Fifty Plus (50+) - Visionary on a Bicycle

I think that most drivers think of people on bicycles as nobodies. It's as if being on a bicycle automatically shrinks our sphere of influence to a small circle.

Well we all know of the pictures of Einstein on a bicycle. But here's another fellow, Herman Sörgel. He was killed in a bicycle/automobile accident at age 67 while riding to give a lecture. Here is what he was working on.

Atlantropa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa) Amazing.

http://www.fabiofeminofantascience.org/RETROFUTURE/atlantropasmall.jpg

Ah, the arrogance of the human race, looking to terraform the world to our specifications. There are some folks in New Orleans who might quibble with Mr. Sorgel's vision.

It's too bad he died for being on his bike, but that doesn't mean I'm impressed with his plan. Did he account for the variable mass for whales and water?

I think that most drivers think of people on bicycles as nobodies. It's as if being on a bicycle automatically shrinks our sphere of influence to a small circle. . . .

It occurs to me there is also much to rejoice at in being one of Earth's "nobodies". Being in an "insignificant” demographic we are not the target of political rhetoric; not targets of marketing; not victims of religious coercion. We only fall victim to these things when we join the land of the “somebodies”.

It occurs to me there is also much to rejoice at in being one of Earth's "nobodies". Being in an "insignificant” demographic we are not the target of political rhetoric; not targets of marketing; not victims of religious coercion. We only fall victim to these things when we join the land of the “somebodies”.

Your words call to mind one of my favorite poems:

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us--don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!
--Emily Dickinson

It's too bad he died for being on his bike, but that doesn't mean I'm impressed with his plan. Did he account for the variable mass for whales and water?

I discovered this just today. There was a show on TV about Atlantropa. It started out with these utopic 3d renderings of Genoa as done to his plans. And then when I discovered the full extent of his ideas, it was just amazing. That the dam was technically feasible, yet the amazing scale of changes that he planned to achieve with it. I don't recall anyone thinking on that big a scale. James Bond's opponents should be so mad.

From current perspectives, you can see his hubris, and his parochial "white man's burden" thinking. Had he been able to do it, no doubt it would have been an ecological disaster. He reminds me of Ayn Rand's character John Galt. This idea was architecture writ large, and he didn't seem to fathom how it would really affect millions of people who would be forced to live with it.

At the same time, that he died at age 67, bicycling to give a professional lecture says to me that he really loved bicycling and tended to a car-light or carfree lifestyle in the golden age of the automobile. It's quite a contrast of his enormous thinking and a humble vehicle. I find that inspiring. Do you think it is possible that he might have included a bike path around the Mediterranean? :rolleyes:

The Mediterranean has been dry in the past. There was a huge waterfall at Gibraltar when the ocean level rose again.

From THE DAY THE MEDITERRANEAN DRIED UP (http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/pciesiel/gly3150/med_story.html)


During the late Miocene (~6 million years ago) compressional tectonic forces and lower sea level combined to bring the Gibraltar sill above sea level. As the last Atlantic waters dripped over into the Mediterranean, this body of water began to become a hypersaline lake as evaporation exceeded precipitation. Over the next 1000 years, this lake became lower and progressively saltier. Finally deep basins thousands of feet deep became little more than salt flats surrounded by the exposed marginal walls of the European and African continental slopes. Surrounding rivers flowed outover the exposed continental shelves and then cascaded in enormous braided waterfalls into the deep basin. The Mediterranean had become a deep hole, dwarfing the Grand Canyon. The surrounding climate of the region became cooler and drier as an important moisture source disappeared.

There are some folks in New Orleans who might quibble with Mr. Sorgel's vision.Then again, Dutch people don't seem to mind living behind dams. And when they went about building those dams (after their Zeeland disaster in 1953), they visited New Orleans but decided to raise the bar significantly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4607452.stm

I agree about Atlantropa though, it's difficult to see it as anything else than a huge ecological disaster. Just look at what the Soviets did to the Aral sea.

--J

This thread could only appear in the 50+ forum. {And that is a good thing.** The reference to the Aral sea was obscure but brilliant. :beer::beer:

The reference to the Aral sea was obscure but brilliant. :beer::beer:Sorry for the obscure reference, I have to confess I'm too young (40) for this Forum. :o :D

--J