Too bad I missed this when it happened back in November, but it still makes me laugh in that morbidly queasy way we use when we shouldn’t be giggling:
Minutes after right-wing members of Venice’s Venito council rejected measures designed to combat climate change, the council chamber was flooded by historic high tides from the city’s Grand Canal. [Independent]
At this remove, it’s difficult to say if the right-wingers merely disagreed with the proposed tactics, or if they were simply in denial. The Environmental Committee chairperson, Andrea Zanoni, certainly has his opinion:
He added that the council was “proposing funding for renewable sources, for electric columns, for the replacement of diesel buses with others more efficient and less polluting for the scrapping of stoves, to finance the pacts of mayors for sustainable energy and climate change, and to reduce the impact of plastic, etc”.
And I wonder if the Mayor, despite recognizing the problem, realizes what the cost may be:
The historic floodwaters would leave “a permanent mark”, mayor Brugnaro tweeted. “Now the government must listen. These are the effects of climate change… the costs will be high.”
My feeling? Venice will be an early illustration of how a city is lost to the sea. Miami is reportedly not far behind. I expect we’ll see Venice slowly abandoned over the next 50 years, becoming a site visited by disaster tourists and underwater archaeologists.
Next comes Miami and its skyscrapers. That should make for an interesting scene, especially when the big buildings begin to collapse from corrosion.
