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Tbh, building a mountain and tearing it down again would be about as useful as half of existing jobs.
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Thanks, yeah i was seeing if it would even post
Americans will literally do anything except build trains
Bonus question: would this make a new continent?
No, it would not. There already are waterways splitting North America into multiple large pieces.
Then you’d need to dig really, really deep. Even deeper than where the Balrog lives.
Nope, the continental plate would not be separated by a river flowing over top.
Continents are not defined by tectonic plates, for example Eurasia is separated by an imaginary line. There is no universally agreed upon definition of what exactly earths continents are either.
In which direction would it flow?
From the center to the borders, due to rain.
I wouldn’t be so certain about that. Evaporation might be stronger similar to the mediterreanian sea. So water would flow from both sides into the channel.
But such a project probably disturbes weather patterns and ocean currents all together. Hence, I don’t think we can be curtain until we’ve tried it. Now grab your shovel. FOR SCIENCE!
We need to be curtain!
Woopsi
I mean ‘Weepsi’
The Mississippi already does that, but south-north instead of east-west.
Well… it did. And then climate change happened
A long stretch of hot, dry weather has left the Mississippi River so low that barge companies are reducing their loads just as Midwest farmers are preparing to harvest crops and send tons of corn and soybeans downriver to the Gulf of Mexico.
That’s not climate change; that’s just a precedented drought and media trying to cash on doomscrolling climate change. It’s done the exact same thing almost every year. Rain has always been somewhat random.
Assuming the river would be identical in depth and breadth to the Panama canal, if every man, woman, and child in the US picked up a shovel they would need to move 305 cubic feet of dirt each. So if we all just moved 1 cubic foot of dirt per day, we could pull this off in a year.
Hey, you’re a numbers guy right? What’s to say we take all that extra dirt and make an island? Asking for a friend
Hawa-II, this needs to happen. Opening date is June 13, 2025.
Do it small scale first and turn Florida into an island.
Then push it away
The Caribbean has suffered enough
Then keep pushing it further into the Atlantic.
Until it crashes into England 🙏
Someone move Ireland south
No, not that far. Please stop in middle of the Atlantic. Or do you hope both sink?
But a bit more south would be easier. Oh, wait.
Does the USA still own the Panama Canal? I remember there being some disputes about that.
If they could do it in ancient Greece then Americans can do it today for sure!
Stolen from !topview@lemmy.world
Also: although planned over 2000 years ago, it wasn’t really made by ancient Greeks. They gave up and made a road to transport ships on it instead of actually digging. Only in modern time did they actually finish the canal
Wait… They had a movable pool that they rode the ships into and then horses dragged to the other waterway? That sounds awesome
Better even. They made the movable pool quite long. So while the horses dragged the pool the ships could still sail in it. That way the horses didn’t need to drag the pool the whole way!
I dont think so. Not in this case at least. They gave up digging in the hard rock and instead made a limestone road to drive them on dry surface.
This is the Corinth canal but before it was made the paved road for transporting ships was called Diolkos
I know. I was just expanding on the other persons joke (I assume he joked). :)
You are a good person for being this patient and sharing your knowledge.
My first thought was if this was remotely possible on this scale, how many things would be disrupted and changed from the water movement alone. The Panama canal has to have locks because of the ocean differences, but no way would you have locks spanning a few hundred miles across. This thing would have tides back and forth.
Panama canal has to have locks because of the ocean differences
It’s actually mostly due to the landscape of Panama, including the lake it uses to traverse and the mountains. The Pacific and Atlantic oceans don’t different that much, maybe a few feet. And mostly due to tidal differences.
Oh, so it’s like an escalator for ships up and down.
I would need a study on if this would negatively impact desert ecosystems or introduce invasive species, but otherwise it sounds pretty cool if we limit the size until it’s about as big as the new Panama Canal expansions.
Nevermind any communities you’d separate or destroy by dropping a big ol’ river through the middle of them
It’s not like the number of communities measuring a hundred miles wide are many. Also, believe it or not, the USA has bridge building technology. Shocking, I know.
Luckily this entire swath of land is completely void of human and animal life and nobody will be emminent-domained out of their homes and livelihoods with little to no reward for doing so, and bridges are notoriously so much more permeable than plain flat land. I’m such a silly goose to not have thought of those things when I wrote that very serious comment about this very serious hypothetical 🥸
Do you lack reading comprehension? I said we should make it smaller than the image, idiot.
Or, and hear me out, just build a fucking high speed railway
High speed railway and river/canal are not in the same ballpark.
No, they aren’t. One is realistic, the other isn’t. I’m not going to debate which is which.
Stop trolling.
Says the guy seriously considering building a canal across the U.S. .
I wouldn’t tell anyone they’re a troll if I were you.
How is it that whenever I see somebody getting shitty on Lemmy, 90% of the time it’s FiniteBanjo
I’m the most honest person you’ll never meet.
