As the rising sea levels resulting from global warming only cause a problem at high tide, couldn't we postpone the difficulties by doing something about the moon? - either moving it further away or blowing it up and giving Earth a ring like Saturn?
by 
fred flintstone
ANSWERS: 2
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The rising sea levels will cause a problem at all tides. Removing the tidal scour would probably dramatically effect the productivity of the oceans. The tides are what mix up the oceans and move the silt (and pollution) away from the coasts. Without tides, the inner coasts would become silty and polluted and the outer areas barren. Have you any idea of the energy cost of moving the moon? Remember that it has been powering the tides for more than three billion years, in which time it has perhaps doubled its distance from the earth. To move it out to where it stopped creating tides, we would have to put a similar amount of energy to that which powered powered the tides over that time Similarly, the energy to break it up would be magnitudes greater than anything we can do (an underground nuclear test creates a hole about 12 metres across, so you would need tens of millions of nukes to break up the moon.
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Sounds like a good idea to me. What could possibly go wrong? Besides destabilizing Earth's orbit, that is.
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