Over there is Spain,

那邊是西班牙，

and over there, visible on the horizon,

另外那邊的地平線上，

is the north coast of Africa.

可以看到非洲最北端。

In the 1920s,

1920年代，

a German architect named Herman Sörgel saw an opportunity right here.

德國建築師赫曼‧索戈在這裡看到了機會。

He came up with a plan:

他有個計劃：

to drain the Mediterranean Sea.

抽乾地中海。

It didn't seem entirely impossible.

看起來並非全無可能，

The Mediterranean naturally evaporates:

地中海不停在蒸發，

more water comes in from the Atlantic than flows out,

從大西洋補注的海水比流出去的多。

so if you actually managed to put a dam across the Straits of Gibraltar,

如果你能蓋一座橫跨直布羅陀海峽的大壩，

the sea would slowly start to dry up.

整座海自然會慢慢乾涸。

Sörgel said that, after the sea level had dropped maybe 100 or 200 metres,

索戈表示，當海平面下降100到200公尺，

and a fifth of the water area had turned to land,

露出五分之一的海底，

Europe and Africa would be united into one continent,

歐洲和非洲將連為一體，

and there'd be huge amounts of new land for settlement and agriculture.

且能獲得大量居住及農耕用地。

And you could use the dam as a massive hydro power station,

你還可以把那座大壩當成超級水力發電廠，

on a scale never considered before,

以前無古人的規模

letting just enough water through to meet the energy needs of all of his new continent.

放入適量的水，提供整座新大陸所需用電。

Sörgel made his plan public in the years after the First World War:

索戈在一次大戰之後公開了他的計畫，

perhaps, he thought, all that new land and exploration

他可能覺得，這麼多新土地和新建設

might be the solution to making sure there wasn't a Second.

能讓世界免於第二次大戰。

The project was called Atlantropa,

這個計畫稱為亞特蘭特羅帕，

and it is one of the most ambitious plans that has even been announced.

可說是有史以來最宏大的計畫之一，

It would have taken an effort on the scale of the Apollo moon shot.

需要相當於阿波羅登月行動的努力。

And it certainly got attention from the press and the public:

後來終於引起了媒體和大眾的注意，

but there were a few slight problems with it.

但還是有幾個小小的副作用：

First, there might not have been enough concrete in the world to build a dam that big,

首先，世界上可能沒有足夠的混凝土建造此等大壩，

let alone all the other secondary dams and earthworks elsewhere needed to make the project work.

還能讓其他次級水壩和地面各項工程開工。

And Sörgel didn't want the dam here,

而且索戈還不想在這裡建壩，

where the Strait of Gibraltar is narrowest, no,

也就是直布羅陀最窄處，

he wanted to build it about thirty kilometres that way, making it much, much longer.

他選在三十公里外的那邊，讓水壩長到逆天，

It'd have needed to be 300 metres high,

使其高達300公尺，

and the foundations would be two and a half kilometres wide.

整個地基足足寬達兩公里半。

But those are practicalities, right?

但這些都是必須的，對吧？

Humanity could probably overcome that with enough effort and enough political will.

人類只要夠努力加上夠多政治支持就能克服萬難......

Not that there would have been enough political will:

但是偏偏沒有夠多的政治支持。

the people on the Mediterranean coast would be, let's say,

住在地中海沿岸的居民恐怕反而很失望，

rather disappointed that they now lived inland,

因為他們一夕之間跑到內陸去了，

perhaps hundreds of miles from the sea.

可能距離海洋數百英里。

Venice and Genoa, the folks there, were particularly unhappy with that.

威尼斯(要開一條500公里長的運河才能出海) 和熱那亞人(計畫興建超級城市)尤其不爽，

The plan was popular in his native Germany but not particularly outside.

這計畫在德國還蠻受好評，但其他地方就難講了。

And as for Africa: well, it was the early 20th century,

至於非洲，在二十世紀早期，

their opinion apparently didn't matter.

非洲人人微言輕，沒辦法。

It wasn't so much a merging of Europe and Africa as an attempt at assimilation.

與其說歐洲是和非洲合併，不如說是同化。

But let's assume that, somehow, over decades,

但我們假設，要是幾十年後，

the Atlantropa project was built.

亞特蘭特羅帕計畫真能完成，

There would have been some other problems.

還會出現幾個問題。

All that new land would be salt flats,

所有的新土地通通都是鹽盤，

completely unusable for growing crops or... well, for anything, really.

完全無法種植作物或......好啦，根本一無是處。

And although Sörgel couldn't have known it at the time,

還有雖然索戈當時不會知道，

some meteorologists now reckon that the project might have diverted the Gulf Stream,

有些氣象學家預測該計畫將使墨西哥灣流改道，

sending temperatures plunging in most of Europe and ending local agriculture as we knew it.

讓歐洲大部分地區氣溫驟降，終結當地農業。

And also, when Sörgel first came up with his grand plan,

還有，當索戈剛提出偉大計畫時，

there likely wasn't a bomb in the world large enough to destroy a dam that big.

世界上還沒有炸彈大到能摧毀這麼大一座水壩，

Certainly not in one go, you could just about make it work...

至少無法一口氣炸掉，大壩仍能勉強運作。

but that changed quite quickly during the Second World War.

但二次大戰後一切都不一樣了。

Having a single point of failure for millions of people's homes and lives is not ideal.

任何小差錯都足以毀滅數百萬人的生命財產， 實在不太理想。

Sörgel died in 1952, and any hope of the project died with him,

索戈於1952年過世，消滅了該計畫最後一絲希望，

after he'd spent a lifetime promoting it.

縱使他花費畢生心血推廣它。

But his idea lives on in science fiction, and as a testament, perhaps,

但他的想法仍活在科幻中，也許作為一種證明，

not to how big we can actually build,

不是證明我們的建築能蓋多大，

but just how big we can dream.

而是證明我們的夢想能做多大。