6 ms·
Why don't we better terraform the sahara desert or the death valley? Greenland? Australia's outback? Antarctica? Honest question.
by Kilimanjaro 14y ago
Why don't we better terraform the sahara desert or the death valley? Greenland? Australia's outback? Antarctica?
Honest question.
- tocomment 14y agoConservation I guess. And cheap existing land.
- StavrosK 14y agoSimpler explanation: Because we can't. As Neil Tyson says, we can't even accurately predict the weather a week down the road, you want to terraform something?
- waterlesscloud 14y agoOf course, he also says that humans have had a preventable effect on Earth's climate.
- ceejayoz 14y ago> As Neil Tyson says, we can't even accurately predict the weather a week down the road, you want to terraform something? Did he really say that? I'd think NDT would be acutely aware of the difference between short-term weather and long-term climate, given that he gets to fight climate change denialists using that absurd misunderstanding on a regular basis.
- StavrosK 14y agoHe is, and he did: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ngd5e/i_am_neil_degrasse_tyson_ama/c38va48?context=1 http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ngd5e/i_am_neil_degras...
- scythe 14y agoA: terraforming is slow, but we're trying -- see the Sahara Forest Project B: the Sahara desert is the biggest rain-shadow in the world. It's between the Atlas Mountains in Morrocco on the north, the Cameroon volcano chain in the southeast, and the Red Sea hills to the northeast. To make things worse, the year-round trade winds prevent Atlantic storm systems from going aground in Africa -- instead we get a hurricane season in Florida. The result is a magical place where it never rains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MeanMonthlyP.gif http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MeanMonthlyP.gif
- aheilbut 14y agoWhile we're at it, why don't we first not make a giant mess of the habitable and productive parts of the earth that we depend on?