Does it make sense to connect west and east coast via inland waterway e.g. Snake <-> Missouri river. Would it be too expensive? I assume nukes are out of the question.
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I wondered about this before:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27463198
It does seem like it would make sense for solving water issues in the southwest, at the very least.
> It does seem like it would make sense for solving water issues in the southwest, at the very least.
With apologies to those with real estate interests in large swathes of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, at some point you must understand the inherent absurdity of living in an increasingly-inhospitable desert climate, and that no amount of nuclear bombs with which to blast a saltwater canal through Mexico will change the fact that you should move to the Great Lakes if you want access to freshwater.
> at some point you must understand the inherent absurdity of living in an increasingly-inhospitable desert climate
As opposed to where, exactly?
The entire northern half of the United States can’t grow for shit because its summer growing season is a barely a few months long and the winters are inhospitable to everything except a winter squash or two. The center is a giant dust bowl because they tried to grow more than they could support. The East barely has any arable land without catastrophically deforesting the area.
That leaves the South which is either desert on the Western half or even more inhospitable swamp on the Eastern half. If the desert were really so bad, it wouldn’t be able to produce half the produce in the country plus extra for international export.
AFAIK The only desert state that produces a lot of produce is California and the southwest region by no means produces half of the nations produce (the Midwest is the nations breadbasket.)
Gonna need a source for this claim
My choice of words was imprecise. Produce as in stuff in the produce section of your supermarket (fruit and vegetables), not general agricultural products. Arizona produces a lot for its size too but California takes the cake:
> The Golden State’s agricultural abundance includes 400 different commodities. The state produces about half of U.S.-grown fruits, nuts and vegetables. With less than four percent of the nation’s farms and ranches, California produces over 13 % percent of the nation’s agricultural production value. [1]
Most of the rest of the agricultural production in the country is animals and animal feed (and ethanol and biofuels), not produce people want to actually eat directly.
[1] https://www.fsa.usda.gov/Internet/FSA_File/10cafacts_v3.pdf