Ridiculous Land Reclamation Projects

Santa Monica offshore freeway – John Drescher and Moffat and Nichol – 1965
la-3.jpg

the Santa Monica offshore freeway; build over the Santa Monica bay,
the $600 million raised causeway, lifted over a 30,000 ft-long chain of man-made islands, would connect the 10 Freeway in Santa Monica to the Pacific Coast highway in Malibu.
Do budget shortages and citizen anger, governor Pat Brown vetoed the project in September 1965.
 
Santa Monica offshore freeway – John Drescher and Moffat and Nichol – 1965
la-3.jpg

the Santa Monica offshore freeway; build over the Santa Monica bay,
the $600 million raised causeway, lifted over a 30,000 ft-long chain of man-made islands, would connect the 10 Freeway in Santa Monica to the Pacific Coast highway in Malibu.
Do budget shortages and citizen anger, governor Pat Brown vetoed the project in September 1965.
can't blame 'em for not wanting this--one of those islands looks like a dick :p
 
Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to close off the Mediterranean? Ok, it would be an massive ecological catastrophe but we can't let a bunch of treehuggers stand in the way of progress, can we?
 
Pele's project involves less land, and a longer time frame, but it's ongoing and working. The Big Island is getting bigger...
 
Surely it wouldn't be that difficult to close off the Mediterranean? Ok, it would be an massive ecological catastrophe but we can't let a bunch of treehuggers stand in the way of progress, can we?

It would take several years worth of 21st century Earth's concrete production. Maybe with the hugely increased demand you could get it down to a year or two, but that's still an insane amount of concrete. Oh, and it's in an earthquake zone too.

"Treehuggers" here I suppose refers to every nation with a Mediterranean coast complaining about the need to build all those new ports and infrastructure on the valuable and salty lands they'll be getting from this project. And everyone who considers shipping cargo through the Mediterranean and Suez valuable and useful.
 
tree huggers are just environmentalists and people who either want to go back to pre human days of earth's life cycle and evolution or find a balance with advancement and the health of the planet. ( not saying that is a bad thing either.. there should be a balance. people who believe that humans are the worse thing since the bubonic plague ..

on the other hand .. damming the med would be down right detrimental .. the north sea is suicidal .. but the med.. that's suicidal and an environmental disaster in the works. the med is high salt as is.. inhibit the natural flow any more and it would become a giant dead sea... whoo hoo! for mankind!
 
Did anyone try to drain the Baltic in the same way?
The Atlantropa plan could theoretically "work" because a lot of the Med's water evaporates, but it's not the same in the Baltic. If the Baltic was dammed, you'd just end up flooding northern Europe and Sweden until water goes around the dam. That's not to say that nobody ever has or nobody ever will propose a 'Baltlanropa' - something being a bad idea that wouldn't work *cough*mostmegaenginneringprojects*cough* hasn't stopped people from proposing them historically, after all.
 
Did anyone try to drain the Baltic in the same way?
Oh, can you imagine the fun if Russia didn't have Kaliningrad? The trouble they would go to for an ice-free Baltic port?

The Atlantropa plan could theoretically "work" because a lot of the Med's water evaporates, but it's not the same in the Baltic. If the Baltic was dammed, you'd just end up flooding northern Europe and Sweden until water goes around the dam. That's not to say that nobody ever has or nobody ever will propose a 'Baltlanropa' - something being a bad idea that wouldn't work *cough*mostmegaenginneringprojects*cough* hasn't stopped people from proposing them historically, after all.
Considering how flat Denmark is, I imagine there would need to be a massive wall around Jutland and all the islands. Of course the Atlaeuropa was partially based on flooding Africa, so I wonder where they dump all this water. Maybe make a Magyar lake?
 
Bah: GulfOfMexitropia. Dam the Florida Straits (it's only 90 miles) and all along the island chain to Venezuela. Then we won't need offshore oil rigs. Or a Panama Canal.
 
Bah: GulfOfMexitropia. Dam the Florida Straits (it's only 90 miles) and all along the island chain to Venezuela. Then we won't need offshore oil rigs. Or a Panama Canal.
still need the canal

plus that would not be ideal soil if freed up.. lots of pollution
 
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