We had thunderstorms today, but now we just have rain. We had thunderstorms yesterday and also the day before that. Or maybe two days ago. Anyway, we have had quite a lot of thunder and a lot of rain. Most of it, I imagine, will go to waste as we don’t have enough water storage.
Historically, we would have got round this by flooding a valley, preferably in Wales or Scotland. They have plenty of space there. In England we don’t have quite so much space. We also have public enquiries.
These, for those of you who aren’t familiar with them, are normally expensive and lengthy proceedings requiring us to pay vast sums to legal advisors in order to delay things. They may sometimes be good things, but mainly they just enable pressure groups to get publicity and lawyers to make additions to their property portfolios.
However, many reports point to problems by the middle of the century when our rainfall will fail to meet our water consumption, regardless of our ability to store it. Lower rainfall, high rates of water usage and increasing population all point to problems. By the middle of the century, if I’m still here, I probably won’t know what’s happening so it isn’t my problem. On the other hand, I would like to think that future generations have plenty to drink, so I’m going to start looking at more ways to save water. I have already reduced the the toilet flush and refuse to wash my car as a principle (rather than because I’m lazy). We also have water butts. and I’m planning our new garden with drought resistant species.
The current rain will also probably overpower out fragile sewerage systems and create more pollution of waterways. When we have a lot of water flowing companies are allowed to discharge the “overflow” directly into rivers and the sea.This can include raw sewage.
It’s a sad thing to see this happening at an increasing rate, and even sadder that we have yet to see the CEO of a water company flogged through the streets and given twenty years hard labour. I imagine you would only need to do one, and the rest would up their game.
Unfortunately judges are notoriously unlikely to jail the relatives of old school friends. We see this when they go soft on the killers of birds of prey and we see this when water companies are allowed to discharge sewage unpunished. There were over 300,000 discharges last year. There will probably be more this year as it is likely to be a wetter year.
The number of CEOs who suffer even minor judicial inconvenience? I’m guessing zero.
The view from Bowness – mainly rain