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When will the Netherlands disappear?

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Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#151

Post by blunte »

perfunctory wrote: post #143
radicalbyte wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So basically, the commercial farmers are ruining this > country (and contributing to ruining the planet), > and being jerks while doing so. Yet they apparently have huge backing from the public. When I try debating the problem with people they get extremely angry with me when I mention that the farmers are: a) Entirely responsible for the problem. b) Largely capable of fixing the problem. c) Relatively rich. Agricu…

> If I wasn't alone I'd love to protest You are never alone. Find like-minded people and go ahead. (I am not saying whether I find it a good idea or not).

But the non-farmer protesters are getting arrested while the farmers are breaking plenty of laws (road/obstruction) and the government is afraid to touch them.

Now the farmers are hanging nooses everywhere and trying to compare themselves with the Jews in WW2. I'm inclined to think that being forced to reduce your business production by 20-40% is not quite the same as being captured and put into a gas chamber to die.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#152

Post by SiempreViernes »

akie wrote: post #98
tech-no-logical wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What is cheaper: building artificial dams and islands off the North Sea coast (for example), or re-settling 7 million people while simultaneously losing all your economic output?

The cost for resettling will mostly be shouldered by the people of the Netherlands, that's how migration works: you pay up, you walk out on your own, or you stay behind in whatever misery you are tying to escape.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#153

Post by dwild »

jacquesm wrote: post #71
tech-no-logical wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you do know the deltawerken were only built with a maximum of 40 cm sea level rise in mind, right ? and we're now thinking of about 100 cm by 2100. true, that does not mean the netherlands will disappear right away, but we will see more flooding than before 1953, especially with extreme weather getting more extreme. so the question is more whether it will be economically viable to keep the land dry. personally, with…

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…

> But long before then you'll see the same in other countries, Italy, the UK, the USA, France, Germany and Spain all have areas that would be much harder and earlier hit than NL because they have no fortifications whatsoever as a starting point and it would take decades to plan and construct them.

No one here is arguing whether they can do anything about it. We are arguing about whether the Netherlands can do it. I'm pretty sure that anyone that believe that the Netherlands will disappear under water will agree that all theses coasts you mention will disappear too.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#154

Post by jacquesm »

dwild wrote: post #153
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…

> But long before then you'll see the same in other countries, Italy, the UK, the USA, France, Germany and Spain all have areas that would be much harder and earlier hit than NL because they have no fortifications whatsoever as a starting point and it would take decades to plan and construct them. No one here is arguing whether they can do anything about it. We are arguing about whether the Netherlands can do it. I'm…

The point is that they will disappear long before NL and yet here we are discussing the one country that has spent decades preparing for rising sea levels disappearing.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#155

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 »

edhelas wrote: post #114
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meanwhile, since NL has failed significantly to meet EU (nitrogen) emissions requirements - almost entirely because of mass agriculture - there's a freeze on building housing, roads, etc. Oh and the country-wide max speed limit will be limited down to 100kph starting Jan 1 (which I don't mind so terribly, but many people do mind). And all of their efforts combined, even if it were 100% successful, will be a drop in…

Knowing that 1/3 of the food produced is wasted ( http://www.fao.org/food-loss-and-food-waste/en/ ) that we consume way more meat than a few decades ago and that we import a lot of cereals, vegetables and fruits from aboard I don't think that blaming the Chinese or Indian people is the way to go. 30% of China production is exported. Growing tomatoes in December in huge greenhouses like you can see in many places in N…

There’s no blame. China is 29% of global CO2 emissions and the Netherlands is 0.47%.

There is literally nothing the Netherlands can do to materially affect global CO2 output at this point. The measures put forth are unserious in the face of real data.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#156

Post by perfunctory »

blunte wrote: post #151
perfunctory wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I wasn't alone I'd love to protest You are never alone. Find like-minded people and go ahead. (I am not saying whether I find it a good idea or not).

But the non-farmer protesters are getting arrested while the farmers are breaking plenty of laws (road/obstruction) and the government is afraid to touch them. Now the farmers are hanging nooses everywhere and trying to compare themselves with the Jews in WW2. I'm inclined to think that being forced to reduce your business production by 20-40% is not quite the same as being captured and put into a gas chamber to die.

> But the non-farmer protesters are getting arrested

But you have to be ready to make sacrifices for your ideals. I didn't say it's gonna be easy.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#157

Post by rumanator »

wainstead wrote: post #124
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I may be biased because I live in the NL and I live slightly below sea level. But I would be more worried to live on the coast somewhere else that has no history of dealing with these kinds of problems. In some sense The Netherlands is the only country on the planet to have the political structures in place to deal with rising sea waters. What do people think Florida is going to do? They're already losing their drink…

> What do people think Florida is going to do? They're already losing their drinking water and they're still in denial. > Build pumps, dikes and create flood plains. Just want to point out this approach won't work for Florida (and I'm not implying you said it would). The land in south Florida is porous limestone, and the water will just pass under any dykes you build.

> Just want to point out this approach won't work for Florida (and I'm not implying you said it would). The land in south Florida is porous limestone, and the water will just pass under any dykes you build.

Not a problem. Just drive a sheet pile curtain along the retaining wall to force the flow net through a long enough path that the resistance alone reduces the flow volume. This sort of stuff is covered in civil engineering degrees at graduate or even undergraduate level. Google for sheet pile flow net to get the idea.

And by the way, while you claim that Florida is limestone, the Netherlands is just a big old alluvial plain comprised of loose sand.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#158

Post by jacquesm »

joelbluminator wrote: post #149
tda wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed we won't be hit hardest or first, but consider this. Just about the entire Randstad is in a single "Dijkring" (Dijkring 14). And because a large part of the Randstad is flooded, if any part of the defense goes, it goes entirely. And as the Randstad is the economic heart of the country, the country will not recover. Also because it can't feasibly be evacuated. So flooding will happen in other places first, but…

The only time anything like this came close was a freak storm in 1953 as far as I know - 2000 dead in the Netherlands (also 200 dead in UK). Since then sea defenses have been improved by a huge factor, nothing was left to chance. I just don't see the kind of freak event that can cause this (and why would a freak storm hit the Randstad and not New York / London / San Francisco ?). If you're talking about gradual sea l…

That freak storm did us a huge favor, if not for that the general public would have likely balked at protecting the rest of the country. But 1953 is taught in school here and people in general are quite appreciative of the fact that they have 'dry feet'.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#159

Post by blunte »

skrebbel wrote: post #144
ar-jan wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The protests are related to regulations for nitrogen emissions, not greenhouse gases. So it's not related to this "demise" nonsense. And if there should be a demise -- well, the Dutch contribution to global GHG emissions is almost negligible these days. As for nitrogen emissions, these have more than halved since 1990. We could still do better, but if Dutch agricultural production moves abroad it will certainly be re…

Can anyone downvoting this explain why? To me it seems a balanced argument, well worded, void of emotion, and I can't see a fault in it.

I didn't downvote it, but regardless of why the farmers are protesting (which indeed is about nitrogen emissions limits), the farm industry does also contribute significantly to air pollution - https://euconf.eu/clean-air/topics-air-pollution-from-agricu... (this and plenty of other studies/measures).

So while I did bring up the farmer protests, which are indeed about nitrogen and not about climate change, it's still one facet of the same problem: commercial interests over regional and global health interests.

Re: When will the Netherlands disappear?

#160

Post by tda »

joelbluminator wrote: post #149
tda wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed we won't be hit hardest or first, but consider this. Just about the entire Randstad is in a single "Dijkring" (Dijkring 14). And because a large part of the Randstad is flooded, if any part of the defense goes, it goes entirely. And as the Randstad is the economic heart of the country, the country will not recover. Also because it can't feasibly be evacuated. So flooding will happen in other places first, but…

The only time anything like this came close was a freak storm in 1953 as far as I know - 2000 dead in the Netherlands (also 200 dead in UK). Since then sea defenses have been improved by a huge factor, nothing was left to chance. I just don't see the kind of freak event that can cause this (and why would a freak storm hit the Randstad and not New York / London / San Francisco ?). If you're talking about gradual sea l…

thing is cat 5 hurricanes happen every year (and are thus not freak storms), just not here. In the parts of the world where these happen, people tend not to live below sea level so even poor islands eventually recover after being hit. Extrapolating form the current climate the probability for cat5 hurricane winds in NL is about zero, cause the mechanisms that cause these kinds of storms don't apply here. But as the climate changes, and the seas warm, you might see the general storm patterns change, and you might get into a different regime where such storms are possible. Take hurricane Lorenzo, the easternmost Category 5 Atlantic hurricane on record. What was previously unthinkable just happened last October. If you extrapolate from this trend (more frequent, more eastern hurricanes happening in the Atlantic), I think it looks a lot less unlikely that one of those monster will someday make it to the North Sea.

Same with sea level rise: the currently observed rate of change is very manageable, and even a factor 5 higher can probably be managed. But what if we reach (or have already reached) a tipping point in the climate system that causes rapid acceleration of sea level rise? The existence of these tipping points cannot be derived from historical (say last 1000 years) observations, and therefore one might conclude that they don't exist. I believe such reasoning is known as the black swan logical fallacy. But from my casual observations, we are entering uncharted territory now (greenhouse gas levels, sea temperature, changing weather patters, changing jet stream patterns), so who knows what will happen.

Last point, look at the temperature 40,7 °C reached just last summer. Until 2018 the highest recorded temperature was 38,4 °C (in 1947). Some say this was a huge outlier, I think this is the new normal. I would love to know the probability of this happening taking the weather observations from start of record until 2018, would be surprised it it in the 1:1.000.000 range.

edit: Of course someone did the math (in Dutch) https://www.knmi.nl/over-het-knmi/nieuws/hoe-bijzonder-zijn-...

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