When I read the first paragraph, I was immediately reminded of my feelings when watching the Star Trek:TNG episode, made in the late 80's where Picard considered quitting Star Fleet to head the Atlantis Project. When I watched that episode recently, I found the idea that future people would allow large alterations to the earth to be discordant.
It is interesting that, according to the article, Roddenberry also incorporated the idea of a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar into one of his works.
Today, I expect that terraforming Mars and mining the moon will face significant opposition. Would massive land reclamation projects like those in the Netherlands ever happen today, if a particular hyper-conservation Western mindset were in place when they commenced? We can't even let go of outdated urban streetscapes, and buildings past their useful lifespans[1], so it isn't far-fetched to think of moon miners having to recreate impact craters on the moon's surface after mining them, if mining happened in the first place.
Large segments of humanity are becoming sclerotic. Even if [2] the positive effects of damming the Mediterranean (or terraforming central Australia or Antarctica) were found to outweigh the losses, and the impacts could be mitigated, it would still be extremely unlikely to happen, for sentimental reasons.
[1] See recent news about Lloyds of London building, which has became an expensive burden, but can't be touched because of its "iconic" status
[2] yes, obviously there are risks, and they would need to be weighed carefully.
Realize you are considering completely altering the hydrology that has historically served as the cradle of humanity's longest-lived civilizations. This project would touch huge population centers, many different cultures that speak different languages. What happens when people that have lived in costal communities for generations suddenly find themselves landlocked?
There's a reason this was an undertaking contemplated in the time period that it was. Herman Sörgel could propose this and simply not care what the consequences would be for the people that were already present. The Superior Race simply needed more Lebensraum, to hell with the inferior races.
One man's sclerosis is another man's stability. This is not hyper-conservation Western mindset, this is living in a world where one remote political power can not radically alter the living conditions for millions of people that are not represented in that power.
As I said, there would have to be careful study and consideration of the effects, and in all likelihood, it would fail, probably for the reasons you cite.
However, I suspect the modern knee-jerk reaction would be to reject these sorts of ideas out-of-hand, not because of infeasibility, but because of the "preserve at all costs" mentality that has taken hold among many, and then to look for ways to justify the rejection.
The will of industry has such a strong influence on political outcomes that it seems rational (though perhaps unfortunate) for people to oppose big projects as early as possible.
Also once built and the sea drained, the persons in charge of the dam wield immense power over those who move in and inhabit the new lands revealed. If they see fit, or someone captures the dam, they can hold to ransom all the people living in the new periphery of the Mediterranean Sea.
I'm startled to see extra-Earth modifications as objectionable. The universe is an endless landscape. The idea that the nearest available resources outside our ecosphere would be off-limits would effectively end human expansion. The moon and Mars are essentially dead, dry rocks, at least compared to any ecosystem on Earth (even the Antarctic).
In my view, its all sentiment. Saving a snail darter is demonstrably not worth the effort. The so-called 'ecosystem' we live in has been completely reformatted repeatedly by human intervention. And we're all still here. So its fragility is highly overstated.
And the intrinsic value of species is also overrated. Now that we're on the cusp of reinventing creatures through direct dna programming, native species become completely devalued. What does it matter which creatures happen to be occupying our planet when we came to a level of civilization? Its a coincidence; many more came before and went extinct, and we don't cry over them.
Just look at the artificial ecosystems we create - they aren't in and danger of collapsing - urban lawns, the vast corn crops of the bread basket, Phoenix. Clearly we're capable of rebuilding our own ecosystem, at least the rudiments of one. And we'll only get better at it.
>Just look at the artificial ecosystems we create - they aren't in and danger of collapsing
Have you seen what's been happening in California?
Do you not understand that areas without a reliable supply of water are literally uninhabitable? Or that observing your neighbour's green - or brown - lawn today says nothing about water availability two decades from now?
Ecosystems work until they don't. When they stop working, you are entirely screwed.
The point of thinking long-term is to avoid that outcome.
Saying 'Well it hasn't happened yet so it can't' is unscientific and entirely unrelated to how these things actually work.
Water availability is unrelated to ecosystem, at least the animal part. And we've arguably made the largest changes there in all off history - rerouting most water sources, tapping into lakes and seas. That's in fact a good argument for what we CAN do to 'terraform' our own planet.
The doomsday Armageddon argument about ecosystem collapse is bankrupt, principally because we have made such massive changes to the landscape and gotten away with it. We know more than we've ever known about waterway management, desalinization etc. There's no going back.
It is interesting that, according to the article, Roddenberry also incorporated the idea of a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar into one of his works.
Today, I expect that terraforming Mars and mining the moon will face significant opposition. Would massive land reclamation projects like those in the Netherlands ever happen today, if a particular hyper-conservation Western mindset were in place when they commenced? We can't even let go of outdated urban streetscapes, and buildings past their useful lifespans[1], so it isn't far-fetched to think of moon miners having to recreate impact craters on the moon's surface after mining them, if mining happened in the first place.
Large segments of humanity are becoming sclerotic. Even if [2] the positive effects of damming the Mediterranean (or terraforming central Australia or Antarctica) were found to outweigh the losses, and the impacts could be mitigated, it would still be extremely unlikely to happen, for sentimental reasons.
[1] See recent news about Lloyds of London building, which has became an expensive burden, but can't be touched because of its "iconic" status
[2] yes, obviously there are risks, and they would need to be weighed carefully.