Just let that sink in (pun intended) for a moment.
Hull.
Hull, the 2017 City of Culture, a pinnacle of civilization as we know it, will one day - relatively soon - be under water.
Hull, a place immortalised in poetry by Philip Larkin; somewhere that's been city since the late 12th century could cease to exist by 2115.
Apart from the frankly terrifying prospect that Busted's Year 3000 is not merely a lighthearted pop song, but in fact an accurate vision of the future, it's odd to think that my great-grandchildren could feasibly not know that Hull was ever a real place.
Hull is the Atlantis of our time.
Hull.
I've never actually been to Hull, but now it's only got a limited amount of time left as a viable tourist attraction, I feel like I should probably go see the Humber Bridge or something.
Which got me thinking...
Sea levels are undeniably (I mean, unless you're a climate change denier) rising faster than they ever have before. Conservative estimates say that as the Earth's temperature continues to rise, sea levels will get about 2 meters higher over the next 85 years - enough to wipe out a load of cities on the U.S. East Coast. More pessimistic predictions say sea levels could get as much as 7 meters higher in the same timeframe, which would wipe out the whole of London: the Thames Barrier ain't doing shit against 23 feet of melted polar icecaps!
Obviously it'd be pretty rubbish if the whole of London was submerged underwater. For one thing, most of my friends and family would be killed, and let's not get started on what it would do the house prices, but I've actually been to London loads of times, so for the purposes of this blog I'm not really interested in our nation's capital heading to its watery grave.
I'm one of those "one day I'll..." people, and one of my biggest "one day..."'s is one day I'll travel. I want to see all the cool stuff in the world that I haven't laid my eyes on yet. But apparently, some of this cool stuff is going to be partially underwater in my lifetime, so I should probably get a wriggle on, unless I fancy sharing my hotel room with the cast of The Little Mermaid.
Here are a few places I wanna see before they're underwater.
The beach! The nightlife! The skyline! Who doesn't want to go on the holiday of a lifetime to Miami!?
But those famous beaches come at a price: thanks to Florida being low-lying, it'll be one of the first places to be swallowed up by the sea.
In fact, Miami already floods pretty badly on an annual basis, with water creeping in a bit further each time; and if sea levels rise another 30cm - not unlikely - the water supply will be contaminated, and the city's toilets will stop flushing; bad news if you like going to the loo.
Another couple of meters, and the residents of Miami, along with 2.4million other Floridans will be living under the sea.
Hopefully the $1.5 billion being spent on trying to hold back the rising water will save Miami - and the $400 million they're pumping into improving their sewage system won't hurt, either.
Truthfully, building a city on marshland wasn't the best idea, and that's essentially what's happening in Bangkok. As buildings have got taller and the city's infrastructure has got heavier, it's literally weighing itself down into the sea - as much as 20mm a year in some parts of the city. That might not sound like much, but combined with those rising sea levels I've been banging on about, Bangkok could have as little as 15 years left - which completely ruins my plans of going to see a ping-pong show for my 40th birthday.
Not that the Government seems to have any sense of urgency about the issue: no plans have been made yet, but someone's suggested relocating the capital... and there's talk of building a "sea wall" for a cool $14 billion, too.
The lowest-lying country in the world, 80% of the Maldives are less than a meter above sea level - so it doesn't take a genius to work out what would happen if those levels got a bit higher. And the Maldives is facing another problem, too: pollution, and pesky honeymooners wanting free souvenirs, are both destroying the coral reefs around the islands. Not only is this bad news for the ecosystems that rely on those reefs, but it means that the barrier they've been providing to the islands - slowing down the rate of erosion and reducing flooding - is on its way out too.
In a frankly ingenious move, the people of the Maldives are using sand from nearby lagoons to create a man-made island which towers a whole 2 meters above sea level, and can house a third of the population.
It's not all bad, I promise.
These are just a small sample of the places that are disappearing into the sea, so it might seem inevitable that we're all going to have to succumb to our ocean overlords one day.
But as long as we act quickly, we can probably still save Hull.
26% of the Netherlands is actually below sea level, but instead of turning Rotterdam into some kind of aquarium, the Dutch have got pretty good at foiling the relentless efforts of water, by relocating at-risk residents, and replenishing the 12million cubic meters of sand that are eroded each year.
If they can do it, so can we!
