Colonising the seas

This is a story taken straight from BBC News but it has pressed all the right buttons and got me all giddy. So here’s the deal:

A Dutch company has invented a type of floating house which, while stationary, is able to rise and fall with the sea levels up to a height of four meters. The idea being that the Netherlands will be one of the first victims of global warming and answers are needed fast if life is to be allowed to continue in any way close to normality. Apparently officials from New Orleans have expressed an interest in the new designs and hopefully these sorts of homes will catch on around the globe.

It is simply not enough to pass legalisation saying that Europe and the US will cut carbon emissions. Firstly the situation is so desperate that it will take a complete revolution in lifestyle habits in the rich world – which if it happens at all is going to take decades to phase in. Secondly China and India are going to be hard to tame. And thirdly even if everyone suddenly became a green fanatic tomorrow I believe it would still be too late. Events have been put in motion that we cannot reverse. Ice is going to melt. Global climate is going to change. Millions of people will lose their homes.

It is time we accepted this all to likely outcome and began planning for it now. The Netherlands is taking an understandable lead in this (what with their very existence depending on it), but so should Britain. We have plenty of low-lying areas; indeed my very own East Anglia is more or less the mirror image of the Netherlands itself. I can envisage a row of these sorts of homes selling for good prices along the Norfolk and Suffolk coast. Londoners with a conscience and a fascination for the new might be easily persuaded to part with their hard earned cash. Anyone want to lend me a couple of million to begin construction?

On the flip side it is interesting to note that there might be some perverse justice in mother nature exacting its revenge, first on the Netherlands and then Britain. Both of which were of course the first two modern capitalist nations and perhaps therefore have a lot to answer for.

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