Posted on 09/08/2004 12:06:36 PM PDT by ChuckShick
8 September 2004
BRUSSELS - By the year 3000, Brussels will be a coastal capital and Antwerp will have disappeared into the sea, warned a report out on Wednesday.
The study into the effects Belgium could suffer from global warming was carried out by the Catholic University of Leuven (UCL) and was commissioned by the environmental group Greenpeace.
A team of 20 experts, headed by climatology professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, warned Belgium would not escape the green house effect.
The researchers predicted that the country will see milder winters in the years to come, but that summers would become more humid, with many more heatwaves like 2003.
By the end of century, temperatures may rise between 1.7 and 4.9 degrees in winter and 2.4 to 6.6 degrees in the summer - the kind of temperature increases that haven't been recorded for the last 10,000 years.
Increased flooding, storms and coastal erosion were also predicted. The experts said an increase of one metre in the sea-level around Belgium would see 63,000 hectares of land disappear.
That problem could be tackled in the short-term, stated the report, through schemes to add extra sand to beaches.
One such project is currently under way in Ostend, for example.
The experts also said new species were proliferating in Belgium and would continue to do so, such as the arrival of oysters in the North Sea, which until now have preferred warmer waters.
Van Ypersele said some of the effects of climate change would be welcomed but added: "Looking at a horizon of 2030, 2050 or beyond, we can see that the potential negative effects significantly outweigh the few positive effects."
Greenpeace said it hoped the government would look at the report's findings and realise the importance of using more renewable energy sources and of developing a long-term environmental strategy.
This is excellent news. Aside from being a convenient invasion corridor for the Germans to invade France, the Belgian government is now giving muslims who want to wear headscarfs and go to school a place to do that.
That area has been subsiding for a long time. The sea is not rising, the land is sinking.
In the year 3535
Ain't gonna need to tell the truth, tell no lies.
Everything you think, do and say, is in the pill you took today.
...
ARTIST: Zager and Evans
TITLE: In the Year 2525
Time to vent the remaining Freon in my 92 Aerostar and put on that conversion kit. Maybe I can turn on the AC again.
What's a Belgium? Sounds like some sort of obsolete musical instrument like a player piano
You'll be here to see it in 3000 A.D., You've GOT to tell me how you do it! I for one will probably age a little bit by then (sarcasm)
Who has been recording temperatures all this time?
I was a little slow with the preview/post buttons. Should've been # 10.
Shucks... not soon enough to get rid of the World Court!
'And the downdside of this is'...?
I was thinking #1 or #2.
4 or 5 at the absolute latest - it was certainly MY first thought! ;^)
I can't be everywhere!!! I'm fighting the good fight on a NY Times message board too.
If only they would take the Dutch, the French..., oh hell, take all of Europe along with them.
LOL!
"The experts also said new species were proliferating in Belgium and would continue to do so, such as the arrival of oysters in the North Sea."
This is a problem? More like a benefit! New jobs for oystermen, more oysters for the rest of us. A worthy tradeoff for a few frenchified acres of belgie-que.
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