Description

The scenario we are facing is scary within a few decades sea levels around the world may well rise by a meter or more as glaciers and ice caps melt due to climate change Large parts of our coastal cities will be flooded the basic outline of our world will be changed and torrential rains will present their own challenges But this is not the first time that people have had to cope with threatening waters because sea levels have been rising for thousands of years ever since the end of the last Ice Age Stories told by the Indigenous people of Australia and the Pacific coast of North America and those found in the Bible and the Epic of Gilgamesh as well as Roman and Chinese histories all bear witness to just how traumatic these experiences were The responses to these challenges varied people adapted by building dikes canals and seawalls by resorting to prayer or magic and very often by moving out of the way of the rushing waters

Against the Seas explores these stories as well as the various measures being taken today to combat rising waters focusing on five regions Indonesia Shanghai the Sundarbans of Bangladesh the Salish Sea and the estuary of the St Lawrence River What happened in the past and what is being tried today may help us in the future and if nothing else give us hope that we will survive