Listen: Would flooding Death Valley offset sea level rise?
The seas are rising. Humans have already pumped enough greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere to raise ocean levels up to 2 feet by the end of the century, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. If we do not curb our use of fossil fuels, we are looking at up to 7 feet. That rise could drive 2 billion people from their homes and cost $14 trillion a year. And once the seas go up, they will not fall — not on any human timescale. But what if they could? On the subreddit AskScience, one user proposed a potential solution: What if we took our excess seawater and dumped it into Death Valley? The national park, located in the Mojave Desert, reaches 282 feet below sea level and used to be the site of a massive lake.
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