The myth of Atlantis

VENICE — We arrived here in one of the world’s most visited places that I used to see only in photos or in movies. It is located in the region of Veneto in the northern part of Italy facing the Adriatic Sea that feeds the romantically famed canals of Venice.

But after an overnight stay, I don’t envy the Venetians for living in such an idyllic place. I don’t think I can live in a place that is in constant danger of being submerged in water due to threats of climate change.

The city is threatened by more frequent low-level floods (so-called Acqua alta, “high water”) that creep to a height of several centimeters over its quays which regularly follow the tides every six hours of the day. Thus, all the first or ground floors of buildings around are not inhabited but turned into garages for their motorboats.

There is no car or any other kind of land vehicles here as the streets are just too narrow that only people can walk to get from one point to another. So practically, there is no air pollution or carbon emission here that could really add to the global warming threats.

Motorboats are the chief means of transportation to move around in and out of these islands. Wide-bodied motorboats serve as water-buses while speedboats are used as water taxis. The Venetian gondolas, however, remain the attraction for tourists who take a ride around the canals to see the entire 120 islands connected to one another by around 400 bridges.

Some recent studies have suggested that the city is no longer sinking. But there is no certainty it won’t. Thus, it remains under a state of alert for possible sinking. In May 2003, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi inaugurated the Modulo Sperimentale Elettromec-canico (MOSE), an experimental model for evaluating the performance of inflatable gates. The idea was to lay a series of 79 inflatable pontoons across the seabed at the three entrances to the lagoon.

When tides are predicted to rise above 110 centimeters, the pontoons are filled with air to block the incoming water from the Adriatic Sea. This engineering intervention to save Venice from feared sinking is due to be completed by 2011. Some experts say that the best way to protect Venice is to physically lift the City to a greater height above sea level, by pumping water into the soil underneath the city. This way, experts hope, Venice could rise above sea level, protecting it for another 100 years at the most.

For now, though, local folks here who largely depend on tourism earnings have resorted to their own versions of climate change adaptation. Like in the case of San Marco Church, one of the chief attractions here, the owners of stores and ristorantes around the Square have put up raised platforms where tourists could walk whenever high tides flood the area. 

Under the same threats of being submerged in water due to global warming are the islands of the Republic of Maldives. Such fears were bolstered especially after Maldives was hardest hit by the deadly tsunami that nearly wiped out several of its islands on Dec. 26, 2004. The low-lying Indian Ocean country is located 2.1 meters above sea level and will be wiped out in the event of the ocean’s rise, experts warn. 

Last Saturday, world attention was drawn to Maldives again when their officials led by their President, Mohamed Nasheed dramatically sought to highlight their appeal for global leaders to heed the call of countries like theirs on the real threats of climate change. President Nasheed, Vice President Dr. Mohamed Waheed and 11 Cabinet ministers, in scuba gears, conducted the world’s first underwater Cabinet meeting. The “stunt” pulled by the Maldives leaders was beamed around the world and I saw it while watching CNN news in our hotel TV here. They finally got the world’s attention in a bid to push for a stronger climate change agreement in the upcoming United Nations (UN) organized climate summit in Copenhagen scheduled in December.

The meeting was held about five meters underwater, in a blue-green lagoon of Girifushi, one of the small islands about 20 minutes by boat from the capital island, Male. Himself a former journalist, President Nasheed invited foreign media to cover this underwater Cabinet meeting.

I had the opportunity to meet President Nasheed at his office in Male in July this year. I was one of the members of Philippine media invited by the UN International Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) to join the delegation to Maldives with Sen. Loren Legarda as the regional “champion” for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction — in her meeting with President Nasheed.

“What we are trying to make people realize is that the Maldives is a frontline state. This is not merely an issue for the Maldives but for the world. If we can’t save the Maldives today, you can’t save the rest of the world tomorrow,” the President was quoted as saying after his underwater Cabinet meeting.

The Maldives is calling for an agreement in Copenhagen that will help reduce carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere to no more than 350 parts per million. This would require a 40 percent global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 compared to the 1990 levels.

In March this year President Nasheed announced that the Maldives would be the first country in the world to go carbon neutral, and the Maldives would achieve the target by 2020. President Nasheed, who is an influential voice on climate change, is a certified open water diver that enabled him to pull this “stunt.” Perhaps, Loren who is also once a broadcast journalist could learn a trick or two from Nasheed to generate more support to her climate change advocacy in the Philippines.

Both Venice and Maldives are places at the brink of vanishing from the face of the earth — like the fabled continent of Atlantis — which is being blamed to climate change. We saw it recently in Metro Manila and other nearby provinces — places submerged in floodwater and landslides brought by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng one after the other.

We, in the Philippines face the same grim prospects that Venice and Maldives also fear could happen in their own countries. The mythical Atlantis that supposedly sank deep in the bottom of the ocean might turn into reality if we do not heed the signs of Mother Nature.