Posted by Peter Ceresole on March 29, 2008 at 16:10:05 from 80.176.146.133 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: No more Horsey? posted by David Bamford on March 29, 2008 at 15:42:39:
If the Dutch ever hear of this lunacy, they will shake their heads in disbelief
I'm not sure about that. When, in '87, I made a 'Horizon' programme on the Greenhouse effect (it wasn't called 'Global warming' then) I walked and talked with climatologists and river conservancy specialists in Essex. Even then, when the full extent of the speed and size of the change wasn't apparent as it is now, they reckoned there was going to be extensive flooding in an area that simply couldn't be defended at a realistic cost. And reading the article, that's their concern now. Their view seems to be that if you prepare to retreat now, you can make decent job of it, whereas if you try to hold back the sea the cost will eventually rise so high that they will have to let it happen piecemeal and it will be a mess. For Britain as a whole the flooding will not be so severe as to warrant immense spending. For the Dutch, however, it's different. Far too great a proportion of the Netherlands is at stake, so for them the priorities are different.