The Life Haven Project is simple enough; it is to create a small community sufficiently distant from a major world war that the people living there would survive. The Life Haven Project is the human survival part of The Earth Ark Project, which is aimed at a more complete restoration of our current ecology. A small community of genetically diverse humans could repopulate the Earth after a total Apocalypse if they were able to sustain themselves for, say, ten years. They would need to have reliable stored food, water and protection from a very hostile environment.
The ship above is in good operating order, but a ship about to be scrapped would be much cheaper, and since it is intended to be taken out of service it wouldn’t compete with the seller’s or the scrapper’s business.
The ship used by the 1970s TV show “Love Boat” sailed its final trip to Turkey, where it was turned into scrap. It would have been an iconic boat to have been set permanently into Adams Island, south of New Zealand.
Adams Island is very remote from any probable conflict, and a ship in this natural harbor would be away from ocean waves, even tsunami waves. Ideally it would be raised above the ocean level into a dry dock, and the hull totally tarred over to reduce rusting so the ship would last for a very long time. It is so remote from anywhere that only someone really prepared would endure the difficulty of going there.
Here is a list of other potential Life Haven locations.
Why would you station a ship in a place nearly impossible to get to? if you like that spot, probably Tierra del Fuego would work as well. The community formed (if any) would be unlikely to be diverse or very well educated, but probably familiar with local conditions.
What makes more sense to me are repositories of books, printing presses, simple machines and workshops where survival technologies (wood gas?) can be taught and learned. Plus an agricultural base of course.
We lived through an era of utopian experiments that failed. That doesn’t mean intentional communities are impossible, just that some human behaviors don’t change easily.
A need for meaning and productivity in life is pretty universal. Kids today fill their time with blather and ADHD since our culture has been replaced with gadgets. We may be the last generation that notices what is gone. And we may well ask if human life without it is possible?
Claudia
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There are several Life Haven and Earth Ark sites proposed, each with the long term goal of humanities survival. Each site has advantages and disadvantages, but the one at Adams Island, with using a retired cruise ship is quick, easy to do, and doable for under a million dollars. The style proposed above by Laudyms would be easily done, but would be easily swamped during a major disaster, and the Adams Island site is remote enough, yet temperate enough for easy living before the to be routinely habitable. South Island of New Zealand is a natural life haven, but even it would be more survivable if a site were stocked with appropriate materials.
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