Poll: Who is to blame for the floods?

[DaveB]

Don't forget The Gays.

Although technically that would be the governments fault for allowing them to get married.

[SueEllen]

Ed Balls

Gordon Brown you mean - it's karma for him saving the world

[pjclarke]

I've seen no evidence that the flooding is unprecedented, but the amount of rainfall since the New Year is off certainly the chart, which was indeed driven by a perturbed Jet Stream, which is indeed one of the predicted consequences of there being more energy in the system.

The floods have probably been made worse by an increase in the amount of built-up areas, concreted front gardens producing more runoff, and also by poor land management - the trend towards farmers, encouraged by subsidy, grubbing up shrubs, trees, hedges and filling in ditches. Also paying inefficient hill farms to keep the hills bare and the soil compacted, by sheep. Remember when fields were smaller, with hedges, ditches and perhaps a small pond and a copse? Cutting and burning grouse moors likely adds to the problem. Not exactly 'green' policies.

That's the flipside of a philosophy that believes land exists only to support landowners and waterways exist only "to get rid of water". Instead of a steady flow sustained around the year by trees in the hills, by sensitive farming methods, by rivers allowed to find their own course and their own level, to filter and hold back their waters through bends and braiding and obstructions, we get a cycle of flood and drought. We get filthy water and empty aquifers and huge insurance premiums and ruined carpets. And all of it at public expense.

Drowning in money: the untold story of the crazy public spending that makes flooding inevitable | George Monbiot | Comment is free | The Guardian


PS Where is the Met Office forecast of a dry winter? I thought they had stopped doing seasonal forecasts?