I can see a new grand purpose to this plan. To protect the mediterranean coast from the RAISING sea caused by global warming. Rather than each town and country trying to protect itself.
As we are finding out, power is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, and North Africa is a great source of sun power. So the need to generate power is reduced. This would eliminate many of the objections to the plan.
I really hope you're being sarcastic. Building dams are environmentally devastating. Dams created a multi-billion dollar fertilizer industry in Egypt where none existed before adding them to the Nile. They blocks sediment on rivers, inhibits salmon from returning to their spawning grounds (even with the help of fish ladders).
Any type of geoengineering at this type of scale would have some very large unintended blowback.
As others have pointed out the Mediterranean Sea loses water and needs an inflow to compensate. In the case of a dam at Gibraltar it should be easy to let some water in. I wonder if we are able to build such a gigantic dam even if we wanted to.
We probably need another one at Suez. According to Google Maps the elevation of the channel is always less than 100 m, which is the worst case figure for sea rise if all the ice of the world melts. Water would come in from the Red Sea.
Btw, not all terrains are suitable for building dams.
Having spent much of my youth waking up and staring across the Straits every day, I question your use of 'only' in this thought.
They may 'only' be 12 or so miles across, but the amount of concrete and fill that would be needed to dam the straits would dwarf anything even the Chinese could manage up with for another couple of hundred years, I imagine.
This idea looks a lot more plausible on paper than it would in person.
>The Utopian goal was to solve all the major problems of European civilisation by the creation of a new continent, "Atlantropa", consisting of Europe and Africa and to be inhabited by Europeans
The interesting thing to note is that the plan "reached great popularity".
In other words, when Europe has problems, when it needs lebensraum, it's a great idea to migrate to another continent and even change its landscape to accommodate our people. But, when Africans migrate to Europe, that's not so popular.
I wonder what the population of Africa was in 1920-1950, specifically North Africa, the area that was intended to be affected by this.
I also wonder if the cultural divide between Europe and North Africa was less pronounced when most/all of those areas were under some level of European control.
From what I can tell, the project would result in the majority of Greek islands sort of "fusing" together in one big landmass- and a good few of them becoming part of mainland Turky.
As a Greek woman, I am very certain that my fellow Greeks would be very excited about this project.
This reminds me of Peter Thiel's point that the engineering proposals of the past were more frequently ambitious (and also taken more seriously) than they are today.
That's just what I was thinking. I was reminded that when watching a commercial for a company that solved the earth shattering problem of getting contact lenses. So many companies doing such trivial (well maybe not trivial but not hugely consequential) things. We've experienced a communications revolution but we are missing some of the cool things we thought we'd see back in the 50s. I think that's why Musk and company are so beloved. We are dying for someone to do something big!
We can't get any major engineering projects done in the West anymore because any idea will be held up indefinitely by the need to deliver thousands of pages of environmental assessments, archaeological reports, traffic impact reports, fish habitat studies, soil and erosion studies, pollution and economic impact reports. Plus the hundreds of permits required, mandatory consulting with native tribes, town hall meetings and public comment periods. And then you'll be sued by everyone, so you can't so much as pick up a shovel until each of the lawsuits and appeals have run their course...
Meanwhile, if China wants a city in that spot right there, they go and build a city right there.
You are missing the forest for the trees. You've described <i>how</i> such a project would be held up, not <i>why</i>. As a society, we here in the United States (and very broadly speaking, The West) have made the decision that such mega projects are seldom, if ever, worth doing.
You may agree or not (I'm conflicted myself), but at least see clearly. The situation isn't going to change unless society's mind changes.
Neat to think about, but a bit arrogant regarding our abilities. Each of those dams would have been a single point of failure, the failure of which would have meant utter devastation of a scale probably not seen... ever.
In Star Trek TNG, when Picard is resting on Earth after having been abducted and assimilated by the Borg, he is offered the opportunity to lead this project in the 24th century.
He doesn’t take the job (sorry if this information spoils TNG seasons 4-7 for you).
I find this fascinating, even if it does seem unrealistic.
Even if this were achievable, I'm curious to know what the environmental impacts of displacing such a massive body of water would be to aquatic life in the mediterranean.
It does seem like something that could have become more realistic after the EU got off the ground had there still have been someone to push for the idea.
For aquatic life of mediterranean this will mean an end since salinity of the see would keep growing.
More realistic approach is restoring lakes of Sahara [1] by combination of desalination plants, solar towers, and huge solar battery installation to cool down the region and get more rain.
It is going to require rather large investment, but it would pay off, by providing place for projected 4 billion Africans to live, and providing a way to slow down the rise of the sea level.
Isn't a big part of that area below sea level? So for a start you'd just need to dig a channel to the Mediterranean or Nile and wait. No extra energy required at that step--you could even harness some from the flow.
It would completely destroy the whole ecosystem. Building a dam would drastically limit the amount of sediment travelling out into the sea to a tiny fraction of its normal flow, thus eliminating a large portion of aquatic life.
yup, nuking migratory species like thon or whales and also the fisheries that feed millions of european and african people, (would be changed for big chunks of land soaked in marine salt and unable for agricultural purposes). Fully exposing Europe to african viruses and diseases dangerous for cattle...
If their goal is to exponentially increase famine in the world until the boiling point of an endless war, looks like a good plan.
They wanted to basically create more heartland at the cost of coasts.
Problem being, in XXI century nobody wants the heartland. Nobody wants "land" to settle on anymore. Land is a liability where farmers who demand subsidies and channel them to Monsanto live. Everybody want coast to settle near. So it's not so much geoengineering as geoterrorism.
It's not about people wanting to live near the coast. Living on the coast with a view commands a significant premium, but as a luxury, not because it's productive.
Land simply isn't the constraining factor for economic growth any more. Not because people do or don't want to live on it, but because we don't need (very much of) it for farming. These days, the economic centres are cities -- coastal or otherwise, although often coastal, but for redundant historical reasons.
wow - biased much ?
personally, having lived near the coast and now living in an inland desert - I can say I vastly prefer the desert.
'everybody' indeed...
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As we are finding out, power is getting cheaper and cheaper all the time, and North Africa is a great source of sun power. So the need to generate power is reduced. This would eliminate many of the objections to the plan.
Any type of geoengineering at this type of scale would have some very large unintended blowback.
What you say about all of those side effects are true. But what are the effects of not doing anything?
We probably need another one at Suez. According to Google Maps the elevation of the channel is always less than 100 m, which is the worst case figure for sea rise if all the ice of the world melts. Water would come in from the Red Sea.
Btw, not all terrains are suitable for building dams.
They may 'only' be 12 or so miles across, but the amount of concrete and fill that would be needed to dam the straits would dwarf anything even the Chinese could manage up with for another couple of hundred years, I imagine.
This idea looks a lot more plausible on paper than it would in person.
I think I can spot a flaw in the plan
In other words, when Europe has problems, when it needs lebensraum, it's a great idea to migrate to another continent and even change its landscape to accommodate our people. But, when Africans migrate to Europe, that's not so popular.
I also wonder if the cultural divide between Europe and North Africa was less pronounced when most/all of those areas were under some level of European control.
As a Greek woman, I am very certain that my fellow Greeks would be very excited about this project.
... though, perhaps not in a good way?
We have history in that neck of the woods. Too much of it, if you ask me.
Meanwhile, if China wants a city in that spot right there, they go and build a city right there.
And also with regards to the democratic nature of our decision making?
Isn't that a good thing? Don't we want to consult with local people before starting a huge project that'll impact their lives?
You may agree or not (I'm conflicted myself), but at least see clearly. The situation isn't going to change unless society's mind changes.
Well, actually:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zanclean_flood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam#1975_Banqiao_Dam_F...
He doesn’t take the job (sorry if this information spoils TNG seasons 4-7 for you).
Even if this were achievable, I'm curious to know what the environmental impacts of displacing such a massive body of water would be to aquatic life in the mediterranean.
It does seem like something that could have become more realistic after the EU got off the ground had there still have been someone to push for the idea.
More realistic approach is restoring lakes of Sahara [1] by combination of desalination plants, solar towers, and huge solar battery installation to cool down the region and get more rain.
It is going to require rather large investment, but it would pay off, by providing place for projected 4 billion Africans to live, and providing a way to slow down the rise of the sea level.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chad_Basin#/media/File:Megatsc...
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahara_Sea and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qattara_Depression
If their goal is to exponentially increase famine in the world until the boiling point of an endless war, looks like a good plan.
Problem being, in XXI century nobody wants the heartland. Nobody wants "land" to settle on anymore. Land is a liability where farmers who demand subsidies and channel them to Monsanto live. Everybody want coast to settle near. So it's not so much geoengineering as geoterrorism.
Land simply isn't the constraining factor for economic growth any more. Not because people do or don't want to live on it, but because we don't need (very much of) it for farming. These days, the economic centres are cities -- coastal or otherwise, although often coastal, but for redundant historical reasons.