Saeman’gŭm… glug glug
Last week’s decision by the Korean government, after much deliberation, to continue with the environmentally disastrous Saeman’gŭm land reclamation project struck me as somewhat ironic, considering the fact that before long all reclaimed land in the world will be under water.
Meanwhile, the Dutch are already heading in completely the opposite direction and beginning to soften their approach to defending the country’s huge areas of reclaimed land, allowing some of it to return to swamp as a way of ameliorating the effects of climate change.
After centuries of protecting itself from sea storms and river floods, solely with ‘’hard” barriers, such as dikes and dams, the Netherlands is now endeavoring to make itself ‘’climate-proof.” The plan involves greener, more resilient techniques to cope with the accelerated rise of rivers and sea levels that many climatologists expect to come with global warming.
More news on the Saeman’gŭm decision in Korean here.
