![]() You may wish to pretend that rising seas are a hoax perpetrated by scientists and a gullible news media. The Dutch devise lakes, garages, parks and plazas that are a boon to daily life but also double as enormous reservoirs for when the seas and rivers spill over. It is, in essence, to let water in, where possible, not hope to subdue Mother Nature: to live with the water, rather than struggle to defeat it. Now climate change brings the prospect of rising tides and fiercer storms. ![]() Much of the nation sits below sea level and is gradually sinking. No place in Europe is under greater threat than this waterlogged country on the edge of the Continent. That’s because from the first moment settlers in this small nation started pumping water to clear land for farms and houses, water has been the central, existential fact of life in the Netherlands, a daily matter of survival and national identity. They often end up hiring Dutch firms, which dominate the global market in high-tech engineering and water management. Month in, month out, delegations from as far away as Jakarta, Ho Chi Minh City, New York and New Orleans make the rounds in the port city of Rotterdam. Like cheese in France or cars in Germany, climate change is a business in the Netherlands. Ovink is the country’s globe-trotting salesman in chief for Dutch expertise on rising water and climate change. deck, one eye on the boats, the other, as usual, on his phone. Henk Ovink, hawkish, wiry, head shaved, watched from a V.I.P. Rowers strained toward a finish line and spectators hugged the shore. ROTTERDAM, the Netherlands - The wind over the canal stirred up whitecaps and rattled cafe umbrellas.
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