Summary

Chapter 10, "Seawalls for Sale," opens with a description of a conference held in New York the year before Hurricane Sandy’s devastation of much of the area. The attendees were there to discuss what happens, legally speaking, when an island nation disappears under water. Representatives were there from a number of potential victims such as Grenada, the Bahamas, and the Marshall Islands. A representative from the Netherlands suggested that various Pacific states could merge into a new country with those whose land disappeared simply moving onto the new country’s higher ground. Although the Netherlands is famous for its low lying land, the country is wealthy and has perfected the art and science of keeping water at bay, even making money by offering its leading-edge technology to other countries. The chapter ends with a discussion of previous suggestions for protecting Manhattan...