Sea-level rise trust: the Assemblea per la Laguna

This short story is the second in a collection of three inspired by my master's thesis research on sea level rise narrative futures in the Venice Lagoon: talk, trust, time.

Nadia: 2028

The Assemblea started last year, in 2027, as a body that runs parallel to the Autorità per la Laguna. The Autorità was meant to be the public governing body that was taking over from the monopoly that the state had given to a consortium of private firms. When the transition happened a few years back, MOSE was active. At the top of the agenda were other diffuse projects of caring for, managing, healing (whatever word works for you) the lagoon. The trouble is that the collective trauma of the MOSE project on the Venice community had left a fragmented and uncoordinated response from the public. There was absolutely no clarity, and so not even a shred of trust, around what would happen next. The national government chose a public entity to consolidate the responsibilities of maintenance and management, but it was a slow process. They only had their first full meeting in 2026, after the Olympics fiasco. Even then it was a whole year of understanding the existing systems before anyone in the Autorità even dared to start changing them.

In 2026 some of us in the unions and local assemblies delivered a joint report on the lagoon situation to the city council of Venice. The new mayor, well, she wasn’t convinced by our ideas, but one council member was a staunch unionist and saw the need for a working group that could guide the actions of the Autorità. That’s what we put on the table: an assembly of delegates representing leaders in civil society and lagoon livelihoods. The crucial piece, in my opinion, is that we included engineers and port managers as equal parties in these gatherings, and we owe lots of that work to my co-chair Andrea Lombardo.

My name is Nadia Hadir and I call myself a community organizer here in Venice. For fifteen years I helped to run a small office that provides assistance to Venice’s immigrant community. Our clients are mostly recent immigrants from Southeast Asia, North Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. The Palestinian community in Venice is growing quickly, but the other newcomers who don’t make headlines are from all over. I myself was born in Somalia but came here with my parents when I was twelve and quickly learned Italian from my classmates. It was my circles of peers who welcomed me first, even from a young age. I’m now almost fifty and it’s the same. You know someone and they give you real help, but if you know no one you’re gonna get crushed under the lack of handouts. My work that got me into the Assemblea is my alliance-building between the unions, the immigrant community, and local activists. They know me as a no-nonsense deal-maker. It’s exhausting work, honestly, but I love it. I don’t sleep very much. Three years ago I got myself an apartment in Sant’Elena above a bar that just opened there. That’s where I met Andrea, a hydrologist who lives in Chioggia, in 2025. Between the two of us we had just enough political sway to challenge the restricted politics that the Autorità was pulling together. Since such a major body was about to really make changes in the lagoon, our network knew we needed to do it right. Just over a year later, the Assemblea was authorized to act as a guiding body, and so here we are after another full year of work.

I have a seat on the Assemblea because of my connections to the immigrant community, but also because I have strong backing from the university students and workers, and they would have rioted if there were only old Italian-born men in this supposedly socially-aware group. Let’s see, there’s also my colleague from the Bangla community association, three union representatives, a pair of reps from youth associations here in Venice, two fishers’ associations delegates, two MOSE engineers, a port authority rep, and reps from the tourism board, the small business owners association, and the old people’s groups. Then three seats allocated to geographic representation, currently filled by an artisan from Murano, a café owner from Lido, and a local councilwoman from Mestre. A biologist from Jesolo and a university anthropologist attend infrequently as non-voting members, and a member of the Autorità is there for accountability purposes. That makes about twenty-five of us, not too many that we can’t be effective. We don’t come to the table as politicians. Even the people who are state employees are paid separately for their time out of the small budget that we were given, and we hope that this set-up encourages members to attend and speak freely at our bi-weekly meetings, and to make the effort to share what we learn in these assemblies when they return to their day jobs.

I was one of the founding members, and I insisted that all delegates get paid equally and well for their formal participation in the Assemblea per la Laguna, though we know by now, a year later, that each of us does far more work for this project than we’re compensated for. I tell myself that the outcomes we’ve seen so far from the Assemblea have set the Autorità on a good track. I like to think that we’re ghostwriting the future. The future comes out of our conversations and group learning practices. It’s been a journey so far.

Our mission is to grow trust between all of the little isolated parts of this lagoon. The Autorità sets out a table, but we make the invites and cook the feast. We’re building bridges. Or, my favorite metaphor is that we’re rowing in little boats from island to island, across the open water. Any way we look at it, we see that we’re filling a crucial gap that was missing from the special laws, missing from MOSE, and missing from the Autorità until now.

Enough about those lofty goals. We were actually at an impasse when the Assemblea ended tonight, and I came out frustrated. The meeting was in a conference room at Arsenale Nord offices. We call them ‘the galley’ for its nautical-industrial design, now covered by contemporary art and flower beds that someone has been taking care of. I never see the gardener, but I see the bees reveling in this unexpected green space.

Andrea had put on the agenda the matter of landward lagoon migration. He’s better at explaining it than I am, but it means that in the next decades the sea level will rise enough that the communities to the north and west of the lagoon will be more and more flooded unless they continue to engineer their way out. The mainland doesn’t have super tall levees like New Orleans or Shanghai, but it does have a network of pumps. Is it feasible to keep them going? Here’s the other thing though: once you start to talk about the near future of the mainland – which of course we need to be doing – you can’t avoid the question of what to do in the historical center of Venice. He reopened this discussion at an unfortunate time.

We promised the Autorità, which is relying on us to set their guidelines for action, that we would deliver recommendations for long-term pathways to livable lagoon futures within a year. The promise wasn’t binding, and I’m thankful that we’re not rushing it, but we’re now at twelve months from the start of the Assemblea and we need at least three more to write, validate, and deliver the recommendations. 

Anyway, Andrea suggested that we think about asking local communities to consider shutting off the pumps and adapting their municipalities so that brackish waters can begin to extend landward. Why is this necessary? Well, he remarked, we might be forced to confront the fact that MOSE has a limited lifetime. The working group that he’s part of has made some new forecasts: if sea-level rise continues as expected, then we’re in a brief window of time where we can have some room to maneuver. That means thinking now about what to do in twenty years, since MOSE will only stop the biggest storms and not long-term sea-level rise. It simply can’t.

Responses from the Assemblea were thoughtful but brief. The union representatives continued to push for adaptation and not safeguarding as a general tactic, but said they’d have to think about what shutting down MOSE in twenty years would mean for port functions. Same for the youth reps, who wondered what programs could assist new families and students if the housing market took a sudden shift in favor of the upper floors. The engineers, both of whom had worked on MOSE but were now deployed on anti-erosion projects for the salt marshes, pledged support either way but indicated that their past tribulations make them wary of a ‘MOSE 2.0’. I tabled the discussion because of the late hour, and most people left quickly to catch the night boat bound for the western part of the city or the mainland. I let out a sigh of relief, and the buzz of passionate speaking started to fade, leaving me with self-doubts.

Andrea came back in. As co-chairs, he and I have to clean up after each session, so we always take the last boat together. Andrea would rather be behind a computer or in his fishing boat than in a conference room, and it’s taken a lot of work to get him to build bridges with anyone who can’t read a tidal chart. That said, he’s kind. He saw I was tired from the day and started to put the chairs in order without any expectation I would help. The shuffling silence was welcome, but after a few moments he came near and spoke again. A soft voice, weary.

“Nadia, do you believe we can really do it? Can this city, our city, really reinvent itself for climate change?”

I didn’t respond to that, at least not right away. I let out a long breath, a sigh that contained a laugh for the absurdity of the situation. He stacked another chair, then waited for me to speak.

“I don’t think we can plan it,” I said at last. “I believe we can only guide it through what we discuss here, and what we decide here should be the principles that we as a city follow. But really, any way you slice it, someone in the lagoon will be hurting with the changes that will come. I guess I don’t believe that anything is possible because of traps like that, these small things that angry people strike me down for and wise people like you challenge me to rethink.”

I got up and took the chair I’d been sitting on, put it on the stack he was making. My thoughts were tumbling out now that the allotted two-hour time to use careful words was over.

“If more of us are wise and less of us are angry, maybe there’s a chance for the city to reinvent itself,” I added. “But where do we find that wisdom? I’m searching for that in our relations to each other, in honest conversations. I’m trying to find someone to trust here.”

Outside, the dark lagoon shimmered in cold moonlight. Andrea nodded without a word. In the silence I went on ahead.

“There’s a certain class of people that don’t like to be told that the world is coming down and there’s nothing to do to fight it. They’ll hide from that reality.” His proposal to start opening up the edges of the lagoon came to mind. “I think what we’re suggesting is wise, and the rest of the assembly sees that wisdom. But will Venice ever do it? Can it rise to the challenge of giving up and regrouping on higher floors? Because that’s what it will be seen as – giving up.”

I stacked the last chair with too much force. It slammed a bit against the others. Andrea looked up, momentarily startled by the noise in the night-lit room. He had his hands on the lightswitch, ready to go. I fixed his gaze.

“If you’re thinking that it’s hopeless, don’t erase our other options. Don’t push aside those of us who can help you pivot if the politics change. We don’t know if this proposal to shut down the pumps – to shut down MOSE – will work. It’s based on ten thousand stories that all will have to align. I think we can write those stories. But do you trust me to write them with you?”

I couldn’t read his face in the half-dark, somewhere between a grimace and a smile. But he spoke without hesitating. “Yes, I do.”

“Good. Let’s go catch that boat.”

Andrea: 2035

The next slide flickered on the pull-down screen. I checked the time on my note-tablet and wiped my brow. Early April and already the day was sweltering. Our group was returning from a coffee break. Giovanni Bussetto, a fisherman by trade, brought me a small paper cup with a wooden stick in it, giving me a reassuring smile.

“Don’t worry, I know these people. They support our work.”

“Community review always makes me nervous,” I said. “I’d rather be working on the zoning protocols.”

He reached down and touched my jaw for an instant. “Andrea. You know how important this is.” He turned back to the room and went quiet while he watched people fill in. “Pellestrina needs to be part of the conversation, not just through me. We’ve been scared of what’s going on for a long time. The Assemblea is something that everyone is approaching with new eyes.”

I nodded. We waited for the crowd to settle down.

My name is Andrea Lombardo, and I’m the current co-chair of the Assemblea per la Laguna along with environmental technician Michela Ayva. The Autorità has been running for seven years, give or take, and the Assemblea’s guidelines have been in effect for most of that time. After a year and a half of participatory visioning, we presented five points to the Autorità, and under wide citizen pressure and the game of political favors they were adopted as non-binding protocols in their Statute. Now at the five-year mark, small delegations have been going through the painstaking process of community discussion, asking for feedback and approval on the guidelines. It’s slow, but it works.

I stood up and made some quick greetings, then read from the slide:

Article 1: The Autorità per la Laguna, in coordinated collaboration with the inhabitants of the Venetian lagoon, resolves to make interventions for the benefit of long-term social and hydrological balance through the historic practice of scomenzèra, or gradual alteration of the lagoon environment only with observational understanding of its effects. 

Stealing a glance at the room, I saw heads nodding along and a couple whispering and pointing at the words on the screen. These were the inhabitants that we had always discussed in general terms in our Assemblea meetings. I let the words sink in, then carried on.

“Article 1 is the most important of the five guidelines that has been adopted by the Autorità per la Laguna. It represents not only the vision that the Assemblea believes can best shape the lagoon environment going forward, but also the political process that we want for the territory. This meeting is part of that process, and in fact we believe it is the center of the process. Five years ago, we were able to make a strong intervention by getting the Autorità to adhere to these guidelines, and we now want to understand if it is having its intended effects across all realities that interact with the lagoon. Giovanni Bussetto and I are both rotating members of the Assemblea. To start, we want to know if anyone here would like to make a comment on this article or the process more generally.”

A man with a white beard in the second row raised his hand, took a cursory look around, and stood up from his chair, taking a cane in hand. His tone was measured but tired, clearly accustomed to participating in meetings like this.

“Good morning, and thank you for coming to Pellestrina. I worked as a union representative for thirty years and knew to never rely on promises from an administration body in this city. We all remember the ‘sole concessionary’ fiasco around MOSE. From what I can see, we’re still in a monopoly situation here, where the Autorità per la Laguna makes the rules and everyone else has to follow. How do your guidelines have any power? What’s there to stop the next president from overriding them? And on a day-to-day basis how do they keep the Autorità accountable?”

He sat down at the same moment that Giovanni rose up, his kind, booming voice meeting the former union rep’s questions and filling the small room.

“I’ll answer your questions as best I can. We’ve got nothing to hide. These guidelines started out as tacit agreement but have since become all but binding law. Formally, they are directives approved by the regional government and adopted by the Autorità per la Laguna, similar to the special laws that gave legal language to ‘gradual, experimental, and reversible’ but without any way to enforce those guidelines. The difference here is that all the main unions support the Assemblea with full commitments.” Giovanni gave a smile, like he was letting them in on a secret. “In fact, CGIL regional secretary Nadia Hadir was one of the catalysts of this process, and she’s managed to raise union participation to over fifty percent of workers in the Venetian lagoon. Because of this, there is enormous pressure on the Autorità to follow our guidelines. If not, they know that workers will not only strike, but that we’ll set up our own alternative courses of action under the Assemblea, which has far more popular support than the Autorità. The next president can’t override the guidelines because they know that they would lose their job within months. Our seven years of work are paying off, because the guidelines now have a sense of legitimacy that the Autorità has to keep up with. Who here has read them?”

About two-thirds of the room reluctantly raised their hands. I was surprised. 

Giovanni carried on. “On the everyday level, delegates from the Autorità and their in-house workers join with the Assemblea once a month to review project updates. These meetings make sure that the Autorità always keeps the guidelines at the top of their work. In turn, we host regular open community conversations to make sure that we are accountable to citizens and aware of current collective needs across the lagoon. Feedback from spaces like this helps us validate the guidelines and make adaptations if necessary.” He looked at the man with the white beard. “Do you want to respond?” 

“No, I’m satisfied.”

“Thank you.” With a glance, Giovanni passed the speaking duties back to me.

We continued like this through the other four recommendations, which all follow from the first. Article 2 valorizes working knowledge of the lagoon territory, requiring at least three members of the Assemblea who represent fishing, boat mooring, climate adaptation, port operations, natural area conservation, or similar fields to be present in certain decision-making arenas. Article 3 plans for low-carbon futures and energy transitions in strict consultation with local union leaders. Article 4 seeks to reform residency laws in Venice, making incentives for young people, families, and migrant workers to re-inhabit the various mainland and island communities across the lagoon, and conversely dis-incentivizing or redirecting forms of short-term tourism. Finally, Article 5 addresses sea-level rise infrastructure by putting strong adaptation targets on the city such that MOSE activity will be reduced over time.

Out of all of them, the last point was the most contested by the Autorità per la Laguna. In my personal opinion, it’s difficult for seasoned politicians to let go of the narrative that MOSE will continue to work and preserve Venice forever. Pretty much everyone else, though, knows that the situation is getting ridiculous. MOSE was closed sixty times last year at the quota of 110 cm above the local datum. The ratcheting guidelines will reduce that number to ten times a year by 2050, and five times a year by 2060. 

When I put Article 5 up on the screen, I expected the discussion to erupt into controversy. But no, it was civil. A young woman, holding a sleeping baby in her arms, stood up to ask if this means that Pellestrina is doomed. We didn’t have time to respond before the old union rep in the second row stood up and answered for us. “Pellestrina has been settled for seven centuries, and long before that,” he declared. “People will always live here, but we have to change the houses, because the lagoon will be higher, and storms will be stronger. They already are. More people will have to learn to steer a boat.”

A voice called out from the back, “yeah, like you ever learned Francesco!” And the whole room shook with good-natured laughter. Giovanni later told me that this man was known for getting sick every time he took the ferry. He smiled along with the rest of us.

The meeting came to a close and the inhabitants of Pellestrina went back to their working lives. I was packing up my things and checking the times that the electric ferry was leaving to take me back to my apartment in Chioggia, where I was promised an excellent pasta dinner by my son and his husband, who were visiting for the weekend from Padova. Lost in thought, I didn’t notice that a woman was waiting to speak with me. About my age, late fifties, she wore a bright pink sundress and a stylish hat, as if she was going to the beach.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” she said. “My mother, bless her soul, she fell and broke her leg in the flood of 2019, and she cursed the leadership of this city until her death for ruining the lagoon, turning it into an arm of the sea. Not that it’s more peaceful now; it’s worse, even, and I know all of us feel the effects of these changes every day. But for the first time in a while I feel like I can rely on the city to hear us and do what’s right for my children and my neighbors. We know we can stay here and have good lives. It might not always be easy, you know? I don’t want to give up the ground floor of my apartment. But if you all say we need to do it, and you help us get there, we’ll be there for you.”

I smiled, unsure how to respond. “I don’t think we know yet what’s best to do, honestly,” I managed. “But thank you. We’ll try.”

She held wide sunglasses in one hand and with the other reached out to shake my hand. “I’m sure you will. Keep us in mind.” With that she turned and walked to the door, calling back to me. “Who knew that it would be beach season already?”

Michela: 2047

The vaporetto hummed, gliding away to the east. Bright early morning. The northern lagoon grew quiet again, no taxi boats zipping like I remember as a child when I arrived here with my parents. It was past time to go into the office, but I’d linger here at the rail a moment more. I fished in my pocket for coffee money.

As my hands closed around a few coins I noticed an egret standing on the dock’s chains, watching the pale blue water. We’d had plenty of rain and runoff so the water was cloudy and high, but not exceptionally so. The waves passed up and down, swirling around the bird’s long thin legs. Scientists call it turbulent flow when a fluid acts chaotically – there’s no telling where individual droplets will end up, only how they might move. Sometimes when I’m in my office I fall into the numbers and the programs, but seeing the breathing waters swinging with the chains and the egret perched there is a reminder that the most detailed simulation of reality is always reality itself. There’s more information about the future in each ripple around her legs than in all our models. It’s okay, we make do with what little we know. She was perching and watching the water intently, so intently.

Time to go in. Time for coffee.

Five minutes later I was walking quickly into the offices, not drawing attention to myself, balancing a bright blue travel mug in one hand. Ready for action. Or, hopefully, non-action. I ran through again what I was going to say.

Turned the corner – shit! Nobody here, they all must be upstairs already. A voice behind me – who is it?

“Buongiorno, Michela! Don’t worry, the meeting starts at half past nine. Everyone just went down to greet the Autorità people, all formalities.” This was Alvise Zulin, my colleague, another technician. 

“What’s the situation?”

He turned to the nearest touch screen. “High water event zero-zero-four is going to reach 140 above local datum, not much error because we know the wind from the east will sustain through this evening. But if we keep standard uncertainty on these things, then give or take ten centimeters, we’re looking at a maximum 150 centimeter event just after 2300 hours tonight. The activation teams have been put on stand-by.”

“River influx?”

“Minimal. The water discharge has already happened, river levels are back to steady-state across the region as of last night. Winds are steady but not too strong. This will be a fairly calm high water event. We’ve been waiting for your assessment before we go to the control room.”

Your assessment – as in, from the technical committee of the Assemblea. I’m one of the current delegates from the MOSE operations teams, and everyone knows our current protocols are about to come into effect in a big way.

I deflected his question. “What do you think we should do? You know the situation.”

He looked back at the pad full of charts and data read-outs, shifting his shoulders as if there were an itch between them. “A year ago there would have been no question, but I know this season is different. It’s just unthinkable to me that we let the city flood.”

“It’s ready for the flood,” I reminded him.

“I know, I made all the preparations yesterday at my parents’ place, and honestly I’m curious to see what will happen. I don’t know – I’ve never had to walk around with boots. All the places will feel wrong.”

“Alvise,” I laughed softly. “A small price to pay, and after all everything has always been changing here. When I was in university all the bars were still at the ground-floor and there were only one or two fruit boats. The dry city you know has changed from the city that I knew, but it will always be the same place.” Here I was, only ten years older than him, lecturing about what it looked like back in my day, because in those ten years so much had changed.

He grinned. “I would like to see the floating walkways actually float.”

A colleague walked by and handed me the briefing from the overnight shift. “Control room, ten minutes. The whole Autorità team is there now.” I thanked her, took a sip of my coffee. Alvise wanted to say something more.

“Michela, I know the Assemblea has been preparing for an event like this, so I’m not scared. But like my parents said yesterday, it just feels wrong for MOSE to do nothing when an aqua alta comes!”

“You spent all day at home helping them prepare, tell them that that’s what MOSE does. It gets their son to eat dinner with them during the flood season.” He stuck his tongue out at me. After five years of sharing office spaces, I know when he’s joking. “What did you end up doing with their entrance hall?”

“Same thing I did in my apartment, made passerelle in the interior spaces and put up small shelves all around for their things that usually go on the floor. We’ll see what happens and maybe make more adjustments if needed. With the city grant we put a new addition upstairs, I told you about that? They like the new space, and the skybridge.”

"Who did they connect with?”

“Got lucky, they went in with an old friend who has a small palazzo across the street, and she converted the piano nobile into a trattoria. They’re thrilled that they can get lunch whenever they want, and at a discount!”

“Darn, I only got connected –”

“To the police station, I know, you told me all about it last week”

I gave him a fake pouting face. “I can complain all I want because there’s not a bar connected on my island yet, so when the water comes in I’ll have no friends and no caffeine.”

“But surely they’ll connect one in the next round of grants?”

“Yeah, there’s already a call out from the Cannaregio aqua alta council, so we’ll probably have a new bar or at least a connection to one within the next year. It’s a good business to be in now that there’s investment going into community spaces! Until then –” I gestured at my travel mug – “I’ll be making it at home on my crappy moka pot, or getting it here I guess.” I stole a glance at my tablet. Time was up. “Gotta go, see you at lunch?”

“You’ll buy me a spritz to celebrate the flood? Anytime.”

I walked out and around, past the great basin of water that we call the Arsenale. A small corner is still used for art shows, but the large part closer to city center is now zoned for houseboats. A thriving district has built up there since the latest zoning reforms in 2037. It’s known as the place in Venice where you go for tattoos, good falafel, and the best summer festival the city has to offer. One boat even styled itself as a floating tea house. But I couldn’t go there now, much as I wanted to linger in the last days of October sun.

I hurried in the other direction to the converted warehouses that some designer in the 2010s had decided should have the same feel as a spaceship. We weren’t blasting off to leave Earth, though. We were staying right here. Up the stairs, I set my coffee down at a free computer station. Don’t spill it on the important stuff, I told myself, or you’ll deactivate MOSE ten years too early.

I pulled up my account and quickly opened a portal to show all the available forecasts. I’d been trained in ocean chemistry with a specialty in ocean acidification before coming to the engineering side of MOSE operations, so I know damn well how to read a tide chart.

Yep, there it was, an event forecasted at 140 cm at 23:02, about fourteen hours from now. This was an ideal event to test the new protocols. The ratchet had just jumped to 150 cm over the summer – the first major quota adjustment for MOSE under the famous five guidelines that the Assemblea produced in the late twenties. All of Venice had been preparing slowly for years under funding streams made available by the Autorità per la Laguna. We’d see how this goes, then revise the ratchet for the next year, then the next year, and so on. But true to its name, it can’t go down. Last year there were twelve events recorded over 150 cm, so we expect about that many closures this year, maybe a few thrown in for false alarms. The trade off, of course, is that the lagoon can breathe and MOSE can rest. It was getting a bit ridiculous: last year, sixty-seven closures for a total of twenty-one days that the lagoon was cut off from the sea. Now with the ratchet it should be no more than a few days total. A sigh of relief for everyone, from what we’ve been hearing in our listening sessions.

My name is Michela Ayva, and I’m the co-chair and most senior active member of the Assemblea, not counting emeritus chair Andrea Lombardo, who sat to my left. The room quieted down. Across the way stood a team of my colleagues from the MOSE offices, then seated at the head of the control room was the managing committee of the Autorità, including its president, the mayors of Venice and Chioggia, and some high-level ministry representatives. The screens above us were flashing with tidal readouts and wind patterns, and on one large screen was the text from guideline number five. Clearly, someone thought this would be a historic moment.

I drew a little cat face in the corner of my notebook. It resembled my new neighbor’s gray kitten who keeps wandering across our skybridge. I give her scratches when she gets near.

Alvise was there, too, and the engineer next to him was the first to speak. “We’ve given notices to our activation teams to be on-call tonight for high tide event zero-zero-four, forecast with maximum tidal height 150 cm at sea, closure time expected at 19:30 to keep water levels in lagoon at 90 cm per normal protocols. We await the decision from the Autorità for confirmation. It is currently T-minus ten hours to activation.”

I looked to my left; Andrea gave me a nod. My turn. I stood for effect.

“To remind all those who are present, the new protocols have been in place since the first of September. Even though it is a borderline case, high water event zero-zero-four does not qualify as exceptional under the new protocols. At lower quota levels, borderline cases were considered on the basis of hydrodynamic uncertainty, and this event presents little indication that winds will shift for the worse. According to guideline five, which has twenty years of support from the Venetian people and the scientific committee of the Autorità, MOSE should not be closed this evening. This is a particularly fortuitous event that will allow the whole city to test its adaptation infrastructure under calm meteorological circumstances. The Autorità has organized response teams for any failure in local community networks, but last month’s checks indicate that the likelihood of disaster is very low. In short, the city is prepared to live with flooding events up to 150 cm, and it is our responsibility to the lagoon system to begin to phase out the frequent use of MOSE, starting today.”

I sat down, seeing nods and unsurprised faces across the room. A couple of cameras flashed in my eyes, and light chatter arose in my ears.

The mayor of Venice spoke briefly, giving her assent to non-activation. The mayor of Chioggia did the same. Then the president of the Autorità spoke.

“Many of you know that I have not always been in favor of guideline number five,” he said. This was an understatement. Word on the street is that his family didn’t qualify for any of the funding to renovate their second home, a fifteenth-century palazzo on the Grand Canal, and so the Assemblea’s guidelines essentially condemned it to constant flooding unless the ground flood was redone. They eventually put in the money, with the help of some savior-organization grant that really could have been put to better uses, to artistically transform the space to rising waters. Of course, this was quite an embarrassment to them, though no one else really cared. “However,” he continued, “I see its merits for the health of our fisheries and our global reputation as a leader in policy innovation.” Eye roll. “We should be proud of this monumental decision to follow guideline number five and welcome the waters of the lagoon into our city again.” I kept sketching cat faces on the corner of my briefing papers as the talk continued. Andrea nudged me when they finally called for consensus.

“Any objections?” the president asked. No one moved. “Alright, that’s settled. Engineer Mohammad, please recall all the activation teams and continue to monitor the situation. Thank you all for your participation here.”

With that, the meeting was adjourned and the guidelines had prevailed again. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed at the decision that had just been made. I went back in my head: yes I packed my boots, yes the passerelle in the downstairs hall will work just fine, yes we have floating walkways outside my street… I wandered out of the offices and back down to the square overlooking the dock where I had stepped off the vaporetto. The lagoon was quiet and brimming. My attention wandered to where the sun shone on the water. I sat down on the wooden steps that had been built to elevate half the surface of this gathering space. Where my feet were, it would be wet in twelve hours. I could sit here all day and watch the water pool around my legs, every ripple a new sign. We would welcome it into our lives again.