On Saturday, March 25, 2000 12:40 PM Robert J. Bradbury bradbury@aeiveos.com
wrote:
> As documented by Willy Ley in "Engineer's Dreams" (1954), originally
> conceived by Herman Sorgel (in 1935), it is possible to dam the
> Congo river and make much more of Africa habitable. The dam
> would produce a large "Congo Lake" in central Africa, then
> eventually overflow and create a "Chad Sea" where the Sahara
> is now located. If the polticial obstacles to this could
> be overcome, you could support many, many more people in Africa
> than live there today.
>
> He also documents, that you could dam the Strait of Gibralter,
> allow some of the Mediterannean to evaporate and expand the coastlines
> of all of the countries around that region.
Recall too the idea talked about here a while back about flooding the Rift
Valley in East Africa. That would be a cheap way to create an inland sea.
In itself, this would not only be a source of food resources, it would also
help with transportation and change the climate in that region, which is
mostly arid.
However, I don't think you even need all the effort. Current methods are
probably enough to achieve the modest goals of feeding 10 billion people.
It would require, IMHO, no more technology than we now have and no fancy big
budget macroengineering projects like damming the Congo or flooding the Rift
Valley.
Daniel Ust
http://mars.superlink.net/neptune/
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