Flooding Risk at Blackhall Mill

It was bizarre as only last night I was worrying about the heavy rain that arrived in the small hours of the morning. Equally, it was only last Sunday that I was talking to a chap from the Environment agency about the flooding last September. So I find it ironic that I should be talking about there being an imminent risk of flooding at Blackhall Mill, again.

Back just in February or March, the Meteorological Office were predicting or forecasting a Barbecue Summer. I find it difficult to understand how scientists who are well versed in the weather can yet again fail to take the effects of a changing climate into account. While the weather conditions for the past century would have given rise to a great Summer, with a changing climate the increased magnitude of rain was predictable. It has been this way for at least ten years now, but the establishment still don't want to admit or fully acknowledge the reality of Global Warming.

I am beginning to think that the government are playing down the reality of climate change. If the authorities were to admit that we are seeing the effects now and that the weather patterns of heavy rain and associated flooding are now our normal weather, it will have a serious impact on the economy.

Before the banking collapse when there was a flooding event, the serious media, would talk about up to one third of the housing stock in Britain being at risk of flooding. Therefore if the government were to acknowledge that the weather pattern of the past ten to fifteen years is now normal it would not be long before people started to realise that they were living in an area where the impacts of climate change will exist for years to come. The government acknowledging this will also mean that the general public will start to realise that the forecasts of sea level rise look as though they have been played down. Add this realisation into the equation and at least a quarter of the housing stock becomes unsellable.

Before the Banking collapse, I was predicting a sudden economic slowdown. As simply as soon as sea levels start to rise, or the effects of a changing climate start to be felt via a major flooding event, then there would not be the cash available to meet all the insurance claims. While I could foresee the inevitable crash in the property market, and was predicting it, the banking collapse is just a small precursor to what the economic effects of the changing climate will bring. I say will as the longer we are misled by the government, the greater and deeper the economic brakes will be forced upon us.

At the moment people are being deluded by government policy that is implying that we can mitigate the effects, particularly of flooding and sea level rise. Repeatedly people are refurbishing and repairing after flood damage. There have been people featured on television that have been flooded twice or three times in recent years. Equally millions has been spent trying to protect buildings from flooding. I fully realise that people want to protect their homes, their businesses, but in less than five years we could be seeing a visible rise in sea levels. Even if this is less than a foot, add a foot to the peek flood levels and the hundreds of millions spent on flood defences are breached.

Therefore what may need to start happening is a managed retreat. That may mean having to abandon some homes. But as so many of the new homes have been built near rivers and in flood planes. Further, many older houses are being pulled down. This has happened in my village. Just when we need more social housing, these were council houses, and the government are saying they are going to build twenty thousand more homes to meet the need for social housing.

This lack of homes is part of why the government is happy to perpetuate the illusion that there is nothing that needs to be done and that we can just live through these flood events. The other reason appears to be that in spite of talking about tackling climate change, there is little real evidence that the government believes that global warming exists.

While there has been a lot of talk about renewable energy, and projects like wind turbines are being built, this is much more about North Sea Oil and gas running out and economics than dealing with carbon dioxide pollution. When Gas was first discovered in the North Sea, there was reserves that could have lasted for one hundred and fifty years. So what did we do, we burnt it to generate cheap electricity. In fifteen years we diminished that reserve to less than twenty years. Equally, the oil that was latter found is now past the peek of production. While the oil is not going to run out just yet, when it does that will mean that Britain will need to spend at least seven hundred billion pounds on imported oil, at today's prices.

The clearest sign that the British government is not taking Climate Change seriously is the building of new Coal fired power stations. Its okay they say as they will be retro fitted with carbon capture and storage. That's if the technology is ever invented.

The fact that governments lie to the people is not new, but misleading the public on a matter as serious as this will cause untold misery for a substantial part of the population. Climate change is happening, and while flooding occurred long before global warming, the pattern of an altered climate and weather patterns is now clear. Only by telling the public the truth can people start making changes and plans for this.

While my immediate thoughts are with the people at risk of flooding, there needs to be a wider debate about retreating from the parts of the land that are already effected by flooding and will be impacted by rising sea levels. Even the most conservative estimates are that sea levels will rise by three feet or more by 2100. This we will see the effects of in less than five years. Possibly two or three years, as the melting of the Sea Ice and land locked ice sheets has not stopped by the politicians ignoring them.

The trouble is just as it took the collapse of the banks to shock people into realising that we were over borrowing on the financial account, it will take a major climate change impact like a sudden rise in sea levels to realise we are over borrowed on the environmental account too.

The Derwent under the Bridge at Blackhall Mill

The turbulence of the river at the bridge piers

The floating debris is building up

The rate of flow is shown her by the wash around this tree that normally sits on the south bank

The Fire Brigade are on site monitoring the situation.

The Derwent has not yet reached the tops of the banks, but this is low tide.

The river in full spate

As it was just five days ago