Can the Dutch save the world from the danger of rising sea levels?
By Simon Kuper
On the afternoon of January 31 1953, the sea off the Dutch coast rose so high that it attracted sightseers. Just after 6pm, national radio warned of “dangerous high water”. That was almost the only notice given.
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The disaster killed 1,835 people in the Netherlands, and 307 on the English east coast. Within 18 days, the Dutch government had created the “Delta Commission” to advise on preventing future floods.
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Over the next 45 years, the country spent billions building the Delta Works: a network of dams, dykes, sluices and storm barriers that is unmatched worldwide. Though most of the Netherlands is either below sea level or prone to river floods, the number of people killed by flooding since 1953 is zero.
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This co-operative system became known as the poldermodel. It’s often seen as the basis for today’s Dutch politics of eternal coalition. In modern Dutch, the verb polderen has come to mean “to bring all groups together to hammer out a compromise”.
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