![]() After that, the $6 billion dollar Ferrari on the sea floor will be useless. Worse, the barrier was only engineered to protect the city from about two feet of sea level rise, which some scientists believe could happen as early as 2050. And that is a problem, because the lagoon needs continuous exchange with the sea, otherwise it degenerates to a sewer (most septic systems in Venice dump right into the lagoon). For one thing, even as sea levels rise, the locks will have to be closed more and more frequently. Now, due to all the design and engineering problems, it won’t be operational until at least 2022.īut the biggest problem with MOSE is that the barriers were planned for a world that no longer exists. It was scheduled to be completed in 2011. Not surprisingly, the cost of the barrier system ballooned from $1.7 billion to more than $6 billion. In 2014, 35 politicians, entrepreneurs, and civil servants were arrested on various corruption and bribery-related charges, including the former regional president Giancarlo Galan. The project has also been plagued by corruption and cost overruns. Italian journalist Roberto Giovanni calls MOSE’s engineering flaws “an anthology of horrors.” Underwater drone images show that the floodgates are already corroded. In tests, the bulkheads don’t rise out of the water as they are supposed to. Underwater casings have eroded from corrosion, and there has been an infestation of mussels in the hinges. It wasn’t clear whether he meant that as a compliment.Įngineering-wise, MOSE has been a debacle. Montana Youths Win Landmark Climate Crisis Lawsuit Knocking it down and building on top of it is not an option. We don’t want to lose the beautiful Renaissance architecture we have here. They just built new ones on top of the old ones. They did not worry about preserving old buildings. And beneath that, who knows? They were not sentimental about the past. ![]() The palazzo we are sitting in today was built in the 15th century, but there’s a 13th-century palazzo beneath this. In the past, Campostrini told me, Venice had no trouble dealing with rising seas. When I visited Venice to do some reporting for my book The Water Will Come, about sea-level rise, I spoke with Pierpaolo Campostrini, an expert in the restoration and preservation of Venice, who told me the groundwater pumping had stopped and sinking was no longer a problem. In recent years, the channels have been further deepened and expanded to accommodate cruise ships, which have transformed the romantic city of Titian and Giorgione into a kitsch-filled tourist trap.Īnd like many coastal cities, the pumping of groundwater for drinking water and industrial use caused the city to sink in recent decades, which did not help. They also hastened erosion of the lagoon, which has widened the inlet into the sea, further increasing the risk of tidal surges. The shipping channels changed the tidal dynamics of the lagoon, allowing storm surges from the Adriatic to penetrate deeper and faster into the city. “These are the effects of climate change,” Venice mayor Luigi Burganaro said as he waded through the flooded city.īut things started changing in the 1960s, with the excavation of the Canale dei Petroli, a channel that was dredged to allow oil tankers to reach Porto Marghera, a deep-water port on the mainland near Venice. The floodwaters did incalculable damage to the foundations and structural integrity of the 1,000-year-old city’s most iconic buildings, including St. Eighty-five percent of the city flooded at least two deaths were reported. Mark’s Square – likely the first, but surely not the last, person ever to do that). Tourists took selfies in San Mark’s Basilica in waist-deep water (one man swam across St. High winds in the Adriatic Sea drove six feet of water into the city, causing the worst flooding the city has seen in more than 50 years. What’s happened in Venice this week, however, is no joke. But it almost makes you believe there is a god, and she is laughing hysterically at how foolish humans can be in the face of the climate crisis. Within two minutes, according to council member Andrea Zanoni, water started pouring in, flooding the chambers with several feet of murky lagoon water.Ĭoincidence? Maybe. On Tuesday night, as epic floodwaters were rising in Venice, Italy, members of the Veneto regional council gathered in their chambers on Venice’s Grand Canal and, incredibly enough, voted to reject measures to battle climate change.
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