Build Martian canals on Earth

Percival Lowell, Edgar Rice Burroughs and the Aetherius Society were able to come up with all sorts of reasons why the non-existent Martian canals should exist. I suggest that we build similar canals here.

Find level ground between large bodies of water such as the Great Lakes, the Caspian and Black Seas, Lake Victoria and the oceans, then dig diagonal (e.g. NW to SE) canals between them pointing in the appropriate direction, around a kilometre wide. Grow strips of crops next to them for maybe forty or so kilometres either side and allow salt or fresh water to move along them, powered partly by the Coriolis Effect. Use the salt in the water as a source of mineral resources, the water for arid areas and give them their own ecosystem to provide sea food far from the sea. Put turbines in them to provide power - Coriolis Effect again. Use them as a means of transport. Desalinate the water completely when it reaches the lakes.

Build them big enough to be seen through a telescope from Mars.