Thread by @Mikeachim

When my Zanclean Megaflood thread went nuts in February, some folk said "look into a thing called Atlantropa! It's just as mindblowing!"

They weren't wrong. And now I can't get *this* story out my head either.

So, once more, here we go.

1/

It's 1928.

This is German architect Herman Sörgel. Horrified by the First World War, keen to see everyone put down their weapons & actually, properly work together for a change, he's just had a idea that would solve *everything*.

He's going to drain the Mediterranean.

2/

No, really. It's simple!

All it would take is a series of dams:

- Across the Gibraltar Strait
- Across the Dardanelles to hold back the Black Sea
- Between Sicily and Tunisia, road-linking Europe & Africa
- At the Suez Canal.

Easy-peasy.

3/

By cutting off the Atlantic that replenishes it, Sörgel would engineer a new Messinian Salinity Crisis, the ancient event that dessicated the Mediterranean.

After a mere century or two, the western Med would have evaporate itself about 100m deeper than the Atlantic side...

4/

...and a hydroelectric dam across the 9 miles / 14 km wide Atlantic Strait would generate enough electricity for *everyone*.

Of course, it'd be the biggest dam in history, requiring more concrete than existed on Earth. And only be the first of five!

But Sörgel had a DREAM.

5/

If everyone ploughed their money into *this*, surely they wouldn't have enough left over to build armies, navies, air forces?

And their reward for cooperation was a bottomless renewable energy money-pit.

Awesome! Except...

6/

...the fifth dam would be on the Congo, flooding the vast basin of land around Lake Chad - pop. today: 20-30 million.

And "Atlantropa" --> Atlantic + Europe. It was by Europeans, FOR Europeans (the wealthier ones).

A final, terrible part of the 'Scramble for Africa'.

7/

But beyond the colossal amount of Yikes there - was Sörgel onto something here?

After all, check out this map of the land gained from a 100-metre drop of the Med. 660,000 km²! (By comparison, Spain is 500,000 km².)

Is this a vision of the future we could all embrace?

8/

LOL. No, mate. It's pretty much loopy from start to finish.

eg. Hey, where would all that evaporating water go? (Answer: into other seas, with dire consequences elsewhere.)

What about wildlife?

And everyone working smoothly together for a common goal? How, um...ambitious.

9/

Nevertheless, maybe (smaller, saner) megaprojects can stir lots of people into action.

If we're best motivated when we "long for the immensity of the sea" as @calflyn quotes here...

prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/clima…

...maybe we'd *also* get excited about the shape of our boat?

10/

This is a story from my newsletter, which is about things that make you go WOW:

everythingisamazing.substack.com

I just wrapped this season, which was all about oceans, megafloods and (in this case) architects with *literally* no sense of proportion...

11/

...and this is what the next season is about.

everythingisamazing.substack.com/p/colourful-qu…

OK, enough shameless self-promoting. If you want to know more about Atlantropa...

12/

...@EverywhereTrip has a great overview on his podcast:

everything-everywhere.com/atlantropa-the…

(I can't argue with the title either.)

13/

And here's the mighty @atlasobscura on it:

atlasobscura.com/articles/the-b…

(Again with the Yep-That's-The-Right-Title thing.)

14/

And finally, if you didn't yet know about the Zanclean Megaflood? Oh boy, this one will blow your mind - because it actually happened*:

https://twitter.com/Mikeachim/status/1491080740586782720

Whew. Ok. I'm done.

Thank you for reading!

*Proposed, but backed up with highly compelling evidence.