Teaser pics from my adaptation trip to the Netherlands.

1) Floating homes moored on the new, man-made island of Ijburg in the bay outside Amsterdam. These modular puppies run for a cool €600,000. They’re partially-dubbed as a pilot project for sea-level rise.

2) This is not the apocalypse, but it sure is close. This site, though, will blow your mind.

On the horizon is the Shell Pernis Oil Refinery located in the port of Rotterdam. It’s the 6th largest refinery in the world, able to produce over 412,000 barrels per day. The air was gnarly and it took us about 30 minutes to drive past it. Epic.

I took this shot from Maasvlakte 2, which is another man-made island that expands the port of Rotterdam into the North Sea. They’re making it by dumping millions of tons of sand into the sea - literally dredging the ocean floor for sand via special barges, which then dump or spray the sand into place. (That’s my colleague Brian Helmuth bottom right setting up his tripod. Should give you an idea of scale.)

You have to see Maasvlakte 2 to believe it, here. The big pond you see? It’s filled with toxic, polluted sands from chemicals and bombs dumped into the sea after WWII. Seriously. In fact, the barges have special crewmen to diffuse any bombs they dredge up from the sea floor. Nasty nasty nasty.

We were among the first people in the world to visit the site. Oh, and there about a dozen or so wind turbines around the perimeter.