Technotranscendence wrote:
>
> 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.
The only thing separating the Rift Valley from being flooded is about
100 meters
of rock on the shore of the Red Sea. I could fix that situation with a
couple dozen pounds of C4.
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