April 4, 2016

There are two main components to the global water crisis exacerbated by climate change: drought and flooding. While temporary phenomena like El Niño mask the long-term nature of the former, doing nothing will not save cities like New York, Miami, New Orleans or Dacca from the ocean’s relentless rise.

Plan A could solve both while simultaneously ending the use of fossil fuels and nuclear fission to generate electricity. In a nutshell, it calls for flooding with seawater natural below-sea-level depressions and dry lake beds in sparsely populated areas in the western U.S., southern Argentina and western Egypt. In addition to generating clean energy, it  should reduce the expected increase in ocean rise and simultaneously create a new source of fresh water wherever desalination is impractical or impossible.