An anti-quack dam. The success of Mose is a slap in the face of the culture of the No

It is 9.40 when Venice finds itself faced with a potentially frightening number: 170 centimetres. The centimeters in question coincide with the highest sea level recorded yesterday, a day of rain, wind and high tide, and are roughly the same centimeters of high water reached on November 12, 2019: at the time they were 187, when the water in Venice, in front of the lagoon, touched the highest level reached by a more famous flood, that of 1966, when Venice recorded one of the most important floods in its recent history. You will have already understood what the difference between November 2019 and November 2022 is: the Mose, the formidable dam built to protect Venice both from high tides and from environmentalist stupidities. Thanks to Mose, yesterday, the inhabited centers, apart from the rain, remained dry and did not find themselves faced with the catastrophe of 2019, when high tides, as well as killing one person, caused damage exceeding 150 million EUR. The story of Mose is an extraordinary story of engineering, of course, it’s a great story of Italian pride, of course, it’s a great showcase on the technological potential of our country, of course. But it is also a story at the heart of which there are additional elements to focus on that allow us to glimpse some important lessons behind the great Venetian dam from a cultural as well as an engineering point of view.