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Pretty often. The article's title is a bit misleading to it's own detriment; "terraforming" brings to mind images of using massive furnaces to burn mass to rele

Pretty often. The article's title is a bit misleading to it's own detriment; "terraforming" brings to mind images of using massive furnaces to burn mass to release CO2 on a barren planet. What the author of this article is proposing is pretty routine relative to human societal needs, which is shifting the flow of bodies of water to get water to Nevada. I'm not a geology expert so I don't know the viability of this proposal, but it seems the author is proposing to bring flow back to rivers that have dried up at some point in the past. I took enough geology in college to understand that humans have been shifting riverflows since at least the Ancient Egyptians (with the Nile river), and Los Angeles' vitality is a product of artificial waterflow shift (the movie Chinatown touches on this at least tangentially). If I'm not mistaken, even Hoover Dam diverts a significant amount of water that once flowed elsewhere, though many environmentalists would tell you today that dams are horribly harmful to local ecosystems. My guess is that with climate change causing significant changes to multiple regions via weather and climate, causing massive upheavals for large swaths of populations, it might be in America's interest to consider where it could create new population centers again by shifting waterflow.

kibwen 2y ago
> relative to human societal needs, which is shifting the flow of bodies of water to get water to Nevada This is not a societal need. If you want access to fresh water, do not choose to live in a desert.
dghlsakjg 2y ago
The immediate counterargument is that we already tried pumping water into a desert basin so we know perfectly well what will happen. You end up with the Salton Sea. A notoriously toxic and unpleasant body of water. Irrigating water across a small area is one thing, what this article proposes is a whole other thing. Lakes that have no outflow, like the Salton Sea, and the Great Salt Lake, end up being collectors for pollutants.They also aren't exactly major attractants for population. Most of the great salt lake shoreline is uninhabited, and most of the development on the East side hugs the mountains rather than the lake. Both lakes have pretty serious issues regarding pollution that will need to be solved. I'm not sure why we would ever want to make another one of those. There are plenty of places in North America that have plenty of room and resources for people. Coastal sections of the Pacific Northwest are pretty empty still despite ideal climate, water, arable land, etc...

kibwen 2y ago

> relative to human societal needs, which is shifting the flow of bodies of water to get water to Nevada This is not a societal need. If you want access to fresh water, do not choose to live in a desert.

dghlsakjg 2y ago

The immediate counterargument is that we already tried pumping water into a desert basin so we know perfectly well what will happen. You end up with the Salton Sea. A notoriously toxic and unpleasant body of water. Irrigating water across a small area is one thing, what this article proposes is a whole other thing. Lakes that have no outflow, like the Salton Sea, and the Great Salt Lake, end up being collectors for pollutants.They also aren't exactly major attractants for population. Most of the great salt lake shoreline is uninhabited, and most of the development on the East side hugs the mountains rather than the lake. Both lakes have pretty serious issues regarding pollution that will need to be solved. I'm not sure why we would ever want to make another one of those. There are plenty of places in North America that have plenty of room and resources for people. Coastal sections of the Pacific Northwest are pretty empty still despite ideal climate, water, arable land, etc...