Gemenne said there was more at stake than cultural and sentimental attachments to swamped countries. Tuvalu makes millions of pounds each year from the sale of its assigned internet suffix .tv to television companies. As a nation state, the Polynesian island also has a vote on the international stage through the UN.

“As independent nations they receive certain rights and privileges that they will not want to lose. Instead they could become like ghost states,” he said. “This is a pressing issue for small island states, but in the case of physical disappearance there is a void in international law.”

Hacking post-industrial cities is becoming a necessity also. The ‘shrinking cities’ project is monitoring the trend in the west toward dwindling futures for cities such as Detroit and Liverpool:

“..In particular, climate change, dwindling fossil sources of energy, demographic aging, and rationalization in the service industry will lead to new forms of urban shrinking and a marked increase in the number of shrinking cities.”

For instance, one of the best strategies for reducing U.S. emissions is growing bright green, compact cities. These cities reduce emissions in all sorts of ways, e.g., by reducing the distance people drive, making infrastructure more efficient, making it possible to live wealthier lives in smaller spaces, and helping people to substitute services for products. But cities offer other economic benefits. Just as one example, people who live in walkable neighborhoods are healthier and safer than most Americans are today, meaning that this emissions reduction strategy also returns enormous economic benefits in health, longevity and emotional well-being. These sorts of benefits are almost never brought in to the economics debate about climate change. That doesn’t make the money they save us and earn us any less bankable.