because there may be a possibility that we will never be able to leave. Such a scenario will require from us new sources of energy, food, water and all life. Depending on how much time we had to plan, a lot depends on luck.
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