If sea levels rise ...

From Andrew's post in the thread on Coin Street

> Professor Andrew Watkins of the University of East
> Anglia was interviewed on Newsnight recently.
> According to the Royal Institute of Chartered
> Surveyors, Professor Watkins said:
> "The best projections at the moment are that by
> the end of the millennium we are looking at
> something like a ten metre sea-level rise.
> "That is going to mean that areas in London are
> not going to be viable anymore and we are going to
> have to look at relocation of buildings in the
> centre of London."

You can download a copy of London's Warming - the impacts of Climate Change on London from the Corporation of London's website.

Simplistically, this probably means a 2 metre rise within our grandchildren's lifetimes.

Some people will just be obsessed by the impact on their property values, but I think we should look at the bigger picture

I suspect that Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminter could be protected by some spectacular engineering project on the scale of moving the Abu Simbel temples,

But what would you save for posterity within the SE1 floodplain?

More frivolously, I think the appearance of County Hall would be much improved if it rose staight out of the water like some Venetian palazzo, with gondolas in the front apse.

See also If London were like Venice Oh! That It Were!
From Harmsworth's Magazine, August 1899
Illustrated by Messrs. R. Thiele and Co.

LOL - good thread to start! This should be fun.

The original Fosters design for the GLA showed a moat linked to the Thames around the base of City Hall. It had to be pointed out that all the waffle about the glass building symbolising 'open democracy' didn't do much good if it also looked like the politicians could pull up a drawbridge to keep out the plebs! Perhaps Foster was thinking more long-term than we realised at the time ;-)

Note the Thread I started in Chatter about Recycling - we're all going to hell in a (leaky) handbasket.

You're not alone in thinking that Paul:
http://grabthar.blogspot.com/2005/06/general-its-end-of-world-as-we-know-it.html

For Christmas Cards etc - please note my address is now The Penthouse ... hopefully this should fool potential future buyers.

Well we DO have the penthouse, but shall we have to moor a barge beside it? Still, shopping by canoe sounds quite romantic.....

Make sure you get a Gondolier, those Cambridge Punters don't have the technique.

BBC news reports the GLA Environment committee has published a new report on the flood risk in London:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/london/4325470.stm

The committee's report doesn't seem to be online yet, but it will probably be listed here in due course:
http://www.london.gov.uk/assembly/reports/environment.jsp

Stop all this idle banter, and concentrate on the really serious topic.....


.....which pubs will be left? Will the galleried bits of the George be OK? the top floor of the Barrowboy? Zakudia? Upstairs at the Oak (which would mean the kitchens were saved!)?

Thank god apples aren't root vegetables!