That sinking feeling: Venice

Somethings missing: Bra bar

Last fall I had the remarkable opportunity to shindig with other like-minded professionals at a week long workshop on international environmental law in Venice, Italy.  The program was fantastically put together in a collaboration between the University of Padua and the International Centre for Climate Governance-Venice scheduling lectures by prominent practitioners in the field.  I still can't stop drooling over all the amazing people and topics covered - well despite the fact that International Environmental Law, atleast for now, is  less than helpful (thank you very much economic lust and political bigotry). But still its an amazing field and, with the fluidity of climate change and air borne pollutants, it seems to be a field with vast potential for change (mm this sounded more like a wish than a concrete statement).

Venice: Tight quarters

Watching 'The Tourist' is what set me off again into this little reverie of Venice. I mean just watching Angie pout in almost every scene while strutting along the streets of Venice makes me want to go back again - sit in a lovely cafe in St Marks square..and pay and arm and a leg for some real Italian coffee. I had the pleasure along the way to learn that saying things like ''why don't you have a Pizza Hut'' and ''super size that'' are blasphemous.  That wearing the right clothes with your hair properly done could probably pass as permissible for a tourist in  the city - except if your an Americano...there's no real cover for that. But maybe after a few glasses of Prosecco you'd do fine. And there are a whole lot of tourists in Venice - everywhere! Everyday and for every season - Venice literally is sinking with tourists. Quite literally. You people who are guilty. You know who you are.

After wave

Before wave

The island of Venice is just like the little pink logo suggests - fish shaped (I studied on an island just off the bottom tip of the fish tail).  I had taken the train from Bologna to Venice at a surprisingly cheaper ticket price than I had imagined (considering how much it costs to take the train from Toronto to Montreal with VIA).  It was just about the end of September and still it was such nice weather. Lucky me. Since I had misjudged and decided that a walk from the train station to St Marks Square was absolutely doable. This was indeed not the case - especially with my heavy backpack (mind you blazoned with little flags of all the countries Id been too - yah I'm that awesome) and a satchel which was by then also digging into my shoulders.  I had also made the unsavoury choice of entering into some boutiques along the way (but it turned out to be a good idea anyway-they don't have this stuff here).

Venice sunset

Venice by day

Venice is how I remember it the last time I visited (about 3 years ago?) - except for the obvious fact that there  were much more raised platforms then before. That and there were more dog owners ignoring the obvious fact that their dog just did number two in the middle of the sidewalk.  Ok. Besides being quite handy as an impromptu fashion runway in the middle of the night while your hollaring at the top of your lungs - its demonstrable of the fact that the tides are really turning against the city.  Well, to be factual, the tides never were working for Venice. Venice is built up in a lagoon-your living predicament can't be more precarious than that (making Venetians also quite vulnerable to a phenomenon called Aqua alta which is another way to say high tide). So imagine being knee deep in water (from the Adriatic Sea) and having your building's facade being washed out at it too. Enter the GATES OF SALVATION (just say it in that game show host voice too...getting the jitters too?). The project is called MOSE (thats just one 'S' short of a biblical reference...oh wait sorry it IS Moses in Italian). They are like mobile gates embedded into the sea just a short ways away from the island. But this video makes it look cooler than if I gave the point-by-point play.

Outside the train station: no trains are allowed on the Island

But ofcourse ''It is not just rising sea levels with which Venice has to contend. The city is sinking as a result of subsidence caused by decades of groundwater extraction for agriculture and industry on the mainland, and offshore drilling for methane gas. This combination means that Venice has effectively sunk 23cm in the last century.'' But what more is there to do but watch it all unfold marvellously as mother nature unravels the sea onto Venice like it has always done.  These and other effects of climate change are bound to catch up to us sooner or later.