CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND - Immortalized in lyrics and verse, the "White Cliffs of Dover" are an icon of English patriotism and nostalgia - a familiar landmark for returning travelers akin to the Statue of Liberty for Americans.
That is why there is considerable cause for alarm as an unusually large stretch of Britain's famous white cliffs collapsed recently. The loss of the quarter-mile (400-meter) section dumped a hundred thousand tons of chalk into the sea and left many people worried that natural erosion of the beloved landmark is occurring at an accelerated rate.
In the mean time, west of Dover, another landslide brought down part of the 200-foot-high (60-meter) cliff face, including the famed Devil's Chimney.
British Nobel prize winner in chemistry, Sir Stanley Edwards is considerably alarmed. Speaking by telephone from his laboratory at the Cambridge University he said, "This is serious business. The recent eruptions of Iceland's Eyjafjallajokull volcano continues to introduced millions of tons of sulfur containing ash into the upper atmosphere daily. When the dense ash clouds reach this country, our wet English weather has been combining with the ash to create highly corrosive sulfuric acid (H2SO4) in the form of acid rain and acid mist. The acid rain has been reacting with the calcium carbonate, the material that makes up the majority of our beautiful cliffs, and dissolving them at a rapid rate. At the current rate of erosion the entire palisade of cliffs could disappear into the sea in just a generation."
The cliffs have great symbolic value for Britain because they face towards Continental Europe across the narrowest part of the English Channel, where invasions have historically threatened and against which the cliffs form a symbolic guard. Because crossing at Dover was the primary route to the continent before air travel, the white line of cliffs also formed the first or last sight of the UK for travelers.
Sir Edwards has proposed a unique a two-fold strategy for saving the cliffs from further harm at least until Iceland's volcano eruptions moderate. The first is to cover the cliff faces with plastic tarps. He recommends that they should be white so as not to interfere with the aesthetic of cliff face. The second step is to seed the clouds above Dover with bicarbonate of soda to neutralize the acid. With just a few flights a week, using modified cargo planes stocked with the baking soda, he believes should be enough to mitigate the damage.
Sir Edward adds, "Since Iceland is responsible for the damage to our country they should be made to pay for this scheme. In that way we can solve the problem at no cost to our citizens. But I leave that up to Parliament and the World Court. Until we work this out with Iceland I suggest that we offer ad space on the tarps as an additional revenue raiser."
