Don't Panic!
Here are two opinion articles from two writers with very different political outlooks - the first by David Aaronovitch in The Times and the second from Peter Oborne in The Telegraph.
Yet they both come to the same broad conclusion which is that it's no time to panic and that the country should keep a sense of perspective over the recent bout of terrible weather/
In other words - Keep Calm and Carry On.
No need to feel under the weather – yet
By David Aaronovitch
For all the predictable gripes, this isn’t a major disaster. So let’s keep calm and be ready for when things get worse
A Buzzfeed site was devoted yesterday to pictures of politicians in the floods. David Cameron donned black gear and wellies and strode through water purposefully. Nick Clegg specialised in pointing at water and Ed Miliband in staring balefully at it. Nigel Farage poured himself into waders and was photographed in deep water sympathising with a drowning electric lawnmower. We will know things are really difficult when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Nichols and the Chief Rabbi turn up in a skiff to comfort the afflicted.
So far — before flood turned to storm — so silly. We’ve had the inevitable moans about getting a grip, complaints that Farmerville has had a bad deal while Stockbrokerville gets the sandbags, someone has recommended beavers and Eric Pickles and Chris Smith have engaged in asymmetric Sumo wrestling. And just as you thought things could get no worse, here’s my column on the subject, with its six lessons to be learnt from the current weather crisis. Which are:
1 It’s no one’s fault. Somerset is not flooding, nor is North Wales about to be ravaged by storms, because of failings by the Environment Agency or the Conservative Party. In fact it is slightly more plausible (pace the UKIP councillor from Henley) that the wrath of God is responsible than is lack of dredging in the Levels. We have had a huge amount of rainfall, without let-up, and both rivers and the water table are incredibly high. Of course, had you spent a large amount some time ago on the obviously vulnerable railway line by Dawlish, then western Devon and Cornwall might not be so isolated as they are today. The person to blame for that is probably dead.
2 It’s not that bad. Yet. Hugely unpleasant though it is for those flooded out of their ground floor rooms, and for the farmers of Somerset, the numbers of people whose homes and livelihoods are directly affected is small. We have not yet had anything remotely as serious as the 2007 flooding of the Mythe water treatment plant in Gloucestershire, which cut off water for 350,000 people. The most widespread effect is on transport links. A big storm would almost certainly cause much greater loss of life and temporary loss of amenities for many more people. But . . .
3 It’s going to get worse. The Government’s best advice is: “Since the 1970s, average temperatures for Central England have risen by nearly 1C and the last decade was the warmest on record . . . The climate will continue to change with higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and more unpredictable extreme weather ranging from floods, droughts and freezing winters.”
There is a section of the political Right perversely determined to feast with Belshazzar and ignore the writing on the wall. Clutching their diplomas in Idiocy they will say that it snowed so there isn’t warming; it rained so there isn’t a potential drought problem; it’s hot so there’s no danger of floods.
But to anyone remotely sensible it is clear that — overall — things are heating up and that this has big implications for infrastructure. While increased deaths from heat-related conditions will not match decreased mortality from cold related ones, the other news is less comforting.
The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment of 2012 assesses a rise in the cost of flood damage from £1.2 billion now to anywhere up to £12 billion by the 2080s. And despite this wateriness, half the population of the UK could be living “in areas affected by water supply-demand deficits”.
The leaders of all the major political parties agree on this (when they’re not squabbling). As David Cameron said in the House a few weeks back: “Colleagues [ie recalcitrant Tories] across the House can argue about whether that is linked to climate change or not; I very much suspect that it is.”
4 So stop panicking about the short term. Nothing could be a better example of what not to do than the argument that we should cut foreign aid to spend more money on some unspecified plan to dredge a flood-prone river. Little could be more specious than yah-boos over who slashed this budget or that project. By all means, out of compassion, help the people who have suffered loss as a result of flooding, but keep the size of that commitment in some kind of context.
5 Do your bit. Up on the hill where I live houses coexist with large trees. When the wind blows there is a constant possibility of a tree falling on our roofs or cars. That’s why we lost one of the most beautiful horse chestnuts in the road last month. But we don’t cut them all down, so still we run the risk.
I am bemused by people in low-lying areas and beside rivers who take no precautions against flooding. There are, apparently, a range of things you can do to guard against the first few inches of possible inundation. By all means expect the agencies to try to protect the infrastructure, but not your front door.
6 Let’s start planning. Actually we already have, but we don’t talk about it enough and sometimes are either far too slow in implementing what we’ve agreed, or sidetracked by more imminent demands. As Dawlish shows, some of our infrastructure, although brilliantly engineered long ago, is running out of time.
After the 2007 floods the Labour Government introduced legislation for Suds (sustainable urban drainage systems) to be mandatory in new housing development. After opposition by developers, implementation has been delayed by four years. This is short-sighted.
In 2011 this Government issued a report — based on a two-year project begun by its predecessor — on “climate resilient infrastructure”. “Our infrastructure”, it stated, “is an increasingly interconnected network of high-value assets with long operational lifetimes. Our existing stock of bridges, roads and power stations is already vulnerable to today’s extreme weather. Climate change will increase these vulnerabilities.” It gave examples of changing requirements, such as bridges having to be higher and cable needing to be laid with higher temperatures in mind. Let’s not wait for the next Farage-in-waders situation before we ask how it’s going.
Oh, and a post-script:
7 Can we not have silly debates, such as the one I heard yesterday on why don’t we spend as much on flood defences as the Netherlands? It’s like asking why we don’t have the forest fire-fighting capabilities of Australia or the earthquake planning of the Japanese. I mean, don’t we pride ourselves on our calmness, rationality and attention to the evidence? Like it says on the mugs?
For all the predictable gripes, this isn’t a major disaster. So let’s keep calm and be ready for when things get worse
A Buzzfeed site was devoted yesterday to pictures of politicians in the floods. David Cameron donned black gear and wellies and strode through water purposefully. Nick Clegg specialised in pointing at water and Ed Miliband in staring balefully at it. Nigel Farage poured himself into waders and was photographed in deep water sympathising with a drowning electric lawnmower. We will know things are really difficult when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Nichols and the Chief Rabbi turn up in a skiff to comfort the afflicted.
So far — before flood turned to storm — so silly. We’ve had the inevitable moans about getting a grip, complaints that Farmerville has had a bad deal while Stockbrokerville gets the sandbags, someone has recommended beavers and Eric Pickles and Chris Smith have engaged in asymmetric Sumo wrestling. And just as you thought things could get no worse, here’s my column on the subject, with its six lessons to be learnt from the current weather crisis. Which are:
1 It’s no one’s fault. Somerset is not flooding, nor is North Wales about to be ravaged by storms, because of failings by the Environment Agency or the Conservative Party. In fact it is slightly more plausible (pace the UKIP councillor from Henley) that the wrath of God is responsible than is lack of dredging in the Levels. We have had a huge amount of rainfall, without let-up, and both rivers and the water table are incredibly high. Of course, had you spent a large amount some time ago on the obviously vulnerable railway line by Dawlish, then western Devon and Cornwall might not be so isolated as they are today. The person to blame for that is probably dead.
2 It’s not that bad. Yet. Hugely unpleasant though it is for those flooded out of their ground floor rooms, and for the farmers of Somerset, the numbers of people whose homes and livelihoods are directly affected is small. We have not yet had anything remotely as serious as the 2007 flooding of the Mythe water treatment plant in Gloucestershire, which cut off water for 350,000 people. The most widespread effect is on transport links. A big storm would almost certainly cause much greater loss of life and temporary loss of amenities for many more people. But . . .
3 It’s going to get worse. The Government’s best advice is: “Since the 1970s, average temperatures for Central England have risen by nearly 1C and the last decade was the warmest on record . . . The climate will continue to change with higher temperatures, changing rainfall patterns, rising sea levels and more unpredictable extreme weather ranging from floods, droughts and freezing winters.”
There is a section of the political Right perversely determined to feast with Belshazzar and ignore the writing on the wall. Clutching their diplomas in Idiocy they will say that it snowed so there isn’t warming; it rained so there isn’t a potential drought problem; it’s hot so there’s no danger of floods.
But to anyone remotely sensible it is clear that — overall — things are heating up and that this has big implications for infrastructure. While increased deaths from heat-related conditions will not match decreased mortality from cold related ones, the other news is less comforting.
The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment of 2012 assesses a rise in the cost of flood damage from £1.2 billion now to anywhere up to £12 billion by the 2080s. And despite this wateriness, half the population of the UK could be living “in areas affected by water supply-demand deficits”.
The leaders of all the major political parties agree on this (when they’re not squabbling). As David Cameron said in the House a few weeks back: “Colleagues [ie recalcitrant Tories] across the House can argue about whether that is linked to climate change or not; I very much suspect that it is.”
4 So stop panicking about the short term. Nothing could be a better example of what not to do than the argument that we should cut foreign aid to spend more money on some unspecified plan to dredge a flood-prone river. Little could be more specious than yah-boos over who slashed this budget or that project. By all means, out of compassion, help the people who have suffered loss as a result of flooding, but keep the size of that commitment in some kind of context.
5 Do your bit. Up on the hill where I live houses coexist with large trees. When the wind blows there is a constant possibility of a tree falling on our roofs or cars. That’s why we lost one of the most beautiful horse chestnuts in the road last month. But we don’t cut them all down, so still we run the risk.
I am bemused by people in low-lying areas and beside rivers who take no precautions against flooding. There are, apparently, a range of things you can do to guard against the first few inches of possible inundation. By all means expect the agencies to try to protect the infrastructure, but not your front door.
6 Let’s start planning. Actually we already have, but we don’t talk about it enough and sometimes are either far too slow in implementing what we’ve agreed, or sidetracked by more imminent demands. As Dawlish shows, some of our infrastructure, although brilliantly engineered long ago, is running out of time.
After the 2007 floods the Labour Government introduced legislation for Suds (sustainable urban drainage systems) to be mandatory in new housing development. After opposition by developers, implementation has been delayed by four years. This is short-sighted.
In 2011 this Government issued a report — based on a two-year project begun by its predecessor — on “climate resilient infrastructure”. “Our infrastructure”, it stated, “is an increasingly interconnected network of high-value assets with long operational lifetimes. Our existing stock of bridges, roads and power stations is already vulnerable to today’s extreme weather. Climate change will increase these vulnerabilities.” It gave examples of changing requirements, such as bridges having to be higher and cable needing to be laid with higher temperatures in mind. Let’s not wait for the next Farage-in-waders situation before we ask how it’s going.
Oh, and a post-script:
7 Can we not have silly debates, such as the one I heard yesterday on why don’t we spend as much on flood defences as the Netherlands? It’s like asking why we don’t have the forest fire-fighting capabilities of Australia or the earthquake planning of the Japanese. I mean, don’t we pride ourselves on our calmness, rationality and attention to the evidence? Like it says on the mugs?
The countries where we send foreign aid suffer disasters on a scale we can hardly imagine
David Cameron visiting a flood-hit area. 'It has been widely reported that the Prime Minister has has done well, politically, out of the floods. In the real world, Mr Cameron has made a fool of himself' Photo: AFP/Getty Images
By Peter Oborne
I do not want to play down or minimise the inconvenience, financial loss and deep personal unhappiness suffered by those caught up in the floods. However, the problem needs to be put into perspective. While 10 deaths have been linked to the flooding since early December, the scale of the inundation is nothing like as great as has been reported.
There was a moment early last week when both the BBC and Sky were dedicating the full resources of their 24-hour news output to a reportedly biblical deluge that had apparently wiped out much of the west of England. “At that moment,” says one police officer, “precisely 10 dwellings were affected by the floods. Of those, just seven were flooded, and five of those seven were occupied.”
The numbers have risen since then, with approximately 100 homes remaining flooded on the Somerset Levels. One’s heart goes out to these West Country people, who are coping for the most part with stoicism and grace – but we have to acknowledge that the numbers involved are relatively small.
Earlier this week, the floodwaters also reached the Thames Valley, an area of Britain disproportionately inhabited by rich and influential people. Andrew Neil, host of the BBC’s Daily Politics show, was quick off the mark. He pointed out on Twitter that while hundreds of people had been affected in Somerset, “Thames flooding = misery for hundreds of thousands”, adding: “Cameron’s New Orleans?”
This reasoning was open to question. Only 1,100 homes across the whole of Britain have been affected by floods this month. Mr Neil might at some point reflect that at least 1,800 people were killed in the Hurricane Katrina tragedy, which wiped out much of a great city and caused a reported £50 billion of damage.
This basic lack of proportion is, unfortunately, widespread. According to Bryony Sadler, a member of the Somerset Levels Action Group: “We have lived like a Third World country for three weeks.”
Some newspapers have echoed this unfortunate use of the term. They might consider what happens when floods actually strike in the Third World, as they do with terrifying frequency. In Venezuela in 1999, 30,000 were killed. The devastation in Bangladesh in 2004 was unspeakable, with the waters covering 60 per cent of the country and leaving roughly 30 million people homeless or stranded. The south-east Asian floods of 2011 killed 3,000 more, and wiped out the livelihoods of millions.
In truth, it is both disrespectful and ignorant to compare the floods that have struck Britain with the terrible devastation that is a fact of everyday life in developing countries – or to argue that we should cut off our aid spending there to pay for repairs here.
We now come to the third failure of perspective. The flooding crisis has been reported, almost universally, as a story of government incompetence. The exact opposite is the case. The story of this winter’s flooding is, with a few exceptions, a case study in the ability of a mature and sophisticated society to anticipate problems and then to handle them when they arise.
Britain has just experienced the wettest January in 250 years. So it comes as a sharp surprise to learn that only 5,800 homes have been flooded in the past six weeks. It is hugely impressive, however, that 1.2 million more have remained dry thanks to Britain’s superb system of flood defences, which are stronger now than they have been at any previous time in our history.
No single government or political party can claim the credit for this. It has been the work of decades, and the much-maligned Environment Agency has played its part. Even the record of the Coalition is respectable. In particular, Owen Paterson, the Environment Secretary since late 2012, has done well, especially bearing in mind the severe spending cuts elsewhere.
Paterson has fought some battles against the Treasury to protect flood defences, actually securing extra investment in the 2013 spending round. He was quick to challenge the Environment Agency orthodoxy that rivers should be allowed to silt up, ordering seven pilot schemes (including one on the Brue in Somerset) to allow them to flow more easily and thus avoid flooding.
On his trip to Somerset last week, he listened to local advice, then ordered a return to the old system of drainage that had kept the Levels reasonably flood-free for centuries. Paterson also deserves praise for resisting the temptation to gain easy political advantage by dumping on the Environment Agency and its chairman, Lord Smith.
So much for the reality. Perception is another matter. We now enter the peculiar world occupied by the media and political classes. It has its own mysterious rules. One of these holds that any reporter entering a flooded area will file his or her report against a flooded backdrop, even if the surrounding area is mainly dry.
Let’s contemplate the events at Wraysbury, Berkshire, on Tuesday. A local woman, Su Burrows, gave Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, a televised rocket. Her early-morning assault was replayed on news items all day. Within hours the Army had rolled in. Shortly afterwards, David Cameron cancelled his trip to Israel. Ed Miliband followed suit, dropping out of a visit to India and turning up at Wraysbury instead. I do not want to minimise the problem, but in reality, a great deal of Wraysbury is not flooded.
Similarly, it has been widely reported that David Cameron has done well, politically, out of the floods. This is a remark that only makes sense within the puerile rules of Westminster and Fleet Street discourse, which require, first, a crisis, and thereafter a political hero to come to the rescue.
In the real world, Mr Cameron has made a fool of himself, most of all by sending out on his personal Twitter account a photograph of himself chairing Cobra, the show-off committee created by Tony Blair mainly to create the impression of action. Had real work been going on, there would have been no time to take David Cameron’s publicity snap, let alone send it.
That was merely embarrassing. It was, by contrast, very stupid to license Eric Pickles to launch his cheap, brutish attack on the Environment Agency and its chairman. Mr Pickles, who never makes a move without Downing Street endorsement, insulted 10,000 Environment Agency employees, then compounded this basic error of leadership by plunging the Government into a row.
Six weeks into the floods, and it is time to ponder and reflect. Sixty years ago, 307 people died in England alone thanks to the North Sea Surge (an event nobody blamed on climate change). We have come a long way since then. Let’s give thanks for the Thames Barrier, that magnificent case of foresight allied to superb engineering, without which large tracts of London would now be submerged.
But let’s ponder why our public culture has become so hysterical, forgetful, self-absorbed and short-sighted. Let’s give some thought to the countries where floods routinely extinguish the lives of thousands, and the livelihood of millions. Let’s ponder those voices calling for aid to such places to be stopped. Isn’t it time for some of us to feel a little ashamed?
