Is Venice the Next Atlantis?
Last month, my wife Jill and I indulged our inner tourists and treated one another to a fifth wedding anniversary gondola ride through the canals of Venice, Italy. Sure, it was overly expensive, and usually we avoid such obligatory tourist activities when visiting new places, but c’mon – this is Venice, and there’s no better way to see it than via gondola.
Perhaps to the ever-patient Jill’s dismay, however, our gondolier eschewed the traditional romantic serenade as he oared us around. Instead, he provided us with a sobering talk on global warming’s impact on this majestic city’s thousand-year old battle with the sea.
It’s well known that Venice’s inhabitants have always struggled to keep their city above water, but in the past that’s been mainly because the ground it’s built on is slowly compressing under the weight of the glorious buildings erected atop it. Over the past several decades, however, rising sea levels have exacerbated the threat, leaving many concerned that Venice might finally succumb to the sea.
As our gondolier expertly glided his sleek, ornamented black craft through the congested Grand Canal’s version of rush hour, dodging vaparettos, water taxis, outboard-powered skiffs and an amazing assortment of gasoline and diesel-powered boats, he nodded a the traffic. "Even in this city without cars, we are using too much petrol," he said. "We all – everywhere in the world – need to use alternative energy. Otherwise, pretty soon, thanks to global warming, you may need scuba gear to visit this city."
As it turns out, that may not be much of an exaggeration. Venice’s cluster of 177 small islands have always been vulnerable to aqua alta – high water that washes over the buildings impervious marble foundations, flooding the streets and squares and eating away at the bricks and historic frescoes that lie above the normal water line. What’s alarming is the frequency and intensity of recent high water events. At the turn of the last century, according to the PBS show Nova, records show that water covered St. Mark’s Square seven times per year. By 1989, that number had increased to 40 times per year. By 1996, it was 99.
Our gondolier dipped his long single oar into the city’s brown waters and spun us down a narrow canal, kicking off the side of a building to straighten out the sleek craft only inches from the wall. "These canals are the original streets of Venice," he said. "The doors we use now – on the land side of the buildings – those are the old service entrances, or back doors." He motioned towards an opulent but decrepit doorway, its bottom edge rotted away, water lapping over the front steps. "In many of these buildings, we can no longer use the first floors, because they are too damaged by the water."
Clearly, the questions of climate change and rising sea levels are far more existential for Venice than they are for most of world. Then again, isn’t Venice -- with its spectacular architecture rising like a mirage out of the Adriatic Sea, an incongruous, unlikely and mysterious monument to human ingenuity, creativity and even whimsy -- a symbol of what’s ultimately at stake for all of us?
It’s no wonder then that Venice, like fellow low-lying cities New Orleans and Amsterdam, is encouraging efforts to develop alternative energy technologies. For example, the first solar-powered Vaparetto (Venice’s water-borne city buses) recently began plying the waters of the city’s Grand Canal, and the city is hosting a Biomass & Waste to Energy Symposium later this month.
(Meanwhile, the Netherlands is doing its part to encourage alternative energy investing and research, and Brad Pitt and Global Green have teamed up to encourage New Orleans to create opportunity out of the wreckage of Katrina by embracing sustainable building practices as they rebuild their city.)
The gondolier continued his tour, pointing out the oldest palace in Venice and Marco Polo’s sprawling residence. We glided beneath one of the city’s footbridges, our guide yelling "oh-way-oh!" to warn other boats of our presence as we rounded a blind corner into another narrow canal. As we did, a spectacular sunset played off the water and the misty subtropical haze and the marble buildings, basking everything in a warm orange glow.
We reemerged into the Grand Canal just as the lights of the city began to flicker on and an accordion player began serenading lovers at a nearby waterfront café. Jill rested her head upon my shoulder and smiled. Despite all the grim talk of losing this place to the sea, it’s powerful, fairy-tale romantic charm still worked its way into our hearts.
Thankfully, our gondolier got the message, stopped his sermon, and paddled the rest of the way back to the dock in silence. There’s a time and place for everything, after all.
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