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Venetians should start learning the backstroke
By Frank Bures
Christian Science Monitor
05/02/2002
Venice is dying.
That's the sober message of John Keahey's new book,
"Venice Against the Sea." The city is slowly sinking, Venetians are fleeing,
oceans are rising, and the Adriatic's waves are lapping at the bricks
like a ticking clock.
It's a dark thought, that Venice could slip into the
sea. In its glory, the Serenissima controlled much of the Mediterranean.
It was one of the most powerful cities in the world and, as an independent
republic, the longest-lived democracy ever (1,500 years). Venetians are
credited with inventing modern capitalism and the banking system that
made them so rich. In the 1200s, Venetian shipyards turned out a ship
a day.
The 20th century, however, was a different story. Decades
of neglect and industrialization took their toll on the city's infrastructure.
Much of the old city has been bought up by wealthy foreigners; locals
have moved inland. Today, Venice has become a living museum, filled with
treasures from other lives, than a city with a life of its own. You can't
even find a good pizza there.
But more recently, and more ominously for the city,
are the growing episodes of acqua alta or high water, that force Venetians
to walk on duckboards and in golashes. Keahey writes with this premise:
Over the coming decades, the condition will only get worse.
Keahey's book centers on this problem, one faced not
just by Venice, but by coastal cities around the world. In the next 100
years, sea levels will rise, not just because of melting icecaps, but
because of expanding oceans: With rising temperatures, water molecules
expand and the oceans get bigger.
What does this mean for Venice? It means something
has to be done to keep the city from gradually being submerged and corroded
by salt. This has been clear since the 1966 flood, when more than six
feet of water washed across the city and caused massive damage.
One solution Keahey seems to endorse halfheartedly
is a series of mobile gates that could be raised during high water to
hold back the tide. In typical Italian style, this was first proposed
in 1970, and in the following 30 years, committees were formed, and the
project was debated and postponed; funds were solicited, then allocated,
and finally used elsewhere.
Opposition to the mobile gates from locals and environmentalists
has grown. Meanwhile, governments have risen and fallen and done nothing
about Venice.
Corruption, intrigue, and an entire city in peril -
this is all good drama. But Keahey spends most of the book talking about
the minutiae of global warming, scientific reports, the intricacies of
tidal movements, repairs to city canals, and the feasibility of gates.
Sadly, the larger picture gets lost in these details.
What does all this mean for the people who live there and have lived there
for centuries? What does it mean for us? Why is it that outsiders and
foreigners want the gates, while Venetians don't? What does the dilemma
tell us about the kind of world we live in? Why is Venice, and this book
about it, important?
These are all avenues not followed in "Venice Against
the Sea." Nevertheless, it's a well-reported book, and Keahey is a brave
man for walking into the labyrinth of Italian politics. There is much
good information here about Venice and its problems, and Keahey's take
is refreshingly cleareyed: His Venice is far, far from the Tuscan sun,
and his history of the city is fascinating.
Unfortunately, when he moves into modern times, the
book shifts into low gear and the story is overwhelmed by reams of data
and long passages only a climatologist could love.
Why do we want to save Venice? That is the central
question that goes unanswered. The outside world has a love affair with
the city that people who live there do not. Are we saving it for ourselves
or for them?
The book ends with this statement from the city's mayor:
"All those who are using Venice for their own interests must make a contribution
to preserve the myth." What that myth is, we are left to wonder.
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