3 ms·

> - flood low-lying areas during storms (see New Orleans, parts of the Netherlands, and Maldives now). I fully agree with your concerns regarding climate but s

> - flood low-lying areas during storms (see New Orleans, parts of the Netherlands, and Maldives now). I fully agree with your concerns regarding climate but specifically in the Netherlands the flooding of designated flood areas is actually by design, with well in advance warnings, these areas are pretty much designed to be escape valves. The Rijkswaterstaat even goes as far as monitoring upstream river flows from neighbouring countries to predict increased downstream river flow due to storms or alpine glaciar melts.

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
> The Rijkswaterstaat even goes as far as ... the Netherlands are already below sea level today - they had to think about building defenses since at least the Iron age[1]. So I guess they have somewhat a head-start. It should be in their "DNA" by now, some kind of "collective cognitive muscle memory" (still for such a tiny country and floods being a real threat already since always even they have many climate change deniers). For small countries zoning solutions can be applied everywhere equally (from both an engineering and administrative view). But Dutch dikes lend themselves poorly for comparisons against places that occupy the land of half a continent ranging from the arctic to the tropics and 6 time zones. I'm not saying it isn't a useful model in select regions/countries. but considering how poorly managed public safety is in the US today[2] it sadly takes more than ideas to prevent major loss of life. From [2]: "> You may wish to pretend that rising seas are a hoax perpetrated by scientists and a gullible news media. Or you can build barriers galore. But in the end, neither will provide adequate defense, the Dutch say." "> And what holds true for managing climate change applies to the social fabric, too. Environmental and social resilience should go hand in hand, officials here believe, improving neighborhoods, spreading equity and taming water during catastrophes." Millions will either be displaced or dead until the threat might be acknowledged. Even them I'm pessimistic considering folk on the ICU literally die of covid and still clam it is a hoax. I think the way people cope will be simply by tuning out the horror reports the same way we do today simply because the effects/damage will be distributed unevenly. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/climate-change-rotterdam.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/... [1] http://dutchdikes.net/history/ http://dutchdikes.net/history/ [2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...

DyslexicAtheist 6y ago

> The Rijkswaterstaat even goes as far as ... the Netherlands are already below sea level today - they had to think about building defenses since at least the Iron age[1]. So I guess they have somewhat a head-start. It should be in their "DNA" by now, some kind of "collective cognitive muscle memory" (still for such a tiny country and floods being a real threat already since always even they have many climate change deniers). For small countries zoning solutions can be applied everywhere equally (from both an engineering and administrative view). But Dutch dikes lend themselves poorly for comparisons against places that occupy the land of half a continent ranging from the arctic to the tropics and 6 time zones. I'm not saying it isn't a useful model in select regions/countries. but considering how poorly managed public safety is in the US today[2] it sadly takes more than ideas to prevent major loss of life. From [2]: "> You may wish to pretend that rising seas are a hoax perpetrated by scientists and a gullible news media. Or you can build barriers galore. But in the end, neither will provide adequate defense, the Dutch say." "> And what holds true for managing climate change applies to the social fabric, too. Environmental and social resilience should go hand in hand, officials here believe, improving neighborhoods, spreading equity and taming water during catastrophes." Millions will either be displaced or dead until the threat might be acknowledged. Even them I'm pessimistic considering folk on the ICU literally die of covid and still clam it is a hoax. I think the way people cope will be simply by tuning out the horror reports the same way we do today simply because the effects/damage will be distributed unevenly. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/climate-change-rotterdam.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/15/world/europe/... [1] http://dutchdikes.net/history/ http://dutchdikes.net/history/ [2] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...