De toekomst is oranje?

For those not familiar with Dutch the title translates as "the future is Orange?"

Last week a friend of mine asked what plans the Dutch have to protect themselves against climate change induced sea level rises. Given that a substantial proportion of the country lies below sea level this is a key question. Given that the NL is Europe's largest emitter of CO2 gases (read intensive pig and cow production) it is even more pertinent. The question was sparked by said friend having recently spent a week on a beach in the South of England which will - under a projection of a one metre sea level rise - either not exist any more or at least will be an island. Owners of properties here obviously have cause for concern.

So I went to visit flood.firetree.net which projects the impacts of sea level rises on the area in which you live (or vacation, or have another interest in). I took the lowest level sea rise (1m) and applied it to the Netherlands. Basically one third of the country will disappear. Zeeland and Flevoland (the polders so painstakingly created in the first half of the C20th) will almost completely disappear. Much of N & S Holland (containing the NL's three largest cities) will also be afloat. A large part of the northern Provinces of Friesland and Groningen will also be lost, as will the ports of Zeebruge and Calais and most of the northern Belgian coastline. Closer to home it will take a 7m rise (worst-case scenario?) for the ironically named local Zeezicht Eethuis to acquire a sea view.

So I did a bit of searching around the web site of the Dutch Ministry of spatial planning and found the usual official-talk - with no commitment to actually spending any money on ensuring that 50% of the Dutch population will be safe from a fairly minimal increase in sea levels. I spoke to someone who lives below sea level. He said the government won't take any measures that involve additional expenditure - and I recalled listening to a recent BBC world service programme earlier this year that talked about how one of lowest municipalities in the NL (8m bsl) was planning to build an extra (if I remember rightly) 40,000 houses and several industrial parks.

So it makes me wonder why the NL, with its huge planning culture, high taxation rates and supposed role as global ambassador for sustainability is putting its head in the sand over these issues and how on earth countries like Bangladesh or the Maldives are expected to cope? Probably the Dutch can deal with a 1 m rise in sea levels. But if it is any more the question arises as to whether people want to live below several metre high concrete sea defenses.

In the meantime of course life goes on. The Dutch football team have seen off Europe's supposedly finest two teams - each by a margin of three goals. Now every supermarket is full of products trying to cash in on this success: having orange stickers on their products saying hup hup Holland. This sucks. These parasitical companies are trying to shift product, whether chicken drum sticks, popcorn or whatever on the basis of something that has nothing to do with them. The future's bright, the future's orange. We'll cash in on anything we can. If France and Italy stalemate each other on Tuesday night and Romania don't ship too many goals against the Orangemen then its goodbye (and good riddance) to the two highest ranked teams in Europe. But hey what the.....

I had what Dutch people call a gymnasium (grammer school) education. We learned the classics. It was obligatory (I preferred Ian Dury- he's probably on the curriculum of some progressive schools nowadays). One story that springs to mind is Nero playing his violin while Rome burned. Another Roman leader famously commently that the populace would be happy as long as they had bread and circuses. Plus ca change...Will the NL be EK champions in 2008? If they play as well as in the last two games then I hope so. I'll shout for you. But if your three biggest cities might be under water in 2028? Go figure your priorities!