This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body.
Posted Tuesday 4th February 2014 at 12.15pm
Sinking in
A small part of Steve Richards' article in the Independent asks whether the message over climate change is sinking in following floods in the UK: that this is the greatest challenge we face. I think it is, slowly, but there are still a huge number of people refusing to wake up and smell the coffee.
"In 2004, the government’s chief scientific adviser, David King, warned that climate change posed a bigger threat to the UK than terrorism.
The claim seemed to me at the time to be preposterously hyperbolic. Very quickly the comparison becomes vividly precise.
Thankfully terrorists have failed to break through the various costly barriers erected after 9/11 and 7/7. In contrast, the wild weather pushes aside the pathetic, puny obstacles that stand fleetingly in its way, and wreaks havoc.
Increasingly since King made his dramatic claim, the weather has become the main news story in the UK, and not only in the winter. The floods in the summer of 2007 were as dramatic as those now afflicting parts of the country.
A pattern is forming. Each wild outbreak of extreme weather prompts speculation that the turbulence might be a one-off. Then there is another violent eruption.
The government and the rest of us must treat the threat as if it were one posed by terrorists. Far more investment is required to protect the parts of the country vulnerable to flooding. Emergency services must respond more quickly. The Environment Agency needs the resources, and the nimble resolve to meet the challenge.
The threat posed by climate change and the separate needs of a growing elderly population urgently require more public money. We should not forget the need when the pre-election tax-and-spend debate focuses solely on the virtues of cuts."
Climate change a bigger threat than terrorism? That's an understatement.
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