Dutch go for adaptation to globo warming

Washington Post:

With the Copenhagen summit starting Monday, chances remain uncertain for a historic breakthrough in the fight to prevent climate change, but the Netherlands is leading a fight of a different kind: How to live with global warming.

As sea levels swell and storms intensify, the Dutch are spending billions of euros on "floating communities" that can rise with surging flood waters, on cavernous garages that double as urban floodplains and on re-engineering parts of a coastline as long as North Carolina's. The government is engaging in "selective relocation" of farmers from flood-prone areas, and expanding rivers and canals to contain anticipated swells.

The measures are putting this waterworld of dikes, levies and pumps that have kept Dutch feet dry for centuries ahead of the rest of the globe in adapting to harsher climates ahead.

Critics describe some of the efforts here as alarmist, perhaps too much, too soon. But other experts see the climate defense system being built in the Netherlands as a model for other nations -- including the United States, where officials are seeking Dutch advice for how to protect New Orleans and other low-lying coastal cities.

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New Orleans troubles are not related to a rise of sea levels, because it was already under sea level. But the larger lesson is adaptation is the better way to deal with global warming if it happens.