Invest even more money to buy another 10-50 years or will we have to admit defeat? If there's even a chance of admitting defeat that will be felt in property prices and investments a lot sooner than those 50 years.
By comparison, since 2020 the Lagos population grew by more than the entire population of Abuja.
More realistically, Northern Jakarta is sinking, but the Southern part (and the suburbs/exurbs in the surrounding area) are still going to be okay and Jabodetabek will still be home to millions.
The system, the organism or ecosystem of European civilization world wide is rotting and collapsing right before our very eyes. We are witness to the Technology Age Collapse, whether people can or want to see it or not. That will have consequences for everything and everyone, including Venice.
AI cannot create any of the things that formed the European civilization that produced and maintained everything we all have, like computers, electricity, communications, transportation, flight, etc. AI can copy, emulate, and automate; it cannot create harmonious and finely humanly tuned things. It would never have created the works of art and architecture, let alone the technologies to produce everything in order to solve specific human problems.
not just technologies, but policies, education, mindsets. The goal is to make people switch from a high environmental impact to a low one. You don't need much technologies to get a bicycle rather than a heavy hence polluting vehicle. The situation we are now is just the result of many many smaller ones
I have yet to see evidence that this kind of assertion will age any better than the famous 64kB quote. True, AI can't create masterpieces today, but claiming it will never match humans feels more like emotional wishful thinking.
Otherwise the brain can't compute anything a computer can't (eventually) emulate.
Maybe it's possible - as an atheist I find that near impossible to imagine, but I won't entirely dismiss the possibility, but I doubt it.
Most of the value of Venice is cultural and it's not measured with money.
This has.not been true for more than 30 years. Veneto is the heartland of the original Benetton, a heavily industrialised region, the engine of the Italian North-East economic mini-boom of the 80s/90s (based on low-cost manufacturing). In fact, there is a massive duality between the tourism industry in Venice and the economy of the mainland, which is markedly reflected in politics (Venice tends to elect leftist mayors, while Veneto as a whole is very rightwing).
Losing the tourism industry would definitely be a blow to the economy, but Veneto would survive economically just fine.
Why not raise the barrier permanently, then? Build a lock for the ships going to Marghera, reroute the sewage and runoff to the sea outside the barrier.
can this be done across a bunch of islands and canals with tightly clustered ancient buildings? i don't think they even have a central sewer
The reasons for this have evolved over time. It began to protect waterways that enabled local commerce, and expanded alongside Venice's dominance across the Mediterranean Sea. This led to the identity of a city that celebrated its "Wedding of the Sea" every year [2].
As a modern-day example of this, UNESCO has enlisted `Venice and its Lagoon` in its World Heritage list [3], stating:
``` Criterion (v): In the Mediterranean area, the lagoon of Venice represents an outstanding example of a semi-lacustral habitat which has become vulnerable as a result of irreversible natural and climate changes. In this coherent ecosystem where the muddy shelves (alternately above and below water level) are as important as the islands, pile-dwellings, fishing villages and rice-fields need to be protected no less than the palazzi and churches. ```
In the present day, when Venice is mainly seen as a tourist attraction, it's easy to underestimate this. However, locals still draw a firm line between those who live in the city and the "campagnoli" (people from the countryside). Any plan to sever this historical link between Venice and the sea would be a tough sell, regardless of its economic or technical feasibility.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magistrato_alle_acque [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage_of_the_Sea_ceremony [3] https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/394/
Worked at a civil engineering company that worked on a major drawbridge project. Minimising the number of times it needed to be opened/closed was a major concern and huge point of contention.
There are unavoidable losses to heat, but if they did this it wouldn't be too different from "deep sea pumped storage" concepts.
Great article but I'm really curious about this number. If the alternative to raising the barrier is "the entire city floods" then that... seems like a pretty good trade? Also, nobody talks about the cost of raising and lowering a drawbridge. The whole point of it is to be raised or lowered, just like the barrier.