Obviously this is a terrible idea, but I’m gonna answer it seriously for the sake of dunking on it.
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The amount of work. I mean, just astronomical. That’s 1,650 miles of longitude this dude is talking about filling in; the largest earth-moving project ever was the Panama Canal, and it’s only about 50 miles long. Plus, by comparison, it’s essentially a one-dimensional line! This looks like it’s probably in the ballpark of 500-ish miles from the current shore to the new shore, and two-ish miles from the surface to the floor.
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Where would we get the land from? It’s not like there’s a pile just sitting around. I guess we could dredge the Pacific and truck it across to pour into the Atlantic? Take down the Appalachians and the Rockies? Bring down an asteroid into the ocean? None of that would be enough. In fact, nothing I can think of that we have access to could even come close to providing enough dirt (remember, we need 1,650 x 500 x 2 cubic miles of it!), even if we could manage to do it without destroying ecosystems or killing billions of people.
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The people who have spent a lot of money buying homes and businesses on the current Eastern seaboard of the United States would probably have something to say about this plan. (Something loud and something very angry.) Besides, it would completely upend the shipping industry, the fishing industry, the tourism industry, and more. This would legitimately destroy multiple national economies, and that’s before you even take into account the ecological disaster.
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Sea level rise is already a major problem. So displacing a bunch of water in favor of dirt probably isn’t going to help that too terribly much.
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…why? A lot of America is sitting unused or underused. If you were to clump all of the US’s land use into discrete blocks, it would look like this:
The area labeled “LAND?” on the ocean in the OP map is, give or take, the size of the current amount of land owned by the 100 largest landowning families, private family timberland, golf, and fallow land (meaning land used for nothing). This means that the area that the person in question is asking about is already essentially or literally being used for nothing at all. Before we start undertaking an ecologically-disastrous and fundamentally impossible project, we’d probably figure out ways to use that other land.
But there’s more. The land that is being used is almost entirely being underused. For instance, take the “Cow pasture/range” section of the map; cattle account, by far, for the highest land use of any land use in the country. But the 28.2 million cows in America only need about an acre of land each; meaning that the 124.7 million acres of land they roam is about five times bigger than what they actually need. Most of the other production uses for land in the US (along with rural housing) are similarly sprawling because they can be; land is comparatively cheap, so there’s no real reason to consolidate. If that changes, land prices will rise, and the people and companies holding on to underused land will discover that it makes financial sense to sell and reconfigure their businesses to make more efficient use of the land.
So calm down, Lex Luthor. The problem isn’t that resources are actually scarce. It’s that people at the top have a financial interest in underusing their holdings so that they can keep prices artificially high.
Please, all we gotta do is create some volcanoes at strategic locations in the ocean.
The bigger the better. No time at all we’ll have new landmass.
/s
I’m glad someone in this thread is being rational.
I always wondered if I could hypothetically make a volcano by drilling a deep enough hole.
If you already know where a pressurized liquid magma pool is, maybe. Though if it’s not pressurized enough you might just get the release of some weird fumes and vapors. Or the lava might rise a little then settle back to a standard hight rather than errupting.
If you dont have a pool of lava to aim for about the earth mantle, then probably not :( By the time you get deep enough into the earth to hit magma, the hole would collapse due to pressure and pretty much any modern drill would be soft due to the heat.
Heres a discussion about this that happened else where on the interwebs.
Thanks! I really have wondered that for years.
Very elaborate and snarky answer. Love it
But the 28.2 million cows in America only need about an acre of land each; meaning that the 124.7 million acres of land they roam is about five times bigger than what they actually need.
Wouldn’t we want cattle using at least a bit more land than they strictly need? Overgrazing was one of the contributing factors to the Dust Bowl.
And it’s coming back!
https://wgntv.com/news/traffic/dust-storm-closes-illinois-interstate/
Don’t worry, dust storms in Illinois are perfectly normal.
My understanding is that they need an acre each specifically to prevent overgrazing, but I could be mistaken there.
Ooh cool map for visualizing land-use in the US, ty 4 sharing!
Fallow land is used land. It’s land that’s not currently used but its non-usage only happens its efficiency when actually used. It’s like sleeping, but for land, so it’s not free to use
I’m aware of that land use need, but actually most farmers use crop rotation to fulfill that need. You plant a crop that depletes phosphorus one year, and then one that restores it the next year. Obviously that’s oversimplified, but actually letting land lie fallow isn’t as critical anymore in a more diverse agricultural world.
Besides, letting land lie fallow is agricultural use, as you’re restoring the land for later growing seasons. That, iirc, is why the word “idle” is included on the map alongside “fallow;” true fallowing would be included in the agriculture regions.
eh… we can solve all that with ammonium nitrate… aka fertilizer
Fertilizer does provide some help, but cover crops and crop rotation is still necessary. Anhydrous ammonia and ammonium nitrate don’t replenish everything that crops take out of the ground (really just nitrogen); and even if it did, it’s really expensive.
you have a good pt. maybe just more poop.
btw is fallow the same as barren?
Well, I think the word “barren” is a little bit more ambiguous, but generally “fallow” implies that it could be used, but isn’t; while “barren” means that it couldn’t be used for any productive purpose (specifically any agricultural purpose). In other words, land could be temporarily fallow but used again later, but would likely require remediation or even engineering to make productive if it’s barren.
I think you are forgetting good ol American gumption!
American gumption sneers at the laws of physics!
kinda crazy that on your map, airports use as much land as railways.
So… life isn’t Minecraft ? 😭
There’s definitely not a
/fillcommand.
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There are lots of reasons this wouldn’t work, but yours isn’t one of them. Plenty of coastal cities have already done this on a small scale, whole neighborhoods are built on fill- back bay in Boston, marina district in San Francisco just to name a couple. And as a bonus, a good strong earthquake turns it to soup, so every so often you can wipe the slate clean and start over.
Too much effort for these stupid “ideas”. Of it were a child, explain it like you did, but I presume it isn’t. So let me explain it: No.
Too much effort for these stupid “ideas”. Of it were a child, explain it like you did, but I presume it isn’t. So let me explain it: No.
How profoundly arrogant to presume to tell me what to do or not to do with my own time. I’ll use my time how I like, thank you very much.
And it wasn’t wasted time. I learned things, I produced something, I had fun doing it. I may have even educated others.
Get off your high horse. What you did in posting a complaint about the effort I expended was way more useless than what I did.
And it was funny and instructive ! Thanks for it ! 😊
Glad you enjoyed it!
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Dutch be like “amateurs”
Slartibartfast*
The Dutch won’t get awards for the design of the coastline.
The Dutch word for “amateurs” is actually “amateurs”, except “ama” is pronounced like it is in “Amadeus” and “eu” is pronounced like a really posh British person saying “oh”
How are you saying Amadeus so that the “ama” is different from that in “amateurs”?
Was looking for this comment
hear here
Team Magma is at it again.
Carefully timed explosives placed in the middle of the moon causing it to split in half, one half going away from Earth and the other half going right into the Atlantic coast. Problem solved.
There was a book about that. It did indeed result in a new continent in the Atlantic. Then all the people Europe colonized rise up and kill all the Europeans and take over that continent, the end.
I enjoyed it.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61273333-the-hopkins-manuscript
Chat is this real
I dunno, why do you guys keep asking me?
Just make sure you time it right so that the ocean is facing the moon
Wouldn’t the friction from half of the moon entering the atmosphere generate enough heat to set most of the east coast on fire? I remember one of my teachers telling me it would but it definitely wouldn’t be the first time one of my teachers was wrong.
Gundam type bullshit
Wait, you’re joking right? It can’t be that easy??
Depends on how the moon is wobbling that day
There’s an episode of Star Trek TNG where the crew is briefly back on earth and capt Picard is enticed by the idea of taking a job where they do exactly this. They work on lifting a tectonic plate from the ocean floor to create a new continent.
I have a vague memory of that and I have a feeling it would be a massive ecological catastrophe.
Then again, Earth had already gone through a nuclear war, so whatever.
I mean, two nuclear bombs were used in war and a bunch in testing, unless I’m forgetting something. I feel like tectonic activity could definitely be much worse than that, judging by the early earth environment.
Just like the Simpsons or XKCD, there’s always a relevant Star Trek episode. It’s unfortunate none of my friends have watched any.
Are those really friends?
Where do we ship the Clockwork Orange eyelid clamps?
I’ll be your friend ♥️
S4E2. After the Borg incident Picard visits his brother and childhood home. Brief discussions of alternate life and career.
I believe the project in that episode was actually Atlantropa, a dam across the strait of Gibraltar to drain the entire Mediterranean sea.
The idea was proposed in the 1920s and somewhat entertained by Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
Why do I have no memory of this
Because you fail as a nerd and have brought shame on your family.
Time to do a ritual self-killing known as sudoku.
Nonono, that’s a stupid puzzle game. The word you’re looking for is sardaukar.
If it helps I think it’s the one where he gets into a fight with his brother
Yeah, I already found it on Memory Alpha
It really was just a passing reference, so no wonder I don’t remember it after thirty years
My neuropathy prevents me from forgetting things like that
I wish the tingling in my hands helped me remember things!
The REAL problem is that it might throw off the balance of power in the Senate.
That and we’re currently using the Appalachians for something.
The netherlands entered the chat
G E K O L O N I S E E R D
Or is that not allowed over here😅
Reminds me of that Atlantropa plan. The idea was to drain most of the Mediterranean sea to create new land between Europe and Africa. Some German guy came up with it in the 1920s and spent like 20 years trying to convince people it’s a great idea and totally doable. Unfortunately everyone was busy with other stuff back then…
Honestly it was a crazy plan but it probably could have been accomplished. It would have been a fuck ton of work and had immeasurable externalities.
Here is a bathymetric map of the straits of Gibraltar if anyone wants to to have a try
The hoi4 mod “The new order” explores this idea further, among others.
Where would we get the land to fill it in? EASY! We’ll just pull up our old plan to blow up the moon and use the chunks to make more America!
Pretty sure that, even if we managed to haul every piece of the moon back to Earth, we would not get close to the material required to fill the circled area. It’d be sufficient for maybe 5 miles of extending the coast line, but not much more.
The moon has a volume of 21,971,669,064 km³. I am very certain that you could fill the area in question with that!
Ok, yeah, I was way off. Did some ballpark math and the moon is big enough to fill the entire Atlantic lol
I went a more math-less way when I read this originally. The moon is about a quarter the width (diameter) of the Earth, and the variances in the height of the Earth’s crust (mountains and trenches) aren’t visible in satellite images of Earth. If you cut the moon in half and put it down in the Atlantic, would it change the contour of the Earth’s crust as seen from orbit? Yeah, it’d be another eighth-again as wide on one side. You’d notice.
Doing some quick checking confirms: the Atlantic has a volume of about 355 million cubic kilometers. The moon is about 22 billion cubic kilometers. So you’d only need about 1.6% of the moon to fill up the Atlantic.
This is fun. It feels like an xkcd What-If.
There is a German novel where something like this happens over night for no reason. It’s called “Miami Punk” and worth a read but I’m afraid there are no translations. It’s written by an anthropologist and he investigates the question how people would react, including people out of work, conspiracy theories, scientists, …
That sounds interesting. It looks like you’re right, though; I couldn’t find an English translation, at any rate. Luckily, the search reminded me how much I loved The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi, and now I’m planning to hit the bookstore when it opens.
Is The Water Knife something for my reading list, too? Convince me if you like but I can obviously google it myself otherwise
Sorry to take so long to respond! It’s a novel set in a plausible near-future in which existing power structures have been fragmented by the effects of climate change. It follows a handful of disparate characters in the western US, and talks a lot about the water politics of the Colorado river. It’s very well-written (claims random internet guy, but hey—you asked!). Can also recommend The Windup Girl by the same author. Same eco-dystopian timeline, set in Thailand. Delves more into issues surrounding AI and genetic engineering.
It’s totally doable, you guys! Have you ever seen the amount of sand in the deserts? Just pour it all down on that water, it will totally work! Trust me, brah!
No one’s using the north half of Canada, let’s dig it up and do it!
Why bother filling it with land when you can just find some crusty old map with some dashes on it as evidence that it belongs to you
As if America needs to be any bigger
We’re not the biggest yet. We just need to annex Canada and Mexico…
Manifest destiny baybeee
A guy tried that in, I think, 2006. Superman just threw his new landmass out into space.
