Every island in the world disappears

[TheLoneAmigo]

(A reverse of the "island world" posts from earlier.)

Every piece of land not attached to one of the continents disappears.

What happens next?

[Hermanubis]

(A reverse of the "island world" posts from earlier.)

Every piece of land not attached to one of the continents disappears.

What happens next?
Does this include Australia?

[Tielhard]

It bloody well does not include Ireland in any time-line you care to mention. Disappearing is for lesser countries!

[Tetsu]

Here's a quick map of what the world has lost:

http://img192.echo.cx/img192/5339/noislands8iv.gif

For technicality's sake, I left Australia in for it's continent status.

Anybody want to speculate on the effects? Taiwan is gone, so perhaps relations with the PRC get better? Britain is gone, too. What effect does this have on the EU?

[Dave Howery]

would losing Greenland have an affect on Europe's weather?

[Swede]

Do islands in rivers and/or lakes also dissapear? If they do, quite a few old city centers will be gone.
/I'd still be here, but Old Town Sthlm and all the southern and a decent chunk of the northern 'burbs are gone. Oh, and the northern part of Jutland would dissapear too.

But the weather up here'd be way messed up anyway. No Greenalnd/Iceland would seriously alter the ocean currents keeping it habitable here. And the Brittish Isles going would send alot of new fun weather straight at us.

[Imajin]

Waht about areas that are surrounded by water, but only because a canal has been dug?

[Hermanubis]

Do islands in rivers and/or lakes also dissapear? If they do, quite a few old city centers will be gone.
/I'd still be here, but Old Town Sthlm and all the southern and a decent chunk of the northern 'burbs are gone. Oh, and the northern part of Jutland would dissapear too.


Downtown Sault Ste. Marie as well… (if you count a piece of land surrounded by deepish streams an Island)

[Swede]

^and we'd loose Notre Dame in Paris...

Waht about areas that are surrounded by water, but only because a canal has been dug?

Come to think of it, Stockholm's southern 'burbs are like that today (during the Viking Age the connections were natural, but the land has risen so that there are actual locks on the channels connecting Mälaren (lake) to Östersjön (the Baltic Sea)).

[Tielhard]

Why iz Ireland not represented on this map? As I have already explained Ireland is present in all universes, in ALL time-lines it is a bit like the ficticious Amber the great reality of which all other countries are but shadows. Please correct this gross oversight immediately!

[Jer8m8]

New York City is mostly gone, how does this affect the world economy?

[Glen]

New York City is mostly gone, how does this affect the world economy?

Badly I would imagine, but not so badly as the disappearance of the United Kingdom and Japan!

The removal of both Japan and Taiwan would make for some really interesting changes in Asian politics. What effect would this have on the relations between China, the USA, and the Koreas, I wonder?

[rewster]

Hmmm, the US now has only 49 states. The democrats may lose New York, and the republicans stay in power forever. Ahhhhh!

People who enjoy vacationing in tropical island paradises will be sad.

Now, when the US lists our allies in Iraq, we start with Poland.

The Northwest Passage actually becomes a shipping lane.

People have a really hard time crossing the bay bridge in Oakland/San Fran.
There are a lot of pointless causeways in a broken chain at the lower tip of Florida.

They finally give up on that horrible show "The real gilligan's island". Meanwhile Survivor has a hard time coming up with good places to do future seasons.

The ocean level goes way down after filling in all the holes left by islands. Now the Netherlands has dikes built on dry land. All non-landlocked countries gain a bit of coastal real estate.

[Thande]

Now, when the US lists our allies in Iraq, we start with Poland.

Why not Australia?

[rewster]

It was a joke about Bush, and a segment from the Daily Show that made fun of him:

Bush: We had many allies going into this war. Uh, we had Britain... and... ah... Poland...
Jon Stewart: Poland ? Your number two ally is... POLAND ??? What, Nicaragua put us on the "do not call" list ?

Of course Australia would to most people in the US be thought of as our second most significant ally. It's just that our president tends to forget things and misspeak a lot.

[reformer]

Actualy, the Poles have fought very bravely and have defended international freedom in Iraq.

This scinario would make a much bigger difference in the late 19th century. No England, and the empire would errupt into anarchy and civil war and fights with other invaders. The ballance of power in Europe would crumble. Germany may reign supreme. The world would be a mess.

[rewster]

I wasn't claiming the Poles fought poorly. Just that a typical American would think of GB, then Australia, and only then countries like Poland... what can I say, we are still a little anglocentric here. We think of the countries that seem most like us first.
And that our President was only able to think of two allies when questioned, which made him seem a little foolish (as usual).