There had to be a moment when a changed climate resulting
from global warming caused persistent extreme weather. With horrific storms and
floods in Britain and France, the worst drought in California since records
began and temperatures over 40º in Australia, that moment has arrived.
David Cameron is now "in charge of the floods" – but
in reality the floods are in charge of us.
Thousands of people are without power, roads are impassable,
the sea is encroaching into town centres and breaking down sea walls. Some
villages have been cut off for weeks, all normal life put on hold. Yesterday
police helicopters cruised the Somerset levels, warning people to leave their
homes.
Cameron announced the ConDem government will contribute an
extra £100m (literally a drop in the ocean) and stated "there is no limit
to what this government will do - whether it is dredging the rivers Tone and
Parrett (on the Somerset levels), whether it is support for our emergency
services, whether it is fresh money for flood defences, whether it is action
across the board, this Government will help those families and get this issue
sorted".
But it can't be "sorted" in that sense. Quick
fixes are of no use here.
In the medium term, Devon and Cornwall are going to be cut
out of the rail network for as long as six months and probably longer if it
proves unrealistic to rebuild along the coastal route.
In the longer term, there will be a massive speed up of
coastal erosion. We have seen the beginnings of that this month. Villages that
have existed since medieval times may become uninhabitable.
Dredging the Somerset levels is a disastrous idea. It will
force streams and rivers into unnatural gorges, where water will rush towards
the sea, spilling over every time it hits a pinch point - say a bridge.
Villages and farms on the levels will see a slight diminution of floods but the
water will burst river banks in towns like Taunton.
There is another way, which is to accept that during winter
storms some farm land will be flooded. Adding huge quantities of organic matter
to the fields - that is compost - would ensure they hold the water and drain
well when the storms end. This would mean turning away from chemical farming.
We need to create open space in towns and cities. We need to
stop building on flood plains and where have already done it, take urgent
measures to improve drainage. The environment agency wants to regulate so new
housing developments must be built with a soak-away - open land to hold excess
water when rainfall is too much for sewer drains. But the construction industry
opposes this simple measure, because they would not be able to crush quite so
many homes on to every site.
The system of capitalist economy privileges private
ownership and profit above all other considerations, and our market state
governments have become simply another facet of this whole. The idea the state
should pay for infrastructure has been rubbished for decades. The days when
they could act in opposition to business interests in the public interest have long
gone.
Climate change will increasingly create chaotic social
conditions and we know that governments' first response to disorder is
generally to crack down on the population. But they can't crack down on the
weather - it's bigger than all of us.
It has become clear during the floods that people have had
to rely on their own resilience and social solidarity to get through. A
hands-off state has proved incompetent and unable to prepare for what was on
the cards. This is true on a regional, national and global scale as well.
The lessons are pretty stark. Society’s resources have to be
marshalled in a co-operative and democratic way so we can decide how best to
respond to extreme weather, which is here to stay. Weather is now first and
foremost a political question of power. At the moment, it’s in the hands of incompetent politicians and their developer friends. That's what has to change.
Penny Cole
Environment editor
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