stupid Dutch

Rotterdam, like a good portion of Netherlands (Holland) is below sea level.  For 1,000 years the Dutch have pushed the shallow sea back mile by mile.  When your 2 largest cities, and 20% or more of your country is protected only by water pumps and sea walls, more storms and a few inches of sea level rise is a damn big deal.

Rotterdam, (been there, nice, hugh sea port and lots of industry), is not waiting on the climate change skeptics to act.  For them, the last 5 years has seen a number of flooding events, waves topping the sea walls and inland flooding greater than their pumps and canals could handle.  They have no doubt global warming is here, been here for a few years, and increasing.

Rotterdam is adding living roofs to everything that will support it, it cools the city in summer and absorbs great amounts of rain water.  If you have many square miles of roofs, reducing the run off cuts flooding significantly.  They dug down and built a number of new sports fields and playgrounds that act as flood catch basins in periods of heavy rain or wall breaches, they can be pumped out slowly in later days.  All new parking garages have a basement that acts as temporary water storage.

Solar and wind power, a return to bike transport and public transport is an easy sell as the dutch totally buy into the idea that fossil fuel is causing sea level rise.

At the same time, the US congress is trying to undo the rule put in by Bush 43 that says gov. buildings should be off fossil fuel by 2030, ALEC held a meeting this week for state governments to outline legislation to make solar and wind power harder to approve, and the GOP and many US religious groups continue to work to pollute the nation.  What do the stupid Dutch know anyhow except tulips and cheese?