Literature ǀ Endangered Landscapes – Friday

by time news

According to his bestsellers Utopias for realists (2017), a plea for the 15-hour week and an unconditional basic income, and Basically good (2020), a “new history of mankind”, as the subtitle asserts somewhat presumptuously, the PhD historian and activist Rutger Bregman has now published a small essay on climate change with the title When the water comes before.

Bregman writes that as a Dutchman he makes no secret of it. And it’s about the rising sea level, from which the Netherlands is threatened like no other country in Europe. It begins with a story about Johan van Veen, who prophesied a major flood disaster in the Netherlands in 1952 and was hardly taken seriously by anyone; he self-deprecatingly called himself Dr. Kassandra. The flood disaster came in 1953, although it was much less severe than he had predicted, 29,000 hectares of land were flooded, which is about a third of the area of ​​Berlin, and 1,836 Dutch people lost their lives. Then a gigantic dyke system was built according to van Veen’s plans: the so-called Delta Works, the largest infrastructure project in the history of the Netherlands.

“Just as Johan van Veen was described as a ‘panic maker’ in 1952, there is talk today of the ‘scaremongering of climate change’,” writes Bregman. The following is a description of the risks associated with climate change, always with a focus on rising sea levels. The “continued existence of the Netherlands and many coastal regions on the North Sea is at stake”, and “Hamburg and Bremen are by no means as safe as is often assumed in Germany”. That, according to Bregman, is not what he says, but “the scientists”.

But that is only half the story, because the author does not mention that the scenarios outlined relate without exception to the worst-case projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which always divides them into five categories, from best to worst. For example, Bregman warns of a possible temperature increase of four degrees by the year 2100. This could happen if the annual CO₂ emissions, based on the status of 2015 (around 40 gigatons), tripled to around 120 gigatons by 2100 and the same with others Greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide as well as with effective aerosols happened. In the best-case scenario, these emissions will have decreased by around 20 gigatons per year by 2100, which would amount to a warming of 1.4 degrees. As far as the global rise in sea level is concerned, the IPCC expects in the worst case an increase of 61 to 110 cm by 2100, in the best case – if the Paris Agreement is adhered to – by 29 to 59 cm. At Bregman you can read: “If the world does not reduce greenhouse gas emissions fast enough, we must – in the worst case – assume that the sea level will be almost three meters higher by 2100. A century later it could be five to eight meters. ”This would theoretically be possible for the North Sea, but even in the worst case not until 2100. The IPCC calculates here in time corridors of several centuries or millennia. A possible cause for a regionally different rise could be the so-called gravitation effect of the Arctic and Antarctic ice masses: melting reduces the self-gravity and leads to a disproportionate rise in sea level at a greater distance.

From a rise of about 1.5 meters it becomes problematic on the German North Sea coast, for example. The Netherlands could cope with an increase of up to two meters. So sooner or later there is a need for action.

Giant Pumpan Layers

Later in the text, Bregman comes up with possible measures. In the Netherlands, higher dykes and gigantic pumping systems would be necessary, and higher dykes on German coasts. But coping with everything technically feasible and economically leads to considerable ecological problems and upheavals: “‘We must not just shut the sea out, we have to give it space,” Bregman quotes ecologist Michael Kleyer, saying that adaptation to climate change also means being part of it again and not to think against nature. Floating houses and pile construction are to be considered. Transitional areas would be necessary, such as salt marshes – habitats of highly specialized species that can cope with recurring flooding. Endangered landscapes would have to be left entirely to the water in the long term.

That all remains very vague, measured against the publisher’s announcement, except for the statement: “We have to act on all fronts. And now. ”Otherwise, no“ buts ”in the whole volume, no new thought. What remains is actually simply a call to Kassandra.

Incidentally, the book is called in the Dutch original edition The water is coming, without “if”. In the German edition with “If”, but also without “But”.

When the water comes Rutger Bregman Susanne Götze (arrangement), Ulrich Faure (transl.), Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag 2021, 64 pp., 8 €

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