[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/sci/ - Science & Math

View post   
File: 53 KB, 640x359, Sahara_satellite_hires.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5903602 No.5903602 [Reply] [Original]

What if before terraforming mars or the moon, we turn the Sahara or the Australian desert into hospital land?

>> No.5903605

because only violent people live there

>> No.5903638

Hippies would go crazy.
They are terrified of and seek to prevent change, no matter if it's good or bad change.

>> No.5903644

>>5903602
Because it is a crime against nature messing with the natural environment of any place, even if it's hostile towards us.

>> No.5903648

>>5903644
Then you need to leave the universe immediately.
Your existence changes all kinds of things

>> No.5903649

Africa used to be covered head to toe in one giant, dense, rainforest.

then the himalayas fucked everything up and made savannahs and deserts which meant modern humans but also much less biodiversity in Africa.

>> No.5903654

I don't know, it would very well cover a few other fringe sciences like climate change (Carbon storage), population growth over area, and food production.

>> No.5903656

Oh, and we could simplify things and tell the people who could actually use the land that no... you aren't allowed. (like in Canada. ^_^)

>> No.5903659

>>5903644
Wasn't most North America inhospitable marsh?

>> No.5903663

>>5903648
I'm not agreeing, I'm just replying what the ecologists have to say about that. I'm not against ecologists as well.

>> No.5903672

>>5903659
Terraforming Earth is easy: we have oxygen, nitrates, and all of that.

>> No.5903762

Good thinking OP.

For one thing, N. Africa was typically lush, fertile Mediterranean climate until primitive man and uninformed agriculture fucked it up. Fixing what we broke 15,000 years ago would be an overall good thing.
I say we could even work on inhabiting Antarctica in large numbers before Mars. at least the shipping costs for supplemental help and rescue will be cheaper. We would learn a lot in the process.
1) fill in the blank spots here on Earth.
2) Dome over a crater or two on Luna
3) Mars and beyond.

Seems like a sensible progression, I like it.

>> No.5903788

Because it is a waste of fuel and water

Also, what economical purpose would it serve?

I highly doubt the demand for real estate in North Africa is high.

>> No.5903809

>>5903788
>I highly doubt the demand for real estate in North Africa is high.

If it was nice it would be. The rest of the Mediterranean is prime real estate. Make Libya lush and rich and Eurotrash will pay huge bucks to winter there.

>> No.5903857

>>5903788
Ghaddafi could solved that. Did he really was that great head of government that he bragged about?

And don't try to use Israel as an expample: Israel is a corrupt state who explore their helpers to their cause.

>> No.5903861

>>5903602
because why would you put a hospital in the middle of the desert? I think you mean hospitable.

>> No.5903879

>>5903602
Well the thing about mars is that all the CO2 in the air makes it perfect for plant life if we could reform the atmosphere to hold in all the oxygen the plants would create. From there it would almost take care of itself. Greenhouse gases would heat the planet and life would form in any salt water present. But really we just care about air we can breath and soil we can grow in.

>> No.5903905

>>5903602
>Implying both aren't fubar

Your idea sucks, where's my dome cities? It's 2013 and we're supposed to be all high tech and shit

Just ask Seaworld for their special aquariam glass and dedicated power grids just for weather control

>> No.5903911

>>5903905
It's not a matter of having the tech. It's delivering it a crew and fuel to mars at an affordable cost.
Heavy shit + escaping earth's gravity + a long ass trip = an ass load of money

>> No.5903915

>>5903857
lol, you fucking faggot.
>gaddafi stronk!
>boo, israel corrupt

You're juut a contrarian faggot. Both of them suck(ed).

>> No.5903925

>>5903602
There's less risked by creating a new hospitable environment than modifying an existing biosphere.

If you fuck up a terraforming job you end up with an inhospitable planet... so no real loss. If you fuck up messing with climate on a hospitable planet... you can potentially get an inhospitable one.

>> No.5903959 [DELETED] 

>>5903649
All of this on speculative knowledge of a supercontinent that no one has pictures or data of with the exception being computer images and educated guesses.

>> No.5903987

>>5903649
All of this on speculative knowledge of a supercontinent that no one has pictures or data of with the exception being computer images and educated guesses.

>> No.5903999
File: 380 KB, 1200x950, SkyCityHorizon.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5903999

>>5903905
>where's my dome cities?
coming 2014

>> No.5904011

>>5903861
I assume OP meant we should turn it into Hospital Land, the medicine-themed amusement park. Park staff would all wear scrubs. Bumper cars would all have lights and sirens like ambulances. Go-karts would still look like go-karts but they'd be called crash karts. The track would be called, "Code Blue." The water park would have a cardiopulminary system theme (the biggest waterside would be called, Heart Stopper). The theme actually lends itself very well.

>> No.5904036

How about we terraform every rock larger than Ceres while leaving children in Africa to starve. The amount of irony would be hilarious.

I am also implying that when humanity ventures to the stars and colonizes planets beyond solar system, the children in Africa will still be starving.

>> No.5904043

>>5903602
To what end

>> No.5904046

>>5904036
Yeah, probably. I place no bets on the specifics, but humankind will not (and need not) solve all its problems at home before expanding to other worlds. The next extinction event for our planet is coming, though it may be tens of thousands of years distant. The schedule is unknown to us and will remain unknown. The correct time to colonize other worlds, then, is, "as soon as possible."

>> No.5904061

>>5903762
>For one thing, N. Africa was typically lush, fertile Mediterranean climate until primitive man and uninformed agriculture fucked it up. Fixing what we broke 15,000 years ago would be an overall good thing.
D-did you just imply that 15k years ago humans _farmed_ sahara until it turned into a desert? Do you realize how retarded that is?

>>5903857
>Ghaddafi could solved that.
Yes, I'm sure that he could control the climate and magically add water and humus to 10 million km^2.

>>5903879
>CO2 in the air makes it perfect for plant life
If the pressure wasn't around 600 Pa and temperatures around -60C.

>>5903987
>no one has pictures
Probably since there were no cameras around couple hundred million years ago.
>or data
It's well backed with geological and fossil evidence.

>>5904036
Funny you mention that. Guess why "kids in africa" are starving? Hint: it's probably not because they are lazy faggots.
If we could reclaim even ten thousand square kilometers of desert, all of that could be used for farming (and would probably overused because dumb africans) and therefore increase food production.

>> No.5904069

>>5903602
Because the amazon rain forest needs the sand blowing towards them from the sahara

>> No.5904076

>>5903602

No. The Amazon needs the sand from the Sahara. It's of vital importance to the survival of the rain forest.

No, giving Australian... things more space to breed will spell doom for mankind.

>> No.5904135

>>5903644
We are nature baby. Think about it

>> No.5904137

This isn't a new idea, it's been around since the 20s (Atlantropa).

>> No.5904138

Plans to do exactly this have been on the books since the 1960s. The North American Water and Power Alliance will bring water down from Alaska and Canada to the Southwest, allowing for agriculture. It will increase rainfall, like the Amazon has its own rainfall cycle. It was developed by the Parsons engineering company in L.A. in the 1960s. LBJ was going to do it, but it got derailed by the Vietnam War.
Here are some infrastructure projects that the American system of physical economy would build around the world:Transaqua in Africa: http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15820Bering Strait Tunnel: http://www.larouchepac.com/node/1434North American Water and Power Alliance: http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15628Aral Sea Restoration: http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15711 & http://www.larouchepac.com/node/15727

>> No.5904152

>>5903649

The evidence suggests it was scrub forest. That's not exactly lush, tropical jungle.

>>5904061

Not 15k years ago, but yes, starting from around 10k slash and burn agriculture led to the desertification of the Sahara. It was a positive feedback process. Less trees meant less rain, less rain meant less trees.

>> No.5904166

Well I believe Australia's deserts were more vegetative at one point, so I don't see why it couldn't be 'terraformed'. I seem to remember that Aborigines burned alot of grass and vegetation around 20 000 or so years ago, i can't remember exactly the reason believed for them doing this, but it was somewhat of an organised effort.
If it's going to be done, it logically should be done on a small scale and be studied extensively, who knows how turning our arid inland into a paradise might affect the earth.

>> No.5904188

>>5904166
It was to exterminate the mega-fauna

>> No.5904208

>>5904188
I thought that was more of a consequence than the reason. I know there was at least more speculation to it than that, I think they were trying to cultivate certain plants among other reasons.

>> No.5904214

>>5903602
That's a completely different sort of problem than terraforming Mars- it's certainly an easier one, but it's not really the same sort of thing at all.

With terraforming, you're trying to change an entire planet- dicking about with the atmosphere, the ice caps, nuking the ground to make air come out, whatever.

With a project like this, what you're talking about is changing the environment of just one place- without disrupting the rest of the world. If this were a project of terraforming, step 1 would be to try and cool down the entire Earth until the Sahara became habitable.

>> No.5904220

>>5904011
Thank you for making me laugh, Anon.

>> No.5904263

After WW2 there was a massive amount of American troops stationed in Australia doing jack shit. There was a proposal to get them all down to south Australia give them a bunch of equipment and dig a huge canal inland to the central (dry) lakes from the ocean creating a new wetland and possibly expanding the amount of usable farmland significantly.

It never went ahead.

>> No.5904271

>>5903602
it would probably mean doing an ice age.
Not a good deal.

>> No.5904304 [DELETED] 

>using sea water
duh

>> No.5904306

>>5904263
>using sea water
duh

>> No.5904314

>>5904306
>What is evaporation

The idea was that having a large inland evaporation pan would cause the heavy cloud that already passes over the region regularly to drop its water sooner, rather than on the east coast and oceans.

Admittedly their modelling was rather limited at the time, not having computers and all that.