Not sure how this guy’s “sand from elsewhere” plan is going to hold up with the global supply of sand dwindling as quickly as it is.
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AIUI, absolutely not my field, beach sand is not really usable for construction. That’s why they mine it.
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And yet beaches are being stripped to fulfill the need.
“The sand we need is the more angular stuff found in the beds, banks, and floodplains of rivers, as well as in lakes and on the seashore. The demand for that material is so intense that around the world, riverbeds and beaches are being stripped bare, and farmlands and forests torn up to get at the precious grains. And in a growing number of countries, criminal gangs have moved in to the trade, spawning an often lethal black market in sand.”
I’m sure there will always be sand for the wealthy, though, even if there are no beaches.
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I’m pretty sure some of those articles included the government offering to buy them all out too. And that they refused, instead having he government implement a mitigation plan. One that will clearly not work long term. Getting a lifeline and turning it down is quite a choice. Buying property from someone who already did that is another stunning choice.
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I really wish the interviewer’s next question was, “How do you feel about socialism?”
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What do you expect from a former Methodist Revival Camp?
Where is your god now I ask? Swimming?
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Instead of spending money on sand, I’m told these things are good at keeping the sea in its place. But I expect they’d reject such a notion as spoiling the view or not being a “beach”.
Here’s some giant examples with parkour as a bonus.
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Others have posted examples of these elsewhere but I recently saw these beauties in the Azores. The scale is hard to capture, your vid post did a good job, but those things are huge.
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I think the things in the parkour video are about 3-4 times the size of the others. The Wikipedia article has some possibly even larger ones pictured.
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I broke my coccyx just looking at that. Recreationally, I’d rather have a beach.
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Not a climate change guy, but he’s definitely a “privatize profits, socialize losses” welfare-for-the-rich guy.
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I also took a picture of them when we went to the Azores in 2014, mostly because they reminded me of my childhood.
They are enormous!
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We need a banana for scale.
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Which is why, so far, these types of solutions haven’t become common on US shorelines. Maybe after watching a few $600k sand piles wash away with millions of dollars in property people will start taking a different approach.
Oh, in the case of the Azores, the other side has a wonderful series of beaches:
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Let’s just say that the ones I saw could fit 15 medium-sized bananas in a circle, surrounding the top narrower part. My husband thinks bigger, perhaps 15 larger bananas (or 20 medium-sized), so take the average?
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It’s literally sinking in after every round of sand dune replacement. He is a fool for sunk costs and investments that are underwater by design!
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So by my math, about 15/pi (roughly five) medium-to-large bananas across the diameter of the top narrower part?
That’s huge.
Thanks!
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