Floods and tears

I think this whole deal deserves a dedicated page. Let's start off with this from the Green Party:

Greens condemn government response to flooding
FLOODING CHAOS IS JUST A TASTER OF WHAT IS TO COME

Green Party Principal Speaker Dr. Derek Wall today condemned the
government's management of floods in the UK:

"The chaos caused by flooding over the last few weeks is just a tiny
taster of what climate change will mean in the future. Climate
change will lead to more extreme weather rather than simply warming
Britain.

"It's as if Evesham has been hit by Hurrican Katrina and Gordon Brown
is showing all the signs of leadership of his climate change denying
ally George Bush

"Government failure to prepare for the flooding is matched by
government failure to tackle the causes of climate change. On the
one hand the government is encouraging the building of new houses on
flood plains, on the other it is expanding Heathrow and our motorway
network.

"We need to cut CO2 by 90 per cent in the next few decades.

"At present Britain is neither cutting greenhouse gases nor
prepaparing to deal with the consequences of climate change. It is
like a Doctor would will neither prevent nor attempt to cure an illness.

"We must stop building on flood plains, invest in flood protection
but above all, cut back on the expansion of roads, airports and new
fossil fuel power stations.

Hard to argue with most of that. Written in a hurry, looks like!
More to come, I'm sure.

Reuters - Thousands without water after floods in England
Indy - A 21st century catastrophe - '...a disaster caused by 21st-century weather. This weather is different from anything that has gone before.' I don't know, so I merely ask: is this the case? I merely note the meteorologist's opinion on Newsnight in an associated blog post. The rest is worth reading though, but I must confess to being confused now.
Indy - Ministers under fire as experts warn of worse to come - And when it does, I am sure it will be unpredicted... again. How is that we can't even get the financial numbers straight?
Indy - Get used to floods - actually quite rational

Guardian - Ministers warned three years ago over flood defence failings - All together now, 'Oh no we weren't!'. "Oh yes you were!" It's a bad pantomime.
Guardian - Going under - some explanations

BBC - Floods: At-a-glance - If your feet are wet it's too late
BBC - Claims over floods to 'top £2bn' - And I think the wrong folk end up paying
BBC - Humans 'affect global rainfall' - I'm pretty sure we affect a lot more than that!

Indy - Amid this latest apocalypse, the prophets of doom are all peddling their own agendas - But I'm guessing most will have no blooming clue what they are on about if this is a sample.
Indy - Drought, growth and a changing climate
Indy Letters - Some interesting views

Times - Shocking news: Britain’s a wet country - 65 posts! 66 now:

It's a pity this has become an is/isn't climate change issue.

But then that's probably fine by those in power and heading up various quangos who have been saying that it's all 'unprecedented' when it isn't, and 'couldn't be predicted' when it was.

So while this diversionary argument - though a key one, globally - rages, those who should be held to account for why the water that fell (for whatever reason) ended up in a suburban semi's living room. And why my insurance rates go up to compensate.

It's not just the planet that ends up paying for such ineptitude.

ADDENDUM - actually it's an archive I just got round to:

Times - Labour plans flood defence cuts as Britain flounders in the deluge - I'm guessing not, now. A fun read, this way round.

Times - If this is a national disaster, I’m a tomato

I suppose it's open to a semantic debate as to how bad it needs to get before we hit 'disaster' as an acceptable term, but as the discussion is what one sees in the media I was just looking at your own paper from earlier this month: Labour plans flood defence cuts as Britain flounders in the deluge And then I was trying to reconcile this with 'The Government has proved itself calmly competent. ... the pragmatic, unhysterical approach of the new Prime Minister has suited the country well. No soundbites; no grimaces; no posturing.' as the words from this same person and his calmly competent acolytes are still ringing in my ears: 'This is unprecedented... there was no way to predict it'. When, of course, it isn't and it wasn't'.

Remind me, and those currently not in theri comfy sitting room, is a tomato a over-ripe fruit or a tastless vegetable?

The Ecologist - High Tide

You're quite right. 'We' do tend to be moving towards a blame culture, don't we?

But then again, I think that refers to the trend of not holding ourselves accountable for things we pretty much do to, or bring upon ourselves.

There are still quite a few instances where 'we' are required to play ball and/or pay a bunch of folk an awful lot of money to make things run smoothly and safely.

So when something is immediately pointed anywhere but where it should be by a cabinet of Chicken Littles and their chattering class supporters, especially solely skywards, as 'an Act of God (well, that plus anthrowhatsit climate change)' that 'is without precedent (not according to the meteorologist with 30 years' experience I saw on Newsnight) ' and 'could not have been predicted (not according to the front page I read in the Guardian)' I'm afraid I do start to wonder who is doing what for the money, and whether they are doing it effectively or even competently.

Especially when the water I am more worried about is not coming up from the river but down from paved over farmland or drainage systems that cannot cope through poor planing or maintenance.

Of course 'we' are not in control. Thanks to our ever-increasing spread across this planet there is a ton of stuff, which yes, does happen, and there will doubtless be tons more. But we try and prepare, mitigate and, if all else fails, cope.

If those tasked to do it screw up, and then try and blame the boogey man, I'm sorry, that's not finger pointing, asking why is just an absolutely necessary demand for accountability.

And to try and redirect the appropriate questions from some very key areas and people means that history, and nature, will just repeat itself. Which will not serve future generations very well.

And yes, weren't the fireman super? But might it not be better to keep them for the fires and get in place guys who might do their jobs well enough that these noble souls are not called out to pluck grannies from floodplain-located housing estates it would be 'unrealistic' not to build?

Just a thought.