First, let us take climate change out of the debate. The rising sea levels and increase in extreme weather caused by greenhouse gas generated global warming make it more urgent to sort out these issues, but they are not the force that drives these issues. The sea has always eaten the coastline at one place and built it at another. History is freckled with tales of man's futile attempt to stay the ravages of nature and hang onto a particular speck where he has put his mark. (Do not be offended, ladies, by the masculine pronoun. Our ancestral mothers were smart enough to pull up stumps whenever Gaia raised her finger to scold.)
Secondly, all attempts by Man to arrest natural progression lead to greater disasters than they avoid.
Walling New Orleans simply created a fragile bowl that continues to sink into the Mississippi finger delta. The irrigation channels constructed across the Middle East have disappeared beneath the sands of the desert they created. The shrimp farms of the increasingly salty delta of Bangladesh accelerate the that nation's slide into the Bay of Bengal. The rock walls we built to keep open our river mouths have simply altered the patterns of the shifting sands, scouring out one side and building up the other.
Thirdly, members of a community stick up for each other against external oppression. Yet, when we see one of our own fumbling drunkenly with his car keys, we embrace paternalism for long enought to apply the necessary force to get those car keys back.
And so, we must stop these modern deniers of Canute from squandering our resources on attempting to defy the waves. They not only harm themselves but they damage the environment and further enrage Gaia. That's why, fifteen years ago, the Belongil spit was declared unsuitable for permanent dwellings. That's why, all over the globe, regulatory authorities refuse to allow development on low lying coastal land. That's why insurance companies are advising their policy holders of radical changes in their policies regarding acts of god.
The waves have spoken. Retreat.
This article was first publishing in the Northern Star, an APN newspaper. Reprinted with permission.
