A call for us to all try and get flood management right. Yes, what a good idea:
More investment in flood defences and improved planning for future disasters are urgently needed, scientists have warned.
They predict that the number of extreme wet days – which have already increased this century – will continue to rise in the coming decades and will bring even greater devastation than that experienced this month after Storm Ciara and Storm Dennis swept across the country.
OK.
“We are simply not prepared for the flooding coming our way in future,” said Prof Hannah Cloke, of Reading University. “We need to carry out a complete overhaul of our defences and be prepared to spend a lot more on them over a longer period of time.”
So, let’s do that then. And doing that would mean entirely reversing what we’ve been doing in recent decades.
For a start, don’t build on floodplains. You know, like John Prescott insisted that Thames Pathway must be built on the floodplain. Like government policy still more than allows, insists.
Then there’s the idea of draining the land. We’re currently told that we shouldn’t clear drainage ditches, dredge rivers, because this makes water run off quickly. Instead, we want it to sit around in fields and thus leave slowly.
Except that’s not the way it works. Rather, we want to drain the land in normal times – ditches and dredging and all. That means that the land is dry. So, when the rainstorms come then the land soaks it up – it’s a dry sponge. Instead of already being a wet sponge which canna take any more Captain.
To take an example from the US. This was Houston after floods:
But look! the freeway is a river of water!
Yep, as designed. We’ve gorra lorra water and we want to get rid of it. We’ve these vast, wide and long things called roads. Let’s channel the water along ’em to get rid of it.
Flood management, would be a good idea. It just means reversing all he things England has done for 40 years.
Hold on….we were told by the experts that we’re in permanent drought:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/feb/21/drought-new-norm-for-uk
I wish they’d make their minds up.
Also we were told that if we kept CO2 emissions at 1990 levels, the increase in rate of warming would be non-threatening.
The actual rate of warming when plotted is below the predicted rate for 1990 emissions, despite actual emissions rate being much higher, but we are told the warming is dangerous.
Eight years is a very very long time in the bullshit world of climate change. I wonder if anyone said back then that we only have 15 years to save Europe from drought.
Obviously, that scenario wasn’t considered scary enough, so the new version is “everyone needs their own ark”.
Ten year from now whatever is happening to the weather then will be the source of the new scare. They will just “re-evaluate the historic data in a new and improved model” to fix it the way that suits them best.
Allowing people to be repeatedly flooded is tangible proof that climate change is REAL and HAPPENING and therefore you must give up your cars, gas heating, hand over your cash and learn to grow turnips.
No actual scientist has said the recent floods are caused or even just made worse by Climate Change – because you know, studying them, doing some work, writing a paper, getting it published, responding to criticism, getting it replicated…oh, seems there’s something to it, two years later. That’s how science works. So what are these fools talking about?
Really?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50407508