4 ms·

I can't comment on most of it. But about the Netherlands, this will not happen. Everybody knows that the Netherlands is currently already below sea level, and h

by waps 12y ago

I can't comment on most of it. But about the Netherlands, this will not happen. Everybody knows that the Netherlands is currently already below sea level, and has been for over three hundred years. So if you made this kind of map for the Netherlands, for the sea level in 1901, nearly all of the Netherlands, and large pieces of Belgium and Germany would already be declared under water. Most of Zeeland, North and West Flanders, Flevoland, and large parts of Utrecht and Noord Holland are reclaimed from the sea, starting in the 17th century (they won 3 wars by partially turning back reclaiming efforts during battles). There was a point in history when Brussels had a seaport. Ghent was built as a seaport, now it's 50km inland. When Ghent became unusable, they built Brughes as a seaport. That one is now 15-20km inland. Without constant effort, these would simply be reclaimed by the sea, not in a hundred years, not in a thousand years, but in a month or two. The effort to prevent that has been a necessity for 2-3 centuries, and they obviously are not about to stop doing it. So I would bet that these governments will continue to raise land (importing sand mostly from germany), dam rivers as required and control their elevation and coastal tides to compensate. Hell I've heard about a plan to put a dam in the channel, which would slow down the currents and make the land reclimation a lot easier and eventually create a continuous land area into the UK. The UK doesn't like this at all, but if national geographic is right, and it's either something like that, or lose London, I see that changing.

sxcurry 12y ago
Did you read the accompanying text? It talks about a 216 foot rise in sea level.
- jonathanyc 12y ago
  waps is talking about how the 216' rise would play out in real life, while you and National Geographic are assuming an instantaneous 216' rise as a visualization tool. I don't see why his reading the text should be questioned as a result of his raising an relevant and related consideration.
- pdonis 12y ago
  > It talks about a 216 foot rise in sea level In 5000 years. That's a lot of time to adapt.
jakozaur 12y ago
Most likely only a fraction of globe could afford this massive earth engineering. Some places like Mediterranean/Baltic sea are easier will be easier to protect. Most aren't. On the other hand, even in pessimistic scenarios the sea would rise very slowly, so we will have time to build this thing. Even better and cheaper, stop putting that much CO2 into atmosphere.
- pdonis 12y ago
  > Even better and cheaper, stop putting that much CO2 into atmosphere. You're assuming that that will fix the problem. But the climate models that have enough positive feedback dialed in to amplify the effect of CO2 into something significant are overpredicting warming by a significant amount; so it may well be that stopping CO2 emissions won't help to stop climate change.
- baddox 12y ago
  > Most likely only a fraction of globe could afford this massive earth engineering. Do you have an estimate on the costs of such engineering, and better yet, a comparison against the estimated cost of preventing climate change enough that this engineering isn't necessary?
  - waps 12y ago
    Given that raising land up to 8-10 meters was done with the economy of the 18th century, even back then mostly done as a for-profit venture, I'd say it's not all that much.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  >>> Even better and cheaper, stop putting that much CO2 into atmosphere. You might want to talk to China about that. At least the US has been actively trying to reduce emissions for some time now. China, India and other countries simply don't give a fuck and won't sign any treaties that attempt to reduce CO2 emissions. Also, when alternative energies are actually affordable for more middle and lower income families, you'll probably get more buy-in. As it sits right now, unless you have a lot of cash laying around, affordable, renewable energy isn't likely: $35,000 for a Prius? $30,000 for a small solar array with a 10+ year ROI? $63,000 for a Tesla (the actual overall cost environmentally speaking is actually higher CO2 wise than most current SUV's) Maybe someday, but that day is so far off, I'm not sure its feasible.
callesgg 12y ago
I for one would not like to live behind a several thousand km seawall that is 65m high. When that wall then breaks the only way to not die is to own a helicopter or airplane.
- morkfromork 12y ago
  house boat
- skrebbel 12y ago
  You imagine a wall but it'll be a dike. Very tall, probably very gently sloped inland to allow for fancy housing projects with height difference! (no hills in the Netherlands, so people would pay a lot to live on top of one)
Someone 12y ago
Gent and Brussels had connections to the Scheldt, but never were on the coast. As to the building of 75m high dikes: problem would be how one would get rid of the water of the Rhine and Meuse. Pump it up 75m into the sea? The Dutch would make an economical assessment at some time, and will likely give up polders as a result. That has happened on small scale already. I think the most likely mid term scenario would be to get to a state where sea defenses are built not to keep the sea away, but to keep waves caused by storms away, and to have floating municipalities (floating, say, the center of Amsterdam would be a nice technical challenge) Alternatively, one could slowly move the population to Germany (if the area of livable land diminishes, this likely will happen naturally). 5000 years is a long time.
- waps 12y ago
  > Gent and Brussels had connections to the Scheldt, but never were on the coast. That's true. Both Ghent and Brussels had harbours that were on the coast though. The Brussels one was less than 20km from the city center, the Ghent one less than 5. And those harbors, were technically on the Schelde river, sure. But the Schelde is a river delta. Where does the coast start ? At the end of the river (which was a ~150km stretch of nothing but water), or where the waves stop (there were tides and waves in the Brussels harbour). So I see where the argument comes from, but let's be fair here : they were as much on the coast as, say, Rotterdam harbor is today. I think most people would agree that is on the coast.
  - Someone 12y ago
    Rotterdam on the coast? That is technically true (Hook of Holland is part of the municipality of Rotterdam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_of_Holland) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_of_Holland)), but I doubt you will find many Dutchmen who think so. Also, 'where the waves stop' is not where the sea ends. That can easily be 100 km inland. Dordrecht used to have serious tides, and the tidal bore of the Amazon goes as much as 800 km inland (at least according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pororoca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pororoca)

by waps 12y ago

sxcurry 12y ago

Did you read the accompanying text? It talks about a 216 foot rise in sea level.

jonathanyc 12y ago
waps is talking about how the 216' rise would play out in real life, while you and National Geographic are assuming an instantaneous 216' rise as a visualization tool. I don't see why his reading the text should be questioned as a result of his raising an relevant and related consideration.
pdonis 12y ago
> It talks about a 216 foot rise in sea level In 5000 years. That's a lot of time to adapt.

jakozaur 12y ago

Most likely only a fraction of globe could afford this massive earth engineering. Some places like Mediterranean/Baltic sea are easier will be easier to protect. Most aren't. On the other hand, even in pessimistic scenarios the sea would rise very slowly, so we will have time to build this thing. Even better and cheaper, stop putting that much CO2 into atmosphere.

pdonis 12y ago
> Even better and cheaper, stop putting that much CO2 into atmosphere. You're assuming that that will fix the problem. But the climate models that have enough positive feedback dialed in to amplify the effect of CO2 into something significant are overpredicting warming by a significant amount; so it may well be that stopping CO2 emissions won't help to stop climate change.
baddox 12y ago
> Most likely only a fraction of globe could afford this massive earth engineering. Do you have an estimate on the costs of such engineering, and better yet, a comparison against the estimated cost of preventing climate change enough that this engineering isn't necessary?
- waps 12y ago
  Given that raising land up to 8-10 meters was done with the economy of the 18th century, even back then mostly done as a for-profit venture, I'd say it's not all that much.
at-fates-hands 12y ago
>>> Even better and cheaper, stop putting that much CO2 into atmosphere. You might want to talk to China about that. At least the US has been actively trying to reduce emissions for some time now. China, India and other countries simply don't give a fuck and won't sign any treaties that attempt to reduce CO2 emissions. Also, when alternative energies are actually affordable for more middle and lower income families, you'll probably get more buy-in. As it sits right now, unless you have a lot of cash laying around, affordable, renewable energy isn't likely: $35,000 for a Prius? $30,000 for a small solar array with a 10+ year ROI? $63,000 for a Tesla (the actual overall cost environmentally speaking is actually higher CO2 wise than most current SUV's) Maybe someday, but that day is so far off, I'm not sure its feasible.

callesgg 12y ago

I for one would not like to live behind a several thousand km seawall that is 65m high. When that wall then breaks the only way to not die is to own a helicopter or airplane.

morkfromork 12y ago
house boat
skrebbel 12y ago
You imagine a wall but it'll be a dike. Very tall, probably very gently sloped inland to allow for fancy housing projects with height difference! (no hills in the Netherlands, so people would pay a lot to live on top of one)

Someone 12y ago

Gent and Brussels had connections to the Scheldt, but never were on the coast. As to the building of 75m high dikes: problem would be how one would get rid of the water of the Rhine and Meuse. Pump it up 75m into the sea? The Dutch would make an economical assessment at some time, and will likely give up polders as a result. That has happened on small scale already. I think the most likely mid term scenario would be to get to a state where sea defenses are built not to keep the sea away, but to keep waves caused by storms away, and to have floating municipalities (floating, say, the center of Amsterdam would be a nice technical challenge) Alternatively, one could slowly move the population to Germany (if the area of livable land diminishes, this likely will happen naturally). 5000 years is a long time.

waps 12y ago
> Gent and Brussels had connections to the Scheldt, but never were on the coast. That's true. Both Ghent and Brussels had harbours that were on the coast though. The Brussels one was less than 20km from the city center, the Ghent one less than 5. And those harbors, were technically on the Schelde river, sure. But the Schelde is a river delta. Where does the coast start ? At the end of the river (which was a ~150km stretch of nothing but water), or where the waves stop (there were tides and waves in the Brussels harbour). So I see where the argument comes from, but let's be fair here : they were as much on the coast as, say, Rotterdam harbor is today. I think most people would agree that is on the coast.
- Someone 12y ago
  Rotterdam on the coast? That is technically true (Hook of Holland is part of the municipality of Rotterdam (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_of_Holland) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hook_of_Holland)), but I doubt you will find many Dutchmen who think so. Also, 'where the waves stop' is not where the sea ends. That can easily be 100 km inland. Dordrecht used to have serious tides, and the tidal bore of the Amazon goes as much as 800 km inland (at least according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pororoca http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pororoca)