Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
which will creep up the landmasses of the world, such as coastal cities and island nations—with the poten-
tial for massive population displacement and enormous numbers of “climate refugees.”
12
As I indicated in
the last chapter, all the actual evidence of the trends I have seen—as against model speculation—points to
very mild sea level rises, much as we have had for thousands of years. But let's say sea levels rise more
significantly—which has happened rapidly in the past due to natural causes. Some countries will face this
situation no matter what; as we saw in Chapter 4, local conditions can lead to above average sea level rise
(or fall) in certain regions—and land can sink independent of what the ocean does.
Fortunately, with development and cheap, plentiful, reliable energy, nations can transform their envir-
onments to be far safer.
Now, I'm not talking here about some science-fiction ten-foot-a-year rise in sea level, which would be
an unmitigated disaster for coastal cities (the 2011 Japan tsunami paints a vivid picture of what this would
look like). It would be a disaster because we would have had no time to plan. However, a rise of around
two feet over a century, which the IPCC projects
13
(likely overprojects, given the models it relies on) is a
much different proposition. People, even entire cities' worth, have time to find a solution.
History has provided us with an example of a people and nation that have experienced the problem
of rising sea level: the Netherlands. More accurately, the Netherlands experienced a sinking of the land,
rather than a rise of sea level, but the effect was essentially the same—50 percent of the Netherlands lies
less than three feet above sea level, and roughly 20 percent of its people actually live at an elevation below
sea level.
14
This situation resulted from the choices that the residents of the Netherlands made about a thousand
years ago. Early people drained the swamps of the region in an effort to find new farmland. While the peat
soil beneath was very fertile, it was also very soft and began to sink as it was used for crops. In addition,
peat (which is a precursor to coal) was also a very useful fuel, and the residents of the Netherlands extrac-
ted it and consumed it, causing the land to sink even more.
15
At a certain point, it became obvious that floods were becoming a large problem because the water in
these lowlands had nowhere to drain. Strangely (or perhaps not), this situation did not turn the residents of
the Netherlands into helpless refugees but spurred them to find solutions.
As early as the year 1000, many villages in the Netherlands were connected by earthen walls that held
the ocean and floodwaters back.
16
Over time, these primitive dikes were improved upon and, after several
centuries, combined with pumps operated by windmills to remove any water that did manage to make its
way into the lowlands.
17
These countermeasures kept the Netherlands mostly safe, except for rare large
storms that overwhelmed the dikes and pumps.
Industrialization brought the flood control of the Netherlands, like every human endeavor, to a whole
new level. Today the system consists of thousands of miles of dikes, dams, and electronically operated
storm walls and sluice gates. Much of the system has been designed to withstand floods that have a prob-
ability of occurring once in ten thousand years. In addition, people are making plans and designs for what
would have to change in the event of a rise in sea level.
Note that most of these innovations were made
before the availability of cheap, plentiful, reliable en-
ergy,
so if necessary, it would be far easier for other countries to replicate what the Netherlands has done.
And who knows what else human ingenuity would come up with to deal with higher sea levels?
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