The Dutch made about 1400 km^2 of new land in the previous century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland
For reference, almost 10% of the Netherlands consists of polders (reclaimed land)
Make More Land
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Re: Make More Land
#32”Making more land” requires destruction of relatively rare marine habitats. Sure, there’s a lot of ocean out there, but many species thrive where the land naturally meets the sea. Bays and estuaries are treasures, not just bits of water waiting to be paved.
Re: Make More Land
#33> Building dikes to keep the water out is very practical. Yeah, good luck with that when sea levels rise 20 meters.
Far easier to raise existing dikes 20m than to build new seawalls to protect all other coastline.
Re: Make More Land
#34The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? How long would it take until the last judge has dismissed the plea to save the nearly extinct Californian Pink Stink Beetle that by circumstance breeds in that area? How much more expensive would the project become over its ever longer runtime? What will happen when the seemingly inevitable corruption scandals are brought to da…
I think we still do these projects all the time, in cities of a certain development level, for the same reason we always did them: industry lobbying. This land was, almost always, reclaimed by heavy industry, for industrial use ; and only later, once that industry no longer had need of it (and was being gentrified out of the area entirely) was the land re-zoned for other uses and “finished off” as a public works proj…
Singapore does it. But they are special in so many other regards, too.
(Oh, and the Dutch of course.)
Re: Make More Land
#35> The world is very large, and cities are a very small portion of it. The land we set aside for animals should be outside of cities, where far more land is available at far less impact to people.
Wetlands in particular are pretty rare and environmentally valuable places though. The fact that you would fill them in and "set aside" some probably less valuable land somewhere else is not very reassuring.
Re: Make More Land
#36The more pressing question: Can we actually still do such projects in western democracies? How long would it take until the last judge has dismissed the plea to save the nearly extinct Californian Pink Stink Beetle that by circumstance breeds in that area? How much more expensive would the project become over its ever longer runtime? What will happen when the seemingly inevitable corruption scandals are brought to da…
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Re: Make More Land
#37The Dutch made about 1400 km^2 of new land in the previous century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland
Not only flevoland, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieringermeer.
But we also have to give back some land for nature: https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hertogin_Hedwigepolder#cite_no... (only dutch though)
Re: Make More Land
#38Seems to me to be the usual un-environment friendly corporate drivel. We don't need more people in San Francisco. They are the 13th ranked city by density in the USA. "The world is very large, and cities are a very small portion of it. The land we set aside for animals should be outside of cities, where far more land is available at far less impact to people."
A million dollars will buy a few square feet of land in San Francisco. In the middle of nowhere it can buy a square mile. Humans might prefer the former, but most other species would prefer the latter.
Unfortunately habitats are not fungible. A square mile of dry land is unlikely to be suitable for the species which live in the wetlands of a tidal estuary.
Re: Make More Land
#39The Dutch made about 1400 km^2 of new land in the previous century: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland
For reference, almost 10% of the Netherlands consists of polders (reclaimed land)
Singapore grew by 22% since independence in 1965 thanks to land reclamation. And they started reclaiming before that already.
Re: Make More Land
#40Fun fact, the seaport district regularly floods in storms, and the flood waters are salty.
If you mean in Boston, they actually built all the new buildings in the Seaport on the assumption of floods. Everything on the first floor can be full of salt water and the building will be OK.
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