Over two dozen scientists have proposed a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border that we should start building right now.

Donald Trump’s promise to build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border is one of the most grandiose and unnecessary policies ever pursued in U.S. history for seven simple reasons:
1. The population of undocumented people living in the U.S. is at its lowest point in a decade.
2. In 2017, the number of illegal border crossings is at a 46-year low.
3. Over 40% of people who come to the U.S. illegally do so via airplane.
4. Most unauthorized immigrants came here legally and overstay their visas.
5. Most drugs that enter the country don’t come across the southern border.
6. It’s a ridiculous waste of taxpayer dollars.
7. Undocumented immigrants actually cause less crime than native-born Americans.
Facts be damned, Trump’s supporters are in love with the idea of walling ourselves off from our neighbor to the south.
So a consortium of 28 engineers from a dozen universities have come up with a genius idea that satisfies their fiendish desire for a wall while making a huge commitment to alternative energy.
The engineers devised a plan to create a 2,000-mile long industrial park on the border that would include desalination facilities, solar energy panels, wind turbines, and natural gas pipelines.
The park would require heavy security that can do double duty making sure that nobody crosses the border with a pocket full of weed.
[rebelmouse-image 19480294 dam="1" original_size="572x309" caption="via Purdue University" expand=1]via Purdue University
According to a white paper released by the group, the border is an ideal location for generating alternative energy. “Given that most of the southern border lies in arid or semi-arid regions having high solar irradiation and wind, an energy park along the border is both feasible and desirable,” the paper reads.
The amount of solar energy production would be staggering.
The white paper estimates that a solar park along the entire border would produce the same amount of energy as the the hydropower production along the U.S.-Canada border and approximately the same amount that would be generated by a nuclear plant.
The eco-friendly wall would also create jobs and help foster cooperation between the two nations instead of division. It will also help bring together Americans of all political stripes for positive change.
“Democrats want a Green New Deal. Republicans want border security,” Luciano Castillo, a professor of energy and power at Purdue University who leads the group, told Scientific American. “Both parties could win. It could be a win–win for the U.S. and Mexico, too. This idea could spark a completely new conversation about the border. And we need that.”
The team has presented the plan to three U.S. representatives and one senator.
Men try to read the most disturbing comments women get online back to them.
If you wouldn't say it to their faces, don't type it.
This isn’t comfortable to talk about.
Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault and violence.
in 2016, a video by Just Not Sports took two prominent female sportswriters and had regular guys* read the awful abuse they receive online aloud.
Sportswriters Sarah Spain and Julie DiCaro sat by as men read some of the most vile tweets they receive on a daily basis. See how long you can last watching it.
*(Note: The men reading them did not write these comments; they're just being helpful volunteers to prove a point.)
It starts out kind of jokey but eventually devolves into messages like this:
Awful.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
These types of messages come in response to one thing: The women were doing their jobs.
Those wishes that DiCaro would die by hockey stick and get raped? Those were the result of her simply reporting on the National Hockey League's most disturbing ordeal: the Patrick Kane rape case, in which one of the league's top players was accused of rape.
DiCaro wasn't writing opinion pieces. She was simply reporting things like what the police said, statements from lawyers, and just general everyday work reporters do. In response, she received a deluge of death threats. Her male colleagues didn't receive nearly the same amount of abuse.
It got to the point where she and her employer thought it best for her to stay home for a day or two for her own physical safety.
The men in the video seemed absolutely shocked that real live human beings would attack someone simply for doing their job.
Not saying it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Most found themselves speechless or, at very least, struggling to read the words being presented.
It evoked shame and sympathy.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
Think this is all just anecdotal? There's evidence to the contrary.
The Guardian did a study to find out how bad this problem really is. They combed through more than 70 million comments that have been posted on their site since 2006 and counted the number of comments that violated their comment policy and were blocked.
The stats were staggering.
From their comprehensive and disturbing article:
If you can’t say it to their face... don’t type it.
All images and GIFs from Just Not Sports/YouTube.
So, what can people do about this kind of harassment once they know it exists?
There are no easy answers. But the more people who know this behavior exists, the more people there will be to tell others it's not OK to talk to anyone like that.
Watch the whole video below:
.This article originally appeared nine years ago.