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luke
Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Location: by the sea
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 Posted: Wed Jun 27, 2007 11:25 am Post subject: The floods of neglect |
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| Quote: | The floods of neglect
These catastrophic rains form part of a pattern, met by our government with gross inaction
Jeremy Leggett
Wednesday June 27, 2007
The Guardian
The drumbeat of disaster that heralds global warming quickened its tempo this week; some parts of Britain had a sixth of their annual rainfall in 12 hours - some statistic. It has all been foreseen, and for far too long. After the Met Office first briefed Mrs Thatcher on climate change 17 years ago, she predicted: "There would surely be a great migration of population away from areas of the world liable to flooding."
Just over a year later, the Yangtze threw 10 million Chinese from their homes. In 1993, after the worst American floods in memory, cornfields across nine states were under water that covered farm buildings. In 1995 the Rhine rose 55ft above sea level, forcing a quarter of a million people in the Netherlands to evacuate, and the Oder spread a "once in a thousand years" flood across tracts of Poland, the Czech Republic and eastern Germany. Let me pause the historical playback at this point, more than a decade ago, to emphasise how long that drumbeat has been rolling.
Climate change is all about extremes. The American cornfields of 1993 had a few years earlier been shrivelling in the worst drought in living memory. The flood-prone Rhine nearly dried up in October 2003. You could wade across it in some places.
Consider what such escalating extremes of climate can do to national economies. The 1991 Yangtze floods submerged 20% of China's croplands. The European drought of 2003 cut plant growth by 30%. Monday saw a state of emergency in Hull, but in March 2000, floods turned the whole of Mozambique into a state of emergency, setting the national economy back by years.
The previous set of "once in a century" floods in the UK, in October 2000, helped bring an end to the so-called fuel crisis. A handful of hauliers, irate about fuel prices much lower than today's, had brought the country almost to its knees in just a few days, with a halfhearted blockade of a few oil refineries - a perfect encapsulation of the vulnerability of modern economies. A cartoonist of the day caught the moment: the truckers carry their self-interested placards, ploughing through floodwater; from the stormclouds the hand of God reaches down clutching a large piece of paper labelled "the bill".
We know what we have to do: make deep cuts in emissions. A managed mass withdrawal from fossil fuels, no less. We have to mobilise as if for war, but the currency will be clean energy, not Spitfires, Lancasters and tanks. Gordon Brown and David Miliband invited leaders from the energy industry and others to discuss this task last week. The message was that together communities, businesses and governments could achieve deep cuts in emissions. The task may have no historical precedent, but it is as feasible as it is imperative.
Mobilisation will require effective leaders in all three of these sectors, however. A start has been made, belatedly, in the past six months. In the communities sector the progressive cities lead, with their use of planning powers, among other tools. In business the major retailers lead, with their various strategies to go low carbon. In government Sweden leads, with its plan to get out of oil within 15 years.
The UK has been a leader in rhetoric, under Tony Blair, not policy. Al Gore, who turned up for the last part of that Brown-Miliband meeting, said the new prime minister faced a unique moment in history. Left unsaid was the failure of his predecessor. Clear as day was the gauntlet thrown down for Brown. And so we wait to see what the first days of the new regime will bring. Behind the gathering clouds the hand of God is busy, writing more bills.
· Jeremy Leggett, the chief executive of solarcentury, served on the government's Renewables Advisory Board from 2002-6
www.solarcentury.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2112446,00.html |
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Mandy
Joined: 07 Feb 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jun 28, 2007 6:25 am Post subject: |
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| Reminds me of New Orleans .. flood defense money diverted to warfare by Bush & Co |
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