What engineering projects could humanity do to have the biggest impacts on environment?

Before I suggest it understand I understand perfectly how appalling my suggestion is. But I am viewing it only through this very narrow situation.

The Nazi death camps, running for 20 years or so and reducing the population would leave lots of Lebausram would lessen the ecological impact of humanity
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Before I suggest it understand I understand perfectly how appalling my suggestion is. But I am viewing it only through this very narrow situation.

The Nazi death camps, running for 20 years or so and reducing the population would leave lots of Lebausram would lessen the ecological impact of humanity

I don't really think so. The USSR under Stalin managed to kill far more people than the Nazis ever did, and it was still an unmigitated ecological disaster. Fewer people might mean less of an ecological footprint in that regard, but megalomaniac dictatorships with considerable amounts of central planning usually lead to other problems that more than 'compensate'. The USSR was truly terrible in this regard (there was the notoriously filthy industry and the ill-conceived ecological tampering by diverting rivers and things like that, but there's also this, for instance) -- a victorious Nazi Germany may be less terrible for the environment than the USSR of OTL, simply due to having less central planning that can go horribly wrong, but I still expect it to be a polluting mess, full of megalomaniac projects and all the attendant disasters.
 
Before I suggest it understand I understand perfectly how appalling my suggestion is. But I am viewing it only through this very narrow situation.

The Nazi death camps, running for 20 years or so and reducing the population would leave lots of Lebausram would lessen the ecological impact of humanity
Leaving aside the horrors of such a situation how much ecological impact does a single person have living compared to their cremation (all that heat and soot).
 
This is rapidly becoming "Ways We Can Really Ruin Everybody's Day: The Thread".

Has this one been mentioned yet? Probably not as world-shattering as some of the other ones, but it would no doubt have been a disaster.

The Earth Veneraforming Project: use all accessible hydrocarbon reserves to mass-produce and vent perfluorotributlyamine (7000x more greenhouseful than CO2).

The Reunite Earth & Moon Project: cover Moon with solar panels and arc thrusters, to slow it down so it drifts out past the Hill Radius and into a separate (Earth-crossing) orbit.
 
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Isn't it possible to use water from the Black Sea (and thus the oceans) to flood the Caspian Depression and thus make the Caspian even bigger?

With regards to the Dam of Darkness, considering its iconic status would that not make it a target of anticolonial terrorism?
It would certainly be a target for anticolonial forces to seize, regardless of what they do with it?
Does it come under multinational control? Perhaps spurring an early League of Nations and subsequent Mandates.

The Three Gorges Dam can allegedly survive tactical nuclear weapons. Even given the age of the Congo Dam (Dam of Darkness, I love that name) and likely shoddy construction, it could probably survive anything smaller than a 9/11 style attack. That said, the sheer destructive potential if the dam fails means it would be a resource sink over the decades as people try to improve and strengthen its foundations and protect it from terrorism.

It's more likely anticolonialist terrorism (or for the Congo, anti-government forces and such) would just seize the place and use it to turn off every light in Africa (and possibly some in Europe if they manage to hook the thing up to Europe's power grid, which why not?).

The Reunite Earth & Moon Project: cover Moon with solar panels and arc thrusters, to slow it down so it drifts out past the Hill Radius and into a separate (Earth-crossing) orbit.

It would also make a very nice ring around the Earth once the thing impacts.
 
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