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We Should Get Prepared for Rising Damp

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July 22, 2025

Building a wall to protect against floods.

BY GORDON T

The gardener called by recently. He must have been feeling fitter because he did a full hour before coming in for his morning break. I was pleased to see him though as I had a special job for him. Opening a couple of beers, I sat him down and told him I had been thinking about the property, to which he raised an eyebrow so I continued.

“I’ve been reading in The Informer about climate change and in particular, rising sea levels. Well respected climate authorities such as the Waikato Regional Council have been quoted as saying that sea levels will rise by 20cm to 30cm by the year 2050 and this is a concern.” Now the Gardener is not slow with figures, especially his hourly rate, so he quickly responded. “That’s a 50% variance on the 20cm estimate so modelling theory will tell you that it could be as low as 10cm. And if the Waikato Regional Council is so concerned, why did they muck around for 18 months before allowing the shark bite to be fixed up?”

It was hard to answer that question so I didn’t bother, instead responding, “How much the sea rises is really guessing work, and the climate fellows with a greater knowledge of history will tell you there will be some glaciers coming sometime so it may not rise at all, possibly will get lower. The point is that I think we should prepare for something if that something does happen. If we prepare for the higher guess we should be ok on the lower one.” Once again, the gardener raised an eyebrow, so I explained.

“I want you to build a metre high ridge in the gardens along the boundary of the property. Plant them in something nice, don’t want it to look like a dyke even if that is the purpose.” The gardener looked confused and asked me, “Is that really necessary, you won’t see that sea level rise around here and the Council will have everything under control.” “That’s the point,” I answered, “I can’t see the Council building a block wall along Buffalo Beach by 2050, so I think we need to be prepared for a gradual tidal surge.”

The gardener nodded, took out his pencil and made some notes before asking, “If you are that concerned about such matters, why don’t you get an electric car?” I looked down my nose at him and slowly explained, “Noisy cars are much safer. They warn people that they are coming. I’m concerned about our fellow citizens so that is why I paid for the larger exhaust on my car. It’s a safety measure.”

The gardener nodded and took a swig of his beer then replied, “But when the batteries fail on your electric car, rendering it useless, you could bury your car at the edge of the garden, your dyke would be more significant.” He may have had a point but I thought I would need to go through too many electric cars to make a full boundary dyke. He carried on. “You might need to buy a few more electric wrecks to make a full dyke, but it would be doable.”

I shook my head and pointed out I did not want to become a junk yard for failed climate technologies so we would proceed with the small bank I originally asked for. Having settled that we both relaxed and concentrated on our beers for a couple of minutes before the gardener broke the silence. “How do we prepare for glaciers?” he asked. I had to think about that, after all it seemed such a faraway problem I hadn’t really considered it. Eventually I responded. “So long as we get good warning we should be able to prepare. Maybe a CCTV feed from the Coroglen Pub would be useful. When we see a glacier sneak under the bridge, we can start preparing, get the firewood in, and train a husky, that sort of thing.” The gardener nodded, “Should work okay,” he said. “But if we want to get really prepared, and take advantage of the opportunity offered, maybe we should build the Village’s first curling rink and start practicing for the new life.”