From Atlantis to Noah, humans have always been fascinated by stories of sunken lands. But what do modern losses, such as Pett Level in Sussex and Isle de Jean Charles in Louisiana, say about our climate-change predicament?
When writer Gareth E Rees stands on the muddy foreshore at Pett Level in East Sussex, his mind turns to the Mesolithic peoples who hunted, lit fires and dreamed their very human dreams on the lands now subsumed by the steel grey swell of the English Channel.
It’s low tide at Pett Level and, as at every low tide, the withdrawing waters have exposed a landscape of twisted and pocked tree trunks that is illegible to many of today’s brisk dog-walkers and young families out on the migrating shingle.
