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The only brute force solution to reducing sea level rise that might be reasonable is to pump sea water into a dammed desert basin, e.g. Sahara or Australia. Th

The only brute force solution to reducing sea level rise that might be reasonable is to pump sea water into a dammed desert basin, e.g. Sahara or Australia. The mass of water you would have to displace to handle what's melting off Greenland and Antarctica on top of thermal expansion of the oceans due to hotter water[0] would make this the biggest mega project humanity has ever attempted, by several orders of magnitude. From a purely economic and technical perspective, it probably makes drastically more sense to just gradually abandon parts of our coastal cities as they submerge and retreat inland. [0] - https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/global-sea-level/thermal-expansion https://sealevel.nasa.gov/understanding-sea-level/global-sea...

BurningFrog 4y ago
Building a canal from that makes the Qattara Depression in Egypt a part of the Mediterranean would lower ocean levels by 4cm. Seems worth doing just to bring life to the desert.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  > Seems worth doing just to bring life to the desert. Possibly. But you also have to consider the knock on effects of making such a drastic change to Earth's ecosystem. Life to the desert could lead to death to the rainforest... https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants/ https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-... Neil Stephenson's Termination Shock is a great narrative about how any kind of active attempt to address climate change chaos could lead to near hopeless geopolitical complexities.
  - BurningFrog 4y ago
    You can always make a "you never know" argument, and you'll always be right. I'm really tired of the "let's not do anything, just to be safe" attitude. Systemic inaction has a huge cost of its own.
    - anonporridge 4y ago
      When did I say we shouldn't do anything? You should read Termination Shock. It makes a great case for why doing things is hard, but also worth it. Sometimes it just takes someone with sufficient power and courage to do what's right and accept the hatred and violence that will inevitably come their way for disrupting the establishment order. But sadly, most modern people are too weak to stick their necks out like this.
      - BurningFrog 4y ago
        You didn't say that, to be fair. I think it's a serious problem of this era, and your post sounded like those arguments to me.
    - Ebree 4y ago
      Let's do nothing is more reasonable comparing to do something now not minding consequences. This overreaction "2019 syndrome" brought grave results to humanity. If sea rise is result of warming, flooding deserts is opposite to role of deserts which reflect heat back to space through vapour-free sky. Logically there is more sense in deserting bigger part of world to increase this process what global depopulation promoters would also love. But problem with global solutions is they are assuming totalitarian centralised global Earth management which is undemocratic, political & tends to promote particular big corporate interests not common good. It replaces scientific discourse & convincing through arguments, building organic non-obligatory consensus with censoring free speech & access to raw data, political pressure, coercing tactics building unhealthy psychosis in people, through emotions killing reason and objective truth. That's not the world & humanity we want to save. I don't understand why we don't paint all roofs white yet. It's something anybody can do to help reflect heat if he believes warming is a problem (not historically low oxygen level in atmosphere earth's life breaths with or possibility of freezing people & soils to death..).

BurningFrog 4y ago

Building a canal from that makes the Qattara Depression in Egypt a part of the Mediterranean would lower ocean levels by 4cm. Seems worth doing just to bring life to the desert.

anonporridge 4y ago
> Seems worth doing just to bring life to the desert. Possibly. But you also have to consider the knock on effects of making such a drastic change to Earth's ecosystem. Life to the desert could lead to death to the rainforest... https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-how-much-saharan-dust-feeds-amazon-s-plants/ https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/nasa-satellite-reveals-... Neil Stephenson's Termination Shock is a great narrative about how any kind of active attempt to address climate change chaos could lead to near hopeless geopolitical complexities.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  You can always make a "you never know" argument, and you'll always be right. I'm really tired of the "let's not do anything, just to be safe" attitude. Systemic inaction has a huge cost of its own.
  - anonporridge 4y ago
    When did I say we shouldn't do anything? You should read Termination Shock. It makes a great case for why doing things is hard, but also worth it. Sometimes it just takes someone with sufficient power and courage to do what's right and accept the hatred and violence that will inevitably come their way for disrupting the establishment order. But sadly, most modern people are too weak to stick their necks out like this.
    - BurningFrog 4y ago
      You didn't say that, to be fair. I think it's a serious problem of this era, and your post sounded like those arguments to me.
  - Ebree 4y ago
    Let's do nothing is more reasonable comparing to do something now not minding consequences. This overreaction "2019 syndrome" brought grave results to humanity. If sea rise is result of warming, flooding deserts is opposite to role of deserts which reflect heat back to space through vapour-free sky. Logically there is more sense in deserting bigger part of world to increase this process what global depopulation promoters would also love. But problem with global solutions is they are assuming totalitarian centralised global Earth management which is undemocratic, political & tends to promote particular big corporate interests not common good. It replaces scientific discourse & convincing through arguments, building organic non-obligatory consensus with censoring free speech & access to raw data, political pressure, coercing tactics building unhealthy psychosis in people, through emotions killing reason and objective truth. That's not the world & humanity we want to save. I don't understand why we don't paint all roofs white yet. It's something anybody can do to help reflect heat if he believes warming is a problem (not historically low oxygen level in atmosphere earth's life breaths with or possibility of freezing people & soils to death..).