Where Will You Be When the Floodwaters Rise? -- The European Union Experience

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The European Union would obviously be better off without global warming. The exact consequences of a massive rise in sea levels varies from country to country. Spain relatively high elevation spares it considerable flooding, but if faced with a hotter climate, the Spanish will soon find they have enough desert already. The Italians are in a similar position, with beautiful mountains which can not sustain such a vast population without their lowlands. France loses significant coastal areas to the sea, reminding us yet again of how much valuable farmland may soon be sitting under salt water.

The Benelux countries are obviously in a bad place, especially the Netherlands, which was below sea level to begin with. The Danes also lose most of their country, while Scandinavia and the Finns are basically driven up further into their mountains. Norway does better in this regard than Sweden, which has few cities such as Uppsala and Stockholm clearly in harm's way. The Norwegians, however, are also among those in the path of any Greenland glacier-generated tidal wave, so it's all relative.





Of the Baltic States, Lithuania probably will do the best, as it loses less land than Latvia and Estonia and her capital of Vilnius is far from the coast. Latvia's Riga, by contrast, is right in the midst of land that will be swamped. On the other hand, none of these nations can afford to give up land mass and agricultural production to an incoming tide that may stay forever.


Poland loses relatively little of its land to the Baltic Sea, and fortunately the rest of the Visegrad countries are landlocked. But Central Europe hardly profits from the chaos that would be sown to her west, much as the rest of the world would only suffer from the destruction being visited upon these and other democratic nations.


Soc
Future Imperative