Harvey Newstrom wrote:
> > There is no need to put dykes around Florida, for if we hold
> > the sea level we could intentionally warm the planet, melt some of the
> > Northern ice and make for more productive land.
>
> You don't expect Florida voters to agree to that, do you?
Sure. They are among those who have the most to gain. I am suggesting
we learn first how to take up excess water in order to hold the sea level
where it is currently, indefinitely. Step 1 will be to buy up land around
the great inlands seas, such as the Caspian and Black, and divert water
into them, demonstrating that we *can* lower the sea level on demand.
Then we start the warming, reclaiming much of the north countries.
If we put our minds to it, we could find many good ways to store
fresh water on what is currently wetlands or unused dry land. We may
need to move some earth. We can do that. We can use the water as
a massive heat sink to moderate climates.
Part of this vision is to stop the waste resulting from letting rivers dump into
the sea. Consider the salmon situation. Looks to me like we could
build an artificial river of sorts, where we dump hatchery smolts into
the sea with a limited amount of water out of a pipe perhaps 4 meters
in diameter with a flow rate of perhaps 50-200 cubic meters per second
flowing into Puget Sound in place of the current Columbia River Waste
Site. The Salmon go to sea, eat stuff, get big, then when they come
back, you catch em all, every last one of em. Any that get upstream
are just wasted food. Extract some roe, start the whole cycle again.
The wealth created in fish biomass alone would stagger the imagination.
Then all that stored water can be piped all over the place, and vaaaast
stretches of land can be reclaimed. One really needs to look down, next
time you fly over it.
Mike Lorrey suggested a problem with inadequate soils for trees. We can
deal with this problem too, by establishing species that are water intensive
but not necessarily soil intensive, such as rain forest trees, which deal with
low soil quantities.
> I also don't
> think most Floridians would want to leave the country to move back north.
Im not suggesting that they do, however in my vision, the north country
from whence most Floridians came would eventually get a climate
resembling the Sunshine State.
> Besides, we have developed lands and infrastructure. You are trading
> expensive, devolped, popular land for undeveloped, remote wilderness.
No trade necessary. This whole scheme hinges upon our ability to
control water sufficiently to hold the sea level at its current level. Note
that even this is "unnatural" for sea levels were rising before humans
did anything to affect them.
> Of, course I am trying to retire down in
> Florida. ("It's always about Florida, isn't it Harv?")
Ive nothing against Florida. I have many fond memories from there.
Its not just Florida. There is a lot of valuable land close to the sea.
We can stop the sea rise and keep those places. We can make a
bunch of new fresh water inland seas, creating a bunch of new
valuable waterfront property where now is wasteland, with nothing
but a bunch of weeds and unemployed wild animals on it that dont
pay taxes.
> I guess I agree with you in theory. But I'm not quite ready to say that we
> can throw away safety and precautions now on the assumption that we'll
> figure out how to fix it later.
So fix it first. Demonstrate we can lower sea levels now. Then get
serious about warming the planet. One of the things we will need
is more people. Come on, you extropians, get breeding. The greens
claim we broke this planet by accident. If so, then we can fix it on
purpose, and fix it better than it ever was.
spike
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Fri Oct 12 2001 - 14:39:57 MDT