I'm not a big fan of the Pacific Ocean. There. I said it. I like water/land interfaces. Coasts, rivers, lakeshores, beaches, coral reefs, tide pools. The Pacific Ocean has too few of these. So … let's fix it. Here's an idea I had from around 2003 but never blogged about:

Drawing of earth with volcanic islands added
I couldn't find a whiteboard drawing from 2003 but I have this newer one

The Hawaiian islands are great. Why not make more of them? Let's drill into the mantle and bring up more magma. Use this magma to form fractally-shaped islands throughout the Pacific Ocean. Dubai has tried this with sand islands on a small scale but they're doing it by the coast; I think we should do it in open ocean.

  • This creates lots of coastlines. Coastlines are good for life: more tide pools, more coral reefs. Coastlines are enjoyable for people: more beaches.
  • Bringing up magma has potential for geothermal energy. We'll use this for desalination for drinking water and hydroponic gardens.

The Pacific is so vast that there's space for everyone on earth to live near the beach. We can then move most humans off of the other continents and reclaim them for nature, biodiversity, and sightseeing.

I don't think it's feasible any time soon, but maybe in a few centuries…

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