To The Eagle:

A humble rejoinder to Dennis Gordon’s challenge (Eagle 11/27): Venice was built on 118 small islands in the Venetian lagoon by Romans fleeing barbarian invaders (no doubt early Republicans) around 421 AD. Building technique on these low lying islands was to drive wooden posts into the ground (mud), build wooden platforms on top of them, and erect stone and brick buildings on the platforms. The buildings sink at an average rate of 2mm per anum, so the oldest buildings have sunk 19 feet. The area always floods several times a year, worst ones in winter, caused by high tide, onshore wind, and swollen rivers from rain or snowmelt. Venetians call it “acqua alta” – same thing our Grays River folk call “freshets.”

Global temperatures and sea levels have been rising slightly ever since the end of the “little ice age” 600 years ago. Sea levels rising at 2.46 mm per year for the past 80 years, and global temperature is now at about its 3000 year average. This particular flooding struck many places around the northern Adriatic Sea, and was exacerbated by high winds and a full moon. None of these statistics or events show any correlation to or causation by human activity or carbon dioxide levels.

Italian media, as well as our own fake news factories have been touting this as “worst in decades,” or “worst ever,” when history actually shows equal or worse flooding in 1927, 33, 66, 74, 80, 96 and 2012. The same media have been screeching disingenuously about our own natural disasters getting worse and more frequent, never acknowledging the worst natural disaster in our history, the Galveston hurricane of 1900 with a local death toll of 6,000 to 12,000 and a total toll of over 20,000 for the Caribbean, as far east as Cuba. This disaster was undoubtedly caused by Republican president William McKinley. He was assassinated one year later.

Those of us with limited mental acuity must rely on others for philosophical guidance, so how about a little (paraphrased) Browning: “Trump’s in his White House, all’s right in the world.”

Howard Brawn

Puget Island