Conservatives continue to ignore science

The Friends Of the Earth are 100% correct with their attack on the Conservatives. We have all known for a long time that there are many Conservatives that are ignorant or choose to be ignorant of climate science (and other sciences) in order to pursue a political and economic ideology.
Since the election they have put into action extremely damaging policies that will undo many years of excellent work that started to reduce carbon emissions, created new businesses and jobs.

The policies include:

• Onshore Wind farm support cuts.
• Commercial Solar farm support cuts.
• Commercial Biomass energy project support cuts.
• Scrapping of the Green Deal with no replacement.
• Delayed introduction of zero carbon homes.
• Reduced tax on pollution.
• Introduced the Climate Change Levy on the renewable energy industry.
• Removal of tax breaks on low carbon cars including hybrids but excluding electric vehicles.

The Conservatives continued their campaign of lies and misinformation to defend and justify a series of very foolish and potentially law breaking policy changes that will cost future generations not just a lot of money, but also lives.

The Conservatives use the claim that the left have hijacked the climate change cause, but the fact is that is a red herring. Cutting carbon emissions is not linked to ideology, you just have to get on with it and do it, the same policies to do it apply to all political parties. In effect the Conservatives have made it an ideological issue by scrapping all the policies that were essential to cut emissions, they haven't got the guts to continue with emissions cuts because the long term benefits of such cuts can never feature in Conservative ideology and religion which is fundamentally short term.

Conservative ideology is about 'now', it can't cope with looking more than a few years into the future.

But science and nature don't care about politicians, the rules of science are mathematical and ultimately they detemine the future (on this planet at least) based on the actions we take now. So the FACT is, actions taken now can either be good or bad for future outcomes depending on the type of actions taken.

The Conservative sudden cuts in support for renewable energy, low carbon housing, insulation for homes etc is unforgiveable especially when it is known that much of the support can be slowly removed without damaging a flourishing green business sector.

How can democracy be working if political lunatics can do this?
We don't want this pathetic old political battle, we want political decisions about energy and environment based on facts, not lies and politcal fantasies (ideologies).

The AA also join the attack:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-33724781

Water, water everywhere

In a time when flooding in Somerset became a 'major incident' we shouldn't forget that it was under 2 years ago that the nation was experiencing major flooding events.

The Environment Minister, Owen Paterson, claims that he is doing everything possible to help those affected by flooding. Well everything accept tackling carbon emissions, which is steadily increasing the probability of being flooded. The reason he has so many problems with flooding and his successor will have flooding and other extreme weather events to deal with in the future, is because many misinformed politicians don't want wind farms in their constituencies. Do they really believe flooded farm land and countryside is more useful than wind farms?

Inland flooding caused by rain and bloated rivers isn't the only problem. The sad fact is that at the end of this century, sea levels will be about 1 metre higher than today because of carbon emissions already in the system and carbon emissions being emitted now. The consequences of this change will be that the coastal towns battered by storms, surges and high tides in the last two months won't just have repairable sea front damage with debris thrown across roads and sea defences dislodged.
Instead, at such times at the end of the century, the sea will infiltrate the towns roads, waves will smash the sea front buildings to pieces and coastal councils will have to manage a dignified retreat. 1 metre may not sound much, but imagine 1 metre higher sea levels on top of the current spate of storm surges and extreme weather. Plus, 1 metre is just the start!

The other flooding problem and one that wasn't expected as much as other types of flooding, is ground water rising and failing to disperse because of persistent rain for weeks and months, on top of record levels of rainful accumulated in previous years. This could be a serious consequence and outcome in the UK as a result of anthropogenic climate change. A bumper UK apple crop this season doesn't compensate much for the loss of apple trees cause by the flood water logging the trees roots and trunks.

Amongst all this, the BBC has failed the nation by not mentioning climate change in the last two months in connection with the flooding and storms. Google 'Climate Change BBC' and the only articles about it since the storms began in December are about Penguins, Prince Charles attack on deniers and Camerons 'suspicions'.

Just down the road - ground water flooding in Hambledon.
Add a metre to this.

Yikes! Flooding everywhere

Wallington river over at Fareham has burst it's banks and I think a village is being evacuated.
Some Bungalows have been flooded in Emsworth and over at Purbrook, two people were trapped in the water last night at the ford.

Meanwhile we have a pond devloping in the back garden as the ground water rises.

New flooding study of Portsmouth

It looks like I'm not the only one who has an interest in the future flooding of Portsmouth. A new study called "Facing up to Rising Sea Levels" looks at the future of Portsmouth and Kingston-upon-Hull. The report has been created by the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Institute of British Architects. It looks at how Portsmouth might cope with sea level rises at the end of the century.

It will be uncomfortable reading for some people. The two organisations look at ways of dealing with sea level rises, pointing out that most of Portsmouth is no more than 3m above sea level.

The Institute of Civil Engineers has a press release about the study, where the report can be downloaded.

Added: An exhibition of the ICE and RIBA study will be held from 15th to 20th February at Portsmouth Cathedral (anglican). There will also be an exhibition of Portsmouth Councils North Solent shoreline management plan at the Central Library on 8th Feb.

A 1.5 metre sea level rise and us

Recently two different scientific teams (Stefan Rahmstorf in Germany and Svetlana Jevrejeva in the UK) predicted that sea levels will rise between 0.5m and 1.5m by 2100. There are many predictions about sea level rises, including conservative IPCC predictions and scifi scale predictions that are much greater (naming no American names!).

This may seem irrelevant to anyone living in and around Waterlooville. Why would a 1.5m rise on the Solent coast have anything to do with people living on high ground at Waterlooville?

Well if you look at any maps that show the effects of different increases in sea level rises, you will see that even for small rises, the Solent coast starts looking a lot different when compared to other areas of the South Coast. With a 1.5m rise, Portsmouth in particular doesn't come off very well. Anyone living near Eastern road is probably going to have salt sea water permanently lapping around their front door and in their living room. In fact large chunks of the Portsmouth coast line will move inwards, covering streets.

OK so far, chunks of Portsmouth will be under salt water, is this all we have to worry about?

Well no, one obvious problem would be sewage, you can't have sea water getting into the current sewage system. So thats one problem. But that is relatively minor (Yes really, it is!). The main problem is that the sea isn't so benign that it will happily stay 1.5 metres higher than it is now. The next problem is the tide. What appears to be a minor problem of water permanently flooding a few roads, becomes a serious problem of flooding on a larger scale at regular times. So not only do you have people flooded out permanently, but also a greater number of people flooded a number of times a year by the tides.

That's not all. Regular tides are predictable, although probably not manageable without significant defenses. A bigger problem of a 1.5m rise for the whole of Portsmouth is the weather. Storms, surges and high tides would occasionally combine to flood great chunks of Portsmouth. If all these factors are combined then anyone living near the sea in Portsmouth would have to move. Those living on slightly higher ground would also have to move due to tidal flooding, those nearer the central areas will get fed up with the sewage polluting the homes and roads, as well as the weather related flooding.

Where does this all lead to?

Well Portsmouth City council statistics show the cities population being about 196,400 people in 2006. That is a lot of people who will need to move in the next 80 to 90 years. Yes, just 80 to 90 years. Anyone born this year is likely to see this happen in their life time. Even if only 50,000 have to move, that is a lot of people to accommodate in the local area or across Hampshire. If the whole lot move (and that doesn't include other coastal areas in Hampshire), then we have a serious problem.

How does this affect Waterlooville? Well maybe one of the obvious places to go when you're flooded out is nearby higher ground. The pressure to build even more houses in the area will be even greater. You would also have to move businesses, schools etc. The whole thing would be environmentally devastating and extremely expensive.

There are various scenarios that are possible. The first is that because the sea level rise would be relatively slow, the migration from Portsmouth will be gradual and people will even move out of Hampshire. The second possibility is that the government will spend huge amounts of money and put up massive sea defenses, something like New Orleans where much of Portsmouth would be below sea level. This may just put off the inevitable though?

However you look at the issue, Portsmouth and the surrounding area could have some serious problems to deal with in a relatively short time. The whole coast of Hampshire may very well become an economic dead zone, which will also propagate throughout the UK

Some useful links:
Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory
Potsdam Institure for Climate Impact Research
CReSIS Northern Europe Map