Will floating farms grow as world warms?

A dairy farm floating in the harbor of Rotterdam, Netherlands, is the first of its kind in the world. Since 2019, cows in the demonstration project have been producing milk for use in a low-lying country facing the rising waters of climate change. Other flood-prone nations, like Bangladesh and India in South Asia, are experimenting with raising food on huge rafts. One scholar suggested it may be better to invest in floating housing in flood-prone areas.

Class discussion: Can we engineer our way around some impacts of climate change? Are floating farms, floating homes, or even floating cities a wise way to deal with rising sea levels and worsening storms? Much of the world’s population lives in coastal cities. Could many of those urban areas become unlivable in the future? Will many cities end up abandoned as populations are forced inland? How have past climate events been tied to the loss of ancient cities?