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I was very excited about this project when I was a teenager - another was a "simple" dam just at Marmara/Black sea / Istanbul. However, as any adult can see th
by TadaScientist 7y ago
I was very excited about this project when I was a teenager - another was a "simple" dam just at Marmara/Black sea / Istanbul.
However, as any adult can see the financial impact vastly supersedes the potential benefits.
Besides the obvious impact to the local seaside communities in Southern Europe, you would have to deal with unstable regimes in northern Africa and Turkey and the geopolitical side of things. Wars have been fought for much less important things than land and resources.
Moreover the ecological effects would be impossible to calculate. There are other seemingly less important issues such as immigration.
So, in all, ok - the central planning from a German scientist does get some creativity points, but we are not in Mars, trying to terraform it; we are in a heavily populated part of Earth which has civilisations at its shores for the last 4000 years.
- franknine 7y agoSomething similar has been done. The Three Gorges Dam in China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Gorges_Dam It caused huge ecological change and Chinese government force relocated numerous residents.
- 99052882514569 7y agoThere are 3 huge dams like that on the Dnieper river in Ukraine, with similar ecological and population displacement impacts. Gotta tame that nature, comrade.
- jessriedel 7y agoBecoming an adult doesn't give you the power to do a cost-benefit analysis for a continent-wide megascale project in your head. You can reject this proposal out of hand for rights-based reasons, but you have no idea whether the costs outweigh the benefits.
- TadaScientist 7y agoOuch! Unsurprisingly I agree with your first sentence. But, I do disagree on your second: I, and others, can see the costs, and I am not referring solely to the financial costs: It absolutely means risk of war in the Balkans, Greece/Turkey, N Africa. Elimination of most of the tourist income on the Med coasts Endangerment of the biodiversity and ecological balance of the sea Cause for droughts/flooding seen with other dams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_Dam Massive population dislocation in the region of tens of millions I can go on but the point is what would the benefit need to be to consider this project as net positive?
- hutzlibu 7y agoLots of land and electricity. That is something huge in densely populated europe. But I also think the costs are bigger.
- runarberg 7y agoElectricity, sure. Land, no. The reclaimed land will be highly salinated and unusable on top of the climate being very hot and very dry meaning the salinity level will be unlikely to change in the near future.
- tempguy9999 7y ago> The reclaimed land will be highly salinated The dutch I thought have done quite well with lots of land reclaimed from the sea. Why does it work for them, but not here?
- mikeash 7y agoTo be fair, this project is so far beyond anything that’s been done that nobody is capable of doing an accurate cost-benefit analysis of it.
- Jagat 7y agoThere's a new novel called 'The Atlantropa Articles' written by Cody, who has a popular youtube channel.