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Panama Canal Drying Up And Hundreds Of Ships Are Stuck
Giant Freaking Robot via MSN ^ | 8-19-2023 | Kevin C. Neece

Posted on 08/20/2023 11:08:43 AM PDT by Vendome

In what is being called the “world’s worst traffic jam,” some 200 cargo ships are waiting to pass at the Panama Canal as, thanks to global climate change, the area experiences its worst drought in 100 years. As Futurism reports, the huge backlog has been growing for some time and might not get any better for a few weeks yet. The human-made passageway is famous not only as one of the world’s most impressive feats of engineering but as one of the most important trade routes on Earth.

"..the flow of ships at the Panama Canal started at about 1,000 vessels when it opened in 1914, that traffic has steadily increased. In the 2022 fiscal year, the passageway was crossed by over 14,200 ships, accounting for some 40% of U.S. container traffic and annually representing $270 billion in cargo. "

This might not seem like a lot, but the slowed passage has left an increasing number of ships waiting to cross the Panama Canal, now crossing the 200 mark and the wait for passage averaging 20 days. Due to the worsening drought, said canal administrator Ricaurte Vásquez Morales at a recent press conference, the restrictions could remain in effect through the rest of 2023, resulting in a loss of revenue estimated at $200 million.

“If we don’t adapt,” Morales says, “we are going to die.” It’ true for the Panama Canal, and for the planet as well.

....Oh well...

(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: just; sucks; this
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To: Vendome

This is stupid. It’s not like the Panama Canal is a land-locked lake - it connects two oceans! How the hell can it “dry up”?


61 posted on 08/20/2023 12:29:14 PM PDT by grobdriver (The CDC can KMA!)
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To: Don W
Awww!
No fair!
You read the article.
62 posted on 08/20/2023 12:30:23 PM PDT by skimbell
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To: Vendome

Hi.

Just checked the current (30 days) satellite view of the canal and it doesn’t look dry.

Maybe I’m missing something.

5.56mm


63 posted on 08/20/2023 12:32:52 PM PDT by M Kehoe (Quid Pro Joe and the Ho have got to go)
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To: Vendome

I’d say there is a smell of mismanagement in the air.

Besides, we won’t need the canal when the icecaps melt, anyway.


64 posted on 08/20/2023 12:36:25 PM PDT by smokingfrog ( sleep with one eye open (<o> --- )
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To: taxcontrol

“Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea” by Gary Kinder. One of the best non-fiction books I’ve ever read.

Tells of the passengers and First San Francisco minted gold out of the Calif Gold Rush being shipped to New York in 1857.

Ship leaves San Francisco in Sept 1857 - travels South to Panama where cargo and passengers are off-loaded. Mules and oxen pulling wagons and carts are used to cross over the 50 miles or so of country of Panama (pre-canal) to the Atlantic side. Here they load the Gold and passengers onto the SS Central America (a side-wheeler, btw) to complete trip up the East Coast of US to NY City.

Fabulous history.

And, surprisingly, I have not told you the good part — the adventure then begins.


65 posted on 08/20/2023 12:37:17 PM PDT by bunster
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To: Vendome

LOL. Wasn’t “global warming” supposed to make sea level rise? How the hell can a drought affect the level of the atlantic and pacific, oceans?


66 posted on 08/20/2023 12:40:00 PM PDT by zeugma (Stop deluding yourself that America is still a free country.)
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To: fella

The rotation of the earth

From west ( sunrise )

to east ( sunset )

1k miles / hr

Would

actually push the Atlantic up

Push the Pacific down

In grade school geography

It was interesting to learn

The tilted polar axis

Gives us seasons

The oval rotation

Makes the distance to the sun

Closer in the northern half

In the winter

Further in summer

Moderating the heating - cooling effect

Increasing it in the southern half

Hotter in the summer

Colder in the winter ( austrayleeahh )

’ StrayLeeyah ‘ shortened they say from there

Also

If your hundreds of miles from the equator

The nights / days never change

Also

You need the long summer days

To grow good sweet corn

Not enough daylight

To do it in Hawaii- calif too


67 posted on 08/20/2023 12:40:11 PM PDT by Firehath
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To: Spok
Since the canal is fed from the two oceans it links together, how can it dry up? I am puzzled.

Indeed. This doesn't even make sense.

68 posted on 08/20/2023 12:40:49 PM PDT by zeugma (Stop deluding yourself that America is still a free country.)
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To: M Kehoe

Are all you folks purposely faking ignorant replies?? Most people understand the Panama Canal locks aren’t fed from sea level water but from lake waters whose elevation is well above sea level. Hence, the need to raise & lower the ships at each end of the canal system.


69 posted on 08/20/2023 12:43:18 PM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TV)
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To: Spok

You go over higher lands with rain and springs feeding those high grounds thus the lifts.


70 posted on 08/20/2023 12:43:29 PM PDT by Joe Boucher (Kimber .45 )
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To: Firehath

Your format is way too annoying to read.

Try again...


71 posted on 08/20/2023 12:44:36 PM PDT by citizen (Put all LBQTwhatever programming on a new subscription service: PERV-TV)
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To: taxcontrol

1) build a rail system for container ships that would offload from one side cross the Panama hills and then load on other ships on the other side.

The Panama Canal Railway already does this. Capacity would need to increase though.
72 posted on 08/20/2023 12:45:06 PM PDT by railroader
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To: Magic Fingers
So what caused the one 100 years ago?

Systemic racism, probably.

73 posted on 08/20/2023 12:46:32 PM PDT by 17th Miss Regt ( )
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To: Don W

The Panama canal is fed from a series of lakes


This.

All of the water used for passage through the locks comes from the lakes fed by water from the rain forests. If there’s a drought that means there is less water available to use.

On the other hand didn’t Panama create a new set of larger locks to accommodate larger ships. These newer locks will require much more water. Maybe the new locks are using too much lake water.


74 posted on 08/20/2023 12:49:24 PM PDT by hanamizu ( )
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To: beethovenfan

I’m guessing China bought a few thousand ‘elties’ in DC (someone has to pay for their mansions, beach houses, fancy vacarions and $10.000 suits...) and they want permission to finish their new canal through Nicaragua...

Of course China would own it and it would costs American taxpayers billions of dollars... but China will cheerfully grease the hands of our DC grifters... so, it’ll happen.


75 posted on 08/20/2023 12:52:49 PM PDT by GOPJ (Hunter Biden’s pet name for his father on his cellphone. It was “Pedo Peter”. Jim Hoft )
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To: citizen

O

K


76 posted on 08/20/2023 12:54:15 PM PDT by Firehath
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To: Magic Fingers

Weren’t steam engines invented by Sir Isaac Watts around the 1700s? So that one (the drought ~100 years ago) must have been the fault of the British - the evil empire - and their use of coal to fuel steam engines. /sarc

(NOTE: Gloss over the inconvenient mathematical issues of how many years ago that was.)


77 posted on 08/20/2023 12:56:46 PM PDT by mbj
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To: citizen

Hi. I hope you are doing well.

The article is from...
Giant Freaking Robot via MSN ^ | 8-19-2023 | Kevin C. Neece

“Are all you folks purposely faking ignorant replies?”

Yes.

The author and his publisher should be ridiculed and laughed at.

5.56mm


78 posted on 08/20/2023 12:57:39 PM PDT by M Kehoe (Quid Pro Joe and the Ho have got to go)
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To: ClearCase_guy

ROFL!!!


79 posted on 08/20/2023 12:58:39 PM PDT by mbj
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To: Spok

If ocean levels are ACTUALLY RISING because of global warming, it’s even more confusing.


80 posted on 08/20/2023 1:04:13 PM PDT by coloradan (They're not the mainstream media, they're the gaslight media. It's what they do. )
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