In this week's episode, Gil Jenkins and Hilary Langer speak with Jason Horowitz and Emma Bubola of The New York Times about their recent cover story on Venice's battle against the relentless forces of rising seas. They discuss the unlikely early success of the MOSE sea walls in protecting the city during high water events that have become increasingly commonplace due to climate change.
In this week's episode, Gil Jenkins and Hilary Langer speak with Jason Horowitz and Emma Bubola of The New York Times about their recent cover story on Venice's battle against the relentless forces of rising seas. They discuss the unlikely early success of the MOSE sea walls in protecting the city during high water events that have become increasingly commonplace due to climate change.
Links:
As Sea Levels Rise, the Savior of Venice May Also Be Its Curse, (The New York Times, April 2, 2023)
Recorded: April 21, 2023
Email your feedback to Chad, Gil, and Hilary at climatepositive@hasi.com or tweet them to @ClimatePosiPod.
Venice’s Sea Walls
Chad Reed: I'm Chad Reed.
Hillary Langer: I'm Hillary Langer.
Gil Jenkins: I'm Gil Jenkins.
Chad: This is Climate Positive.
Jason Horowitz: whether or not it's MOSE, whatever the technology is, coastal cities around the world are going to have to do something. Venice has done something. Venice is one of the places that cities that are in danger can look to.
Hilary: Venice’s new sea walls are giving the historic city a fighting chance in the face of rising sea levels. In this week’s episode, Gil and I spoke to the New York Times’ Rome Bureau Chief Jason Horowitz and his colleague, Emma Bubola, about their recent front page feature on Venice and the unlikely success of the MOSE sea walls.
Gil: Jason and Emma, welcome to Climate Positive.
Emma Bubola: Thank you.
Jason: Thanks for having us.
Gil: We're really excited to have you on. Hilary and I are both loyal subscribers to The New York Times. I tell you, on April 2nd, I was just floored by your above-the-fold cover story about Venice sea walls to really give a sense of the brief feature you got into and was just so excited to talk to you about this really first-rate piece of journalism on what's happening in that famed old city.
To kick it off, Jason, you had a very nice tweet that captures the thrust of the piece, and you said, "Venice's sea walls embody Italy's ambition, ingenuity, political instability, bureaucracy, corruption, defeatism, and against-all-odd success. Now, the city's sentinel may also stand as a monument to the futility of man's efforts to stop climate change." Could you expand on that tweet? Emma, I'll ask you the same question.
Jason: Sure. First, I can't believe I got all those words into a tweet. It was a long tweet.
[laughs]
Gil: Yes, I think just under 280 characters.
Jason: I think the idea there is that for decades now, going back to the 1970s, early 1970s, Italy recognized that it needed to protect Venice from the sea. It just took a very, very long time. Not just the building of these walls, but the politics around it, the corruption around it, the boldness of the engineering that was involved with it. All of it struck me as a metaphor for Italy that has all these often contradictory forces going on at once.
The thing about Italy, when you've covered it for a while, you realize that when all the chips seem down and it seems like the place is heading off of a cliff, it somehow pulls it off. I think what we saw was that Italy pulled it off again when these walls went up, and a lot of people had given up on them. We can talk about if they went up too late and the problems that they might cause in the future, but for now, they went up and Venice is safe and safer, really, than many of the coastal cities around the world that are facing rising sea levels because of climate change.
The futility of it comes in the future if the sea level keeps climbing, as many experts think it will, then the problem will be that the walls might have to stay up so often that you create an entire new slate of problems. As one scientist told us, they'll be talking about lowering the walls instead of raising them. The consequences there would be that Venice could be choked off from the sea that's actually its lifeblood.
Gil: Emma, what was your big takeaway from the reporting?
Emma: I agree with Jason that, in some ways, it's metaphor of many things that happened in Italy, and maybe also more from a personal perspective. We started reporting this story before the walls worked, and at that point, for years, we had just heard criticism about them, criticism about the corruption involved in the project, and there were still-- It was like a national debate on whether the walls were ever going to work. They had become also an issue of political discussion with different parties siding for the walls or against the walls.
When they actually worked, it was in the middle of the pandemic, and people were not busy looking at the MOSE, but it was, I'm sure, a surprise for many of us. When we went on to cover them working, I think a big part of us, especially me and I have a personal connection to Venice, and I've spent a lot of my childhood there. It's kind of this incredible change to what the city is, because the city has always been a victim of floods and high water and having just the possibility to be sheltered from it was really surprising and emotional.
Hilary: During those flooding events, what was the conversation like among Italians? Was there much discussion about the existential threat of climate change, or was it accepted as business as usual for Venice?
Emma: I don't think that climate change was very much in the picture back then. High waters have always been there in Venice for a long time. My grandma's from Venice, and I've heard stories of her having to deal with the high waters since she was a child. So yes, I think it was very much a normal thing there. I think maybe,in the past couple of years, when we had this extreme, really extreme high waters, then there was more of a discussion around climate change and about these events becoming more extreme.
Jason: I think it's a combination of the frequency of the events and the dramatic nature of the events that maybe even for hardened Venetians who had waders in their closets and could brave any high water event. I do think that there was a point when they were saying, "This is not good. This doesn't feel like the natural way of things." Also, the frustration with MOSE was real because this was this €500 billion project which was supposed to protect them in the islands. It's not even that it wasn't working, it didn't exist. I was there in 2019 during one of the really major floods. I think it's the second-highest or third-highest in history.
That's when I got the sense, anyway, that Venetians did not think that this was business as usual. It was more than concern. They were seeing their city underwater, almost all of it. You had top officials coming from Rome, grandstanding populous at the time. Matteo Salvini, who was then the interior minister, I think, he looked like he was going to go fly fishing. He had rubber overalls on, but they were all clearly saying the same thing, which is "This can't happen anymore." No one was denying climate change by the way. They were saying that this is real and we need a way to protect the city and there should be a way to protect the city, which is MOSE, so let's get it done. Arguably, too late, because it was after the flood, Italy did get it done.
Hilary: For those who haven't yet read your piece or seen the great visuals, especially online, could you walk us through the mechanics of the MOSE system and how it works?
Jason: At its most basic level, MOSE is a series of hollow sea walls that are built into the seabed at certain gates between the sea and the lagoon around Venice. They're always filled with water when they're flat on the bottom. The provisions that the tides are going to rise come in, or a storm is coming. Anyway, the experts determine that the water's going to flood into the lagoon and into the city. The very complicated electronic system is activated, a button is pushed, and what happens is that those walls empty of water. They fill with air, air is pumped into them. Just by the nature of physics, they rise because they float and they rise to the surface.
They're yellow, so they have this very odd appearance. They almost look like these yellow legos that are floating to the surface and they come to on an angle pointing away from the sea, but they come high enough that the high waves can't get over them. It's not a complete solid wall, so some water does come through, but that also reduces the pressure on the walls so that they don't snap. Some very little water might come over, but it's basically cutting enough of the wave and keeping enough of the seawater out of the lagoon that the level within the lagoon and so on the streets of Venice does not change.
Emma: There is maybe a general idea that one of the dangers with climate change is that the sea level raise so much that water might like go over it be higher than the walls, but actually the walls are really high. When we talk about the danger in 100 years time, it's not about the water going above the walls, but it's about the walls having to be up too often.
Gil: We'll talk about that. I was struck by that when they finally got it going in 2020. I want to come back to that. It seems like that was a big moment where someone finally decided, but the engineers at the time, you said in your piece that I will probably have to do this about five times a year, I think you said. They've already had to raise it, is it 49 times since 2020? How is that overuse and increasing in the years? Tell us about the interaction with the lagoon, and the concerns, maybe not immediate because it is this savior that it's going to create. I think you called it a feted swamp or one of the critics if you don't allow the flow of water in with more frequency.
Emma: I think what was very interesting for us was to see the data around the tides in Venice, because the MOSE was designed to stop tides that are above 110 centimeters. In the first two decades of the 20th century, Venice had these tides only six times. In the past 20 years, these tides exceeding 110 centimeters have happened more than 150 times. We read a lot about climate change, but when I was looking at these figures, I was like, "Wow. This is such a blatant example of how it's actually already happening, and in a big way."
Again, I think that it's important to note that right now, even if the walls are going out 13 times a year instead of six, that is not a problem. That's not a big problem, both in terms of the balance between the seawater and the lagoon, about the port activity. It's not a big issue. The substantial issues, in terms of the health of the lagoon, would happen if the number of closings would be much higher, like dozens, or several months even.
Jason: That is plausible. We're talking maybe not tomorrow, but Venice has been around for a very long time and wants to be around for a lot longer. Within a future that is seeable, that could become a problem, where the walls would be up so very often that the lagoon would be essentially closed. The idea, especially environmental advocates are very concerned about, is that if the lagoon is constantly closed because the walls are constantly up, it can't flush itself out and oxygen levels will go down, and you'll have these horrible blooms of algae that-- it'll make Venice tough to walk around. [laughs]
Gil: Tough to have romantic rides through as well.
Jason: Yes. Exactly. Like your gondola oar might be going through mud. Hopefully, that won't happen, but there is a real risk. Again, it is not tomorrow, but we're not talking about in a thousand years, or centuries, we're talking about a foreseeable future. When you talk to engineers, however, they're more than happy to have this problem, because they'll take a problem in the future rather than a problem now.
Hilary: Is there talk about engineers coming up with a system to circulate the water? I understand there's a lock system that's proposed to preserve access to the Adriatic, or are Italians just done spending money on this?
Jason: It's still technically experimental. The actual MOSE has the word experimental in its name.
Gil: You don't get that a lot with government infrastructure projects.
Hilary: They cost billions of dollars.
Jason: 50-year government--[laughs]
Gil: Yes.
Jason: They tried, in these first months where it was operating, to try and leave some of the walls down so that the water could flush out, which would solve everything if they could keep the lagoon level low but only raise some of the walls. What we came to understand is that that actually is not a quick fix, or, at least, so far, that doesn't seem to work. As far as I know, they haven't figured out an answer to that problem.
Emma: Just to add, one thing that I thought was really interesting is that we've spent like €5 billion on this project, and we spent all these years, and we finally have these fantastic walls that protect the city, but then there's still high water sometimes. St. Mark's Square sometimes still floods. The issue of not using the walls too often is already present, is already happening. Because if we have these walls, why don't we just keep them up all the time to protect even the lowest parts of the city that flood with lower tides? In terms of just engineers, or Italian thinks about solutions, they built a glass wall against that St. Marks in order not to use the MOSE too often. They also are doing several projects around Venice to lift the ground so that the lowest parts don't get flooded with lower tides. They're definitely already working not to use MOSE too often to prevent it from choking the city.
Jason: The solutions that they're coming up with now are sort of old-fashioned solutions that they've been using for centuries. Raising the ground, that's not rocket science. That's like taking the pavement off the sidewalks, putting more dirt on, and then putting the pavement back on. If it works, why not?
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Gil: Is there a hero in this story?
Jason: I think probably, if there are heroes of this story, it's the engineers who over decades really believed in it. There was a ton of opposition, opposition from all sorts of sectors. Opposition in a way from the people who found a way to steal off their project.
Opposition from environmental groups who had real grievances about what this might do for the lagoon and or against the lagoon, I should say, and might kill the lagoon. This became a project that it wasn't even unpopular, it was almost written off. It became like a punchline. The engineers who really believed in it, they saw it through. Weirdly, the people who have to predict the weather, which is not easy, in [laughs] our human history, they're the unsung heroes here.
There's a provision center in Venice. There's a guy named Papa who he's responsible for determining when the tides are coming. He's the guy looking for the threat coming in from the sea. He has to predict it and he predicts it correctly. He is total confidence and stays awake till 5:00 in the morning, or actually till 9:00 in the morning, making sure that the walls are raised and that all of his predictions come to pass, and that the city's safe. The day of the last big flood, we divided our time to be with him, but he stayed up the whole time [laughs].
Emma: Yes. He also had a very personal story. He spent his childhood rescuing hats from his dad's shop that would get constantly flooded. That night, that early morning that we were sitting in his office and we were watching on their screen these huge waves crashing against rocks out in the lagoon, and still seeing that the city was dry, he was completely feeling the story as he also worked on it.
Hilary: Given your personal connection to Venice, can you tell us what it was like when you were reporting on the first time MOSE was deployed and what the feeling was among Venetians?
Emma: I think what struck me the most was last November when we went. It was the biggest flood that MOSE kept at bay so far. It was one of the worst flood. It would've been one of the worst in history if MOSE was not there. We did walk around and ask people-- I mean, first of all even myself person, we were seeing kids going to school, people living [unintelligible 00:17:58] and life going on as normal when we were aware of the damage that the tides would've made was MOSE not there. Then, we stopped and spoke to some people whose houses would get constantly flooded and they just thanked the MOSE and they seemed to also be oblivious and like forgiven or forgotten how long it took for it to come to life and all the money spent. They were just so grateful and so relieved, I think. I don't know if you agree.
Jason: No, I totally agree. The terms that people used, it was more than a few people, it was used almost religious language to thank the MOSE. I think that that's not an accident MOSE is meant to evoke Moses who split the sea. Maybe that lends itself to people thanking several people thank the God of MOSE for keeping them dry. Maybe that's just something that people were saying, but you could really-- there was deep gratitude. I ran into one woman who was going down the steps of the [00:19:05] Rialto Bridge, and again, this would've been completely flooded if MOSE were not up.
It was raining, so she had an umbrella up, but I talked to her and realized that she had a tote bag with MOSE on it, with the yellow walls on it. She just said she basically wanted to represent MOSE walking around because it had saved the city. She was an architect. She was pretty representative of a lot of the people we talked to that day. Then there were people like Taurus who had absolutely no idea that their entire vacations would've been toast because also, MOSE, don't forget, it was built not to be seen. In a way, when people are oblivious to it, it's really doing its job because it's something you should take for granted that you're not going to have high water anymore. It's far enough out that you don't see it. Even if you happen to be close to it, you don't see it unless it's up. That was the elegant aspect of the design and the sort of very Italianness of it. [crosstalk]
Hilary: Very [unintelligible 00:20:19]
Gil: Yes, very chic.
Jason: Yes. It's like a chic, very sleek line. You don't see it unless you need it.
Gil: Let's talk about other reactions. Your piece mentioned that given the success someone from New York called, how much in your reporting, did you maybe didn't make into the story? Did you learn about how this might be applicable for other cities facing sea level rise? I recognize Venice is unique, but curious if you heard about how exportable this is or that story's still to be written.
Jason: I think that story's probably still to be written. The mayor told me, not necessarily counterpart, it wasn't the mayor of New York that called, but New York City was calling curious about how this worked. Spitz, who is again the manager in charge of all this, floated the idea that they could offset some of the costs of raising MOSE every time, which is a lot of money, by exporting it and selling the intellectual property a little bit. Part of that a little bit seems like we're in pipe dream territory for now. Also, it's €5 billion.
I don't know how many people just want to throw €5 billion at some sea walls. Then, again, it works. Then again, you're not starting in the 1970, you're starting in 2023. You're dealing with different technology. I think the deeper point is whether or not it's MOSE, whatever the technology is, coastal cities around the world are going to have to do something. Venice has done something. Venice is one of the places that cities that are in danger can look to.
Hilary: Jason, you've done a lot of reporting on the Vatican. Do you have discussions with Pope Francis or others there about climate change and how we think about it in terms of some of these vulnerable cities?
Jason: Yes, I'm not on the phone with the Pope every day. Clearly, climate change, if you were going to make a list of Pope Francis's priorities, it would either be the top or very close to the top of his priorities of his pontificate. The cardinals who are closest to him, there's a Canadian cardinal named Charney who was instrumental in the writing of [unintelligible 00:22:33], care deeply about the climate. It is something that the Pope will talk about at every opportunity. Recently, with him in South Sudan and in Congo and those are-- South Sudan's a political story, Congo's also a political story.
Yet, they both became climate stories because Francis made a point to point out that the environmental exploitation of those countries' modern colonialism that was taking place by great powers was not only disenfranchising the people of those countries but it was ruining the natural resources of those countries, which is of course deeply linked to the livelihood there. Francis, I think, sometimes he's unheated but he is incessant about raising threats to the climate and what we can do about it. I think he's alone in the world. Sometimes he's alone the wilderness on that. For now 10 years, he is a broken record on it, and broken record as a negative connotation. I think it's a broken record that a lot of people need to listen to.
Gil: Both of you cover a wide range of issues in Italy and Europe, not always climate or environmental stories. I know this reporting takes months, perhaps years, but are you already thinking about other climate or environmental issues that you think should be covered next?
Jason: Just because it's fresh in my mind. I just got back from north of Milan along the Adda River which is incredibly low right now. Last year was the worst drought in 70 years here in Italy and clearly across Europe. The drought was devastating. People in England saw their green fields turned to hay right in front of their eyes. I don't think that's a one-off. I think Northern Italy is already in the grips of a terrible drought. That's what I was up there reporting on. If it's anything like last year, I think it's a major economic problem, health problem. I also wonder if it's two years in a row that Europe has no water. If that stops becoming talked about as an exceptional year, at what point it becomes normal and forces action and a change of behavior, a change of technology, and just actual transformation here in Europe. I think that that is a major story that I know I'm paying attention to.
Emma: Yes, I think initially there are so many stories that can be done around climate changes, the wildfires that happen every summer and are devastating. I'm from the north of Italy. In the north of Italy, we have a huge area of alpine and the glacier is melting or snowless winters. That's going to be a massive change, both for nature, but also for the economy of many of these places. I think that's definitely something that I would like to look at.
Jason: Last year, I was on the-- we almost called it the how hot is it beat, because it seemed like every week during the summer, there was a new high temperature somewhere in Europe. I found myself in Athens. I think Athens broke the European record for the hottest day ever. It was a strange summer where I kept going to the worst hottest place. [laughs] In places outside of Syracuse in Italy, in Sicily, you see these often in Italy, they'll have the temperature written on the pharmacy green cross outside in the street. You see these numbers that defy belief. You think that the screen is broken. I think it went up to more than 110. These are towns where it's also lots of old people who are in the piazza--
Gil: Truly no air conditioning, of course.
Jason: There's no air conditioning. I remember in Athens, I talked to this woman who is Athens's first heat officer. It's an official job now. We were talking about what the solutions might be. In a way, it was a little similar to the MOSE in that they were so focused on the problem now because it's so acute. The idea of what might happen in 50 or 100 years, you just don't have the luxury to deal with that right now because we are now at the acute phase.
Their big plan is they want to plant trees, sure, and build a green corridor out in Athens, but really what they need to do is just get a lot of air conditioning into that city. Air conditioning obviously is not great for the environment. She says that is not a problem that she has the luxury to deal with. She has a population that she needs to keep cool. I think that's the awkward situation we're in now where maybe the solutions might long-term contribute to the problem, but we no longer have the luxury to avoid them.
Gil: What gives you both hope in your reporting? There's two sides to this. We've obviously beautifully framed Jason, but Emma, if you want to reflect on anything, what Jason said, or maybe just both of you answer the question, what gives you hope as you think about the climate challenge and the reporting ahead of you?
Emma: What I'm noticing that I think is really helpful is that there are many initiatives in which scientists and the media are starting to collaborate. I think that is very helpful because I sometimes write about extreme weather events or fires, heat waves, we are so careful and we are so scared of attributing to climate change because we don't know if we can say it. We don't know if we can attribute it to it. I think that having a strong support from the scientific community and have a bigger interaction would really help us do a fair and more accurate coverage.
I'm seeing that happening around me a lot more with initiatives either in European institutions or even the French. Public TV has just started a climate weather service. It's like they are not just doing the weather, they also do a climate forecast on a very mass program, with a massive outreach with scientists going there. I think this interaction between journalists and scientists is something that is very beneficial to the public and I see that happening more and more.
Jason: This might fall under the department of wishful thinking.
Gil: That's okay.
Jason: I actually believe in human ingenuity and as clear as it is this is a problem caused by people to a large extent. I also think that there's just a good track record of people fixing problems. I don't think it's something we should bank on, like a vacuum coming to suck all the CO2 out of the atmosphere, but I wouldn't give up on that either. That takes a lot of work, that doesn't happen by accident.
That happens by governments deciding that this is their major priority. I always think of how fast the vaccines were developed, because scientists got together and it became a major priority around the world, and especially in the United States. That was very heartening to me. If that urgency was applied to climate, I don't know, maybe nothing would happen, maybe it's too far gone, but maybe something could happen, and that gives me hope.
Hilary: Emma, Jason, thank you both so much for taking the time today. You're reporting across a wide range of topics, including Emma yours on the children in Ukraine. I think it's what people go to journalism school to someday report on. It's been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining us.
Emma: Thanks so much for having us.
Jason: Yes, thanks.
Gil: If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, please leave us a leave a rating and review on Apple and Spotify. This really helps us reach more listeners.
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I'm Gil Jenkins.
And this is Climate Positive.