… Lord, what fools these mortals be!

A Dam Right Across the North Sea
Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research / February 28, 2020

A 475-km-long dam between the north of Scotland and the west of Norway and another one of 160 km between the west point of France and the southwest of England could protect more than 25 million Europeans against the consequences of an expected sea level rise of several metres over the next few centuries. The costs, 250-500 billion euros, are ‘merely’ 0.1% of the gross national product, annually over 20 years, of all the countries that would be protected by such a dam. That’s what Dr. Sjoerd Groeskamp, oceanographer at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, calculated . . .

The authors acknowledge that the consequences of this dam for North Sea wildlife would be considerable. “The tide would disappear in a large part of the North Sea, and with it the transport of silt and nutrients. The sea would eventually even become a freshwater lake. That will drastically change the ecosystem and therefore have an impact on the fishing industry as well,” Groeskamp elaborates.

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Ultimately, the description of this extreme dam is more of a warning than a solution, Groeskamp states. “The costs and the consequences of such a dam are huge indeed. However, we have calculated that the cost of doing nothing against sea level rise will ultimately be many times higher. This dam makes it almost tangible what the consequences of the sea level rise will be; a sea level rise of 10 metres by the year 2500 according to the bleakest scenarios. This dam is therefore mainly a call to do something about climate change now. If we do nothing, then this extreme dam might just be the only solution.”

Dam you, Greta!