Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When will the Netherlands disappear?

politico.eu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 186 posts

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#101

Post by jacquesm »

tech-no-logical wrote: post #79
jacquesm wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were built with that in mind, yes. But since then they've been raised several times already and there is continuous maintenance on weak points. The real problem is the rivers, keeping water out from the seaside is actually a simpler problem than preventing the interior from being flooded once the rivers are substantially below sea level themselves. Sea dikes and fortifications can be raised (at a cost), but rive…

the weak points (like the haringvlietdam and maeslantkering) can't (easily) be raised. and yes, the rivers will be a problem when we need to close the maeslantkering for extended periods of time when the sea level rises. it doesn't matter where the water comes from : the sea or the rivers, it will cause severe floods at some point. I guess we differ on the 'economically viable' part. but in the really long run (say g…

In the really long run everything humans have ever made except for the pyramids is unstable. It would be really strange if the current living generation is somehow the exception. Houses are built for a couple of decades, they sometimes stand for a hundred years or more but that's not the rule and should not be taken as guidance for the future. Companies can move if there is enough time.

What will happen is that at some point - still quite a bit into the future - humanity as a whole will have to adjust to a new coastline and as long as it is economically viable they'll try to milk the structures already built. But in the end, on that timescale it is a non-event.

A bigger question will be how we will house and feed a 10 billion plus number of human beings on a reduced landmass with all the 'good bits' already taken. There will be wars and famine in that future and I don't think we will be able to avoid that forever. Again, history is full of upheaval, we certainly won't have seen the last of it.

But to suggest NL will disappear in the next couple of years/decades is not in line with my expectations based on what I know about this stuff. (More than most, less than what I would like to know but there is only so much time.)

As for the rivers, pumping out the water forcibly would allow the surge barriers to remain in place but would severely disrupt the economy (harbors inaccessible) and would require pumping capacity that we currently do not have (those rivers carry an enormous amount of water).

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#102

Post by mslot »

My feet are currently around 4 meters below sea level in the Netherlands. They are still dry.

On its own, even worst case sea level rise is unlikely to have meaningful impact on the Netherlands over the next century, unless we stop maintaining our water infrastructure.

The real problem is droughts, which could simultaneously pulverize dikes, cause ground to sink, cut off our water supply, and ruin the farming industry. When it comes to climate change in the Netherlands, one bad summer is a lot more dangerous than a century of sea level rise.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#103

Post by jacquesm »

tech-no-logical wrote: post #82
WJW wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have seen exactly this scenario before, only this time the expected water levels are a few decimeter to a few meter higher (depending on the time scale). It's not like the delta works are the technological limit to what we can do. At the time, they were designed to meet the expected requirements and no further. If the requirements change, we will rebuild them to the new requirements.

if the requirements say 7 meters (the sea level rise if greenland is ice free) building higher dikes will not work. and although that is a long-term scenario, it is not unlikely. hence the 'not if, but when' in the article.

Why won't dikes not work?

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#104

Post by Retric »

dtwest wrote: post #96
blunte wrote: post #23

I find it a bit ironic given the MIT climate simulator on HN yesterday - the biggest impact (in that simulator) to climate change was the land/agriculture methane. Right now the Dutch farmers are again harassing the country with their tractors on public roads, angry about what they feel is undue pressure to reduce their emissions. Maybe they'll get one or two more generations of farming as they hasten their own demis…

I do not know the details, but it is my understanding that the Netherlands exports a large amount of its agricultural production. One could say, let's only produce what we need, and methane production will go down. However, if that was done, all of the countries that rely on the Netherlands for agricultural imports would need to increase production or find somewhere else that would. There is no guarantee that using c…

The world has a large surplus of agricultural products which are often produced due to significant subsidies. So, it’s not clear production would increase to compensate rather than existing land being repurposed.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#105

Post by mannykannot »

adventskalender wrote: post #40
mannykannot wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that it is an example of an issue that is going to become much more pressing. Considering a 14th. century event without regard to what has changed since then (technically, economically and environmentally) is not very informative.

Why not? If such things have happened before, it seems dishonest to use such imagery to conjure a scenario of doom. Maybe the risk is now higher, more frequent, different, whatever. Fine, then tell me so, show me the numbers. I don't want to be manipulated with emotional imagery. I want to be informed. I don't read the news for entertainment. I mean yeah I do, but I actually want to read it for information.

So you want data, but the only datum you offer in support of your assertion that you are being unreasonably manipulated is the effect of a single storm in the 14th. century. Meanwhile, other people have been posting much more pertinent comments on, for example, the non-uniformity of global-warming-induced sea-level rise.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#106

Post by jacquesm »

tda wrote: post #86
jacquesm wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sweden and Norway are attractive for many reasons, but I don't think any of this will happen soon enough to impact my life in a meaningful way. I'm 54, I haven't exactly been too careful with this body and if I live to 80 it would highly surprise me. But my children likely will see this in full force and I sincerely hope that by then humanity will have come its collective senses.

I hope you're right, I expect the world to be in a very different place in a few decades and not for the better. I'm still under 40 so I'm keeping my options open; even though the chances are probably very low, the effect is also pretty extreme making the risk (probability * effect) approximately 0 * inf. I estimate the probability to be somewhat higher than 0, so therefore I believe the risk is significant.

> I expect the world to be in a very different place in a few decades and not for the better

Given history to date I would say that is a safe assumption when you are living in a time of prosperity, it is the global equivalent of 'this too shall pass'. But even if NL will be hit hard I highly doubt it will be hit hardest or first. We've been vaccinated in a sense in not trusting nature to leave her boundaries where we'd like them to be, the country is more like a machine than a static arrangement.

If we stopped pumping water out you'd be living on the lakeside within a few years, and on the seaside a few years after that.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#107

Post by TomMarius »

blunte wrote: post #41
rasvj wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One or two generations of farming? By then they'll be retired (with a pension) or dead, do you think they care?

No, they don't care. They, like many older people in other countries, feel that they have a right to their "way of life". It's a strange failure of thinking when someone believes that they have a right to be how they have previously been (especially when their previous behavior has been demonstrated to be foolish or harmful to themselves or others).

In Europe we believe that everyone should have the right to be exactly how they wish to be (with obvious limits).

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#109

Post by edhelas »

perfunctory wrote: post #80
edhelas wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Investing in renewable energy doesn't mean that you'll drastically reduce your CO² emissions. You have to take into account the capacity factor of what you install https://jancovici.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/load-factor... You need to install 3 to 4 times more windmill and solar panel to approach the same output. You also need to install huge way to store your electricity (mostly using damns, hard to get in plac…

> Solar panels ... need to be changed each 20-30 years How does this maintenance cost compare to the operating cost of a coal plant where coal has to be delivered non-stop?

Regarding the drop of price of solar panel I don't think that it's not that uninteresting to invest in it. I'm all in to invest into renewable energy but I wanted to point out the hidden costs of deploying such technologies.

But overall, if it's about CO² emission we want to reduce, I think it's way more efficient to invest into house/buildings isolation, heat pump and save 20 or more % of energy better than trying to invest massively into renewable energy that will gives non-controlled productivity.

Post reply on HN