NL-Outsidethebox [confederation]

Jonathon Swift said...

A Modest proposal to consider for the upcoming Canadian elections.

Rather than sitting out the election, one must be cognizant of current events which have a significant impact on Newfoundland and Labrador and which if left unaddressed may well result in the Labrador area especially being difficult to sustain a presence.

Over the last couple of days, media reports of slowing of the gulf stream have begun to attract attention. While several of these reports have dealt with the potential for significant changes in Europe’s climate, few if any have addressed the ramifications for the North American continent. From a cursory review, it quickly becomes apparent that if the test results from recent studies are correct, the speed and affects of the slowing of the gulf stream while not as rapid as in the move “The Day After Tomorrow” are clearly more rapid than most experienced climatologists expected. The result of this will be the likelihood of a seeming paradox, where global warming in effect starts at the very least a new Little Ice Age through Europe and large swaths of the North American continent.

Obviously something needs to be done and done quickly. It will no longer be possible to either ignore or study the phenomena as a mere scientific curiosity, but will require quick decisive action on the part of all countries who could potentially be affected.

After an exhaustive review of potential known solutions this author is sorry to report that he can find none which can avoid the circumstance since the speed of the change outways any measured response.

What is required is an unmeasured disaster avoidance triage where the fewest people are impacted with the least amount of overall economic and personal tragedy. To date none have been proposed. The Kyota accord while slowing the impact of new global warming actions does not contain active provisions if we as a species and ecosystem have already passed the “tipping point” towards a naturally unreversable stopping of the gulf stream. No natural solution will prevail it seems.

However, from that same review of the literature available, there does appear to be a simple method by which the large bulk of European and North American culture, population, and economics can be salvaged with minimal impact. In order to avoid the worst repercussions of this potential calamity, some method of reducing the introduction of fresh water into the North Atlantic must be found quickly.

Fresh water emerges into the North Atlantic at the present time from the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, and the various rivers from Europe and North America. Except for the Greenland ice sheet, by far the largest contributor is the Saint Lawrence seaway where between the outflow by the Straits of Belle Isle, and the edge of the Gaspe Peninsula, tremendous amounts of fresh water outflow from the North American continent.

What is interesting is that near Chicago, the Chicago river has been linked by the canal with the Mississippi river.

The proposal in its simplest form is to damn up the external tie to the Atlantic Ocean from the Saint Lawrence seaway by coffer damming at the Straits of Belle Isle. This blockage would initially divert all of the outflow from the Saint Lawrence towards Prince Edward Islance. This would assist in buying some time to address the larger disaster mitigation effort, but would also allow Newfoundland, Labrador and Quebec to be landlinked providing large benefits to the people of these regions. This land tie will be necessary for the second steps in the disaster mitigation plan

Concurrent with this coffer damming would be the rapid widening of the Chicago river to approximately 35 miles in width. While this would have a significant detrimental impact to the city of Chicago initially the outflow of support from all the people of Western Europe and Asia along with the establishment of a new port facility for Missisppi river traffic would more than offset the commercial and practical objections. This widened canal would then be available to reroute the frigid cold water flow of the Saint Lawrence seayway through the Mississippi river directly to the gulf of Mexico, by the establishment of a second dam somewhat immediately northeast of the Saguenay river.

One of the unfortunate short term consequences of this action would be the likely over flow of a few major cities including Ottowa, Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Buffalo New York, Cleveland Detroit, Toledo and perhaps a few others. In order to minimize this impact, the citizens of these areas could be relocated into unaffected areas, such as the outports of Newfoundland, and the Appalachian areas of the United States. By providing a direct routing of cold fresh water to the Gulf of Mexico, some of the direct impacts of global warming would be minimized and would likely cause a recovery of the gulf stream within a few decades at most.

What this would do for the United States is uncertain, but it is likely to be somewhat of an economic boon while at the same time becoming a political nightmare. Since only the largest of the industrial conglomerates would be able to bid on the project, the most likely contract winner for the canal and damming operations would be Haliburton, and since the most likely areas of population movement would be from Chicago and Illinois, one might expect some marginal protestations from the Democratic delegation from these and a few other states. The solution could be made palatable through a variety of means, including if needed, the creation of new states and additional senators as some states now find tranvel across the 25 mile average wide canal more difficult. This approach is now an option due to recent US Supreme Court rulings on eminent domain

What this would do for Canada would be somewhat a mixture of good news and bad news. From a Canadian point of view, warm water port access would become practical, although the shifts in population from Quebec and Ontario to Newfoundland, and the prairie provinces may cause political waves. However, it must be remembered that this if for the good of all. Additionally, the damming of the Saint Lawrence seaway would result in the entirety of the island of Newfoundland to be more of a peninsula with a more significant land mass as most of the drainage out of the Northumberland and Gulf of Saint Lawrence resulted in more territory. The remaining portions of the province of Quebec on the southern part of the seaway would in all likelihood be completely isolated from the Northern remnants and may well need to consider combining their parliamentary blocs into a single unified whole by merger with the province of New Brunswick. The northern portion would of course be most likely merged with Labrador and Newfoundland which because of these changes may well see a warmer drier climate. As for the remnants of the province of Ontario, since so much of this is at a relatively low sea level, it might be best if those issues were addressed with the survivors. The resulting shifts in population for Canada would appear to leave Manitoba, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick with roughly equivalent population bases.

As a result, participation in the upcoming elections is critical. Otherwise, the only people able to represent Newfoundland and Labrador which will be sitting under 125' of ice will be the MP's vacationing in Florida.

So vote for a greater, larger and warmer Newfoundland and Labrador..

Oh,,,, and just in case.. buy stock in Haliburton if you have any money to do it with