Name: Should we live UNDERGROUND? (Geography Now!)
Uploaded: 2020-03-30T02:40:54.000Z
Duration: 5 min 32 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

once again, which means I'm working on the next country episodes,

which means, we got to talk about some hypotheticals.

So after our last topical video about urbanizing the arctic, it really kind of got me thinking:

What are some other ways we could change the way we live on this planet?

In D.J. MacHale's 'Pendragon' book series, there's a story about a boy who was to

save the universe by traveling to ten different 'territories'.

These territories are different worlds found in the supposed universe

in different sections of the space-time continuum.

Three of these 'territories' are actually Earth but they take place in three different time eras:

and the other one is in the 51st century.

What I remember finding most fascinating about the book was

MacHale's description of Earth in the 51st century, or 'Third Earth' as it's referred to in the book:

In this story, over time, Earth suffered from an overpopulation problem

and thus they decided to colonize other planets and moons throughout the solar system.

For the people that decided to remain on Earth,

About half of them reside above ground in small cubic houses

and the other half reside underground in massive subterranean complexes,

complete with living units, shops, parks, schools and so on.

And it kind of got me thinking: Would it be wise to live underground, and if so,

what are the potential benefits and precautions that would follow from pursuing such a-

First of all, subterranean living is nothing new to us.

Already, people have been creating living spaces underground for millennia.

You can find places like the ancient Berber abodes of Matmata in Tunisia where Star Wars was filmed

all the way to the recent Coober Pedy town in Australia which has almost 2,000 full-time residents.

Otherwise, the Path Network in Toronto, Canada has the world's largest underground shopping complex.

Nonetheless, there really hasn't been any place on Earth that has implemented a

subterranean structure format for a mass urban populace of people of millions.

Could it be possible, and if so what would it take to build such a massive behemoth of ingenuity?

Well first of all, what are the advantages of subterranean living?

Well for one, you have resistance to severe weather,

natural insulating properties from the ground that create a nearly constant interior temperature,

-I mean, if your city is getting bombed, it's safest to be underground

and radar satellites can't really track you that easily.

unless you have a well-established pump and ventilation system,

underground units could be easily subject to flooding or even suffocation

if passageways get blocked off or tunnel collapse and trapping.

Then of course, you might want to avoid building near a fault line to avoid earthquakes

and volcanic activity, which would just destroy everything in a matter of seconds.

That means if we were to construct entire underground cities,

we would have to work out a system in which every living and commercial unit

had access to clean air and water, a problem many surface dwellers might not struggle with.

We would also have to design an insane labyrinth of passageways and escape routes

Plus, you know digging can be kind of expensive,

I mean, subways aren't cheap to begin with:

On the plus side, electric wiring would probably be a lot easier to accommodate:

You could just thread the electric wiring through dug-out tunnels rather than investing in

all the tons of material required to make electric poles and towers.

However, a small problem we might have to overcome would be wifi and cell reception:

you need to have big, open, unobstructed spaces and satellites

the further down you go, the more difficult it gets.

Many large cities like New York and Seoul, South Korea have figured out a way

to relay the signal via a system of cords called the 'leaky coax' service,

in which cables run through the tunnels and literally leak the signal from above-ground antennae

If there's enough room, underground antennae can be installed too,

however, It's a little difficult with limited space for broadcast.

there's really not much that would get in the way of daily life, other than maybe missing the sunny day,

but, I mean, if you live in a region that's pretty much overcast the majority of the year

then it wouldn't be much of a loss to begin with.

It might even be wise for farmers in big, open crop lands to live underground

so as to avoid tornado season and reduce property damage.

Already, most homes in the Midwest of the USA have basements or tornado cellars

that they go into in the event of a twister.

If you live underground, a tornado could literally pass over your ceiling

and you could calmly sit back and sip your coffee while reading the newspaper.

What would we do with all the excess dirt and gravel that we dug up after completing these massive cities?

Well, there's a lot of things you can do with it-

-after construction, most sites like to see if the gravel and dirt is clean and uncontaminated.

If it is, they typically sell it to other contractors

Things like filling up landfills or abandoned quarries,

The last one, I believe, could be a very important use:

What if countries across the world could donate their excess earth and gravel to Pacific island nations

that are currently struggling to maintain their coastlines due to rising sea levels?

Currently, Tuvalu and Kiribati (Kiribas) are trying really hard to plant mangroves to reclaim whatever

However, what if we just gave them a lot of soil and gravel

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Should we live UNDERGROUND? (Geography Now!)

literally

entire

massive

pursue