THE COMMANDING HEIGHTS
As these technologies develop we are likely to witness the construction of semi- or ‘even wholly submerged “aquavil-lages” and floating factories. The combination of zero real estate costs (at least at present) plus cheap energy produced onthe spot from ocean sources (wind, thermal currents, or tides) canmake this kind of construction competitive with that on land.
The technical journal Marine Policy concludes that “Ocean floating platform technology appears to be inexpensive enough and simple enough to be within the reach of most nations of the world, as well as numerous companies and private groups. At present, it seems likely that the first floating cities will be built by crowded industrial societies for the purpose of offshore housing… Multinational corporations maysee them as mobile terminals for trade activities, or as factory ships. Food companies may build floating cities to carry out mariculture operations. Corporations seeking tax havens and adventurersseeking new lifestyles may build floating cities and declare them to be new states. Floating cities may achieve formal diplomatic recognition … or become a vehicle for ethnic minorities to achieve theirindependence.”
Technological progress associated with the construction of thousands of offshore oil rigs, some anchored to the bottom but many positioned dynamically with propellers, ballast, and buoyancy controls, are developing very rapidly and laying the basis for the floating city and enormous new supporting industries.
Overall, the commercial reasons for moving into the sea are multiplying so swiftly that, according to economist D. M. Leipziger, many large corporations today, “like homesteaders in the Old West, are queuing up waiting for the starter’s pistol to stake out large areas of the ocean floor.” This also explains why the non-industrial countries are fighting to guarantee that-the resources of the oceans become the common heritage of the human race rather than of the rich nations alone.
If we see these various developments not as independent of one another but as interlinked and self-reinforcing, each technological or scientific advance accelerating others, it becomes clear that we are no longer dealing with the same level of technology on which the Second Wave was based. We are on the way to a radically new energy system and a radically new technological system’.
But even these examples are small in comparison with the techno-quake now rumbling in our molecular biology laboratories. Biological industry will form the fourth cluster of industries in tomorrow’s economy, and may have the heaviest impact of all.*
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