Yesterday our British Met Office announced an incredibly wet January in parts of Southern England. Before the month was over, ‘the southeast and central southern England region has already had its wettest January in records going back to 1910.’
The downpours have caused terrible floods. A year ago, we knew this was going to happen.
One of the worst hit areas is the Somerset Levels. The Levels are in southwest England, also called the West Country. This year some land has been underwater for weeks already. We see residents on the news, telling us that ‘the Levels flood, but not like this. Drainage systems aren’t being maintained! Pay for our ruined homes and we’ll move away!’
As for the people whose livelihood is on the land, what are they supposed to do? My fellow blogger Ben Eagle at Thinking Country says that as floods continue on the Levels, ‘we need to be better prepared and mitigate the effects as much as is in our power to do so.’
Some say that there’s far too little response from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Environment Agency (EA).
Johann Tasker at Farmers Weekly tells us that thousands of hectares of farmland are flooded. ‘Mr Paterson [head of DEFRA] saw the flooding for himself during a visit to Somerset on Monday. But locals said the ministerial visit and listening ear were too little too late – describing Mr Paterson as uncommunicative and criticising him for arriving without wellington boots.’
A campaign group called Stop the Floods is now considering legal action against DEFRA and EA.
Science on the Land 
An even better response would be to sue the government for letting it rain too much. As I’m sure Lord Monckton would point out, it is probably being caused by efforts to stop global warming, and cool weather is bringing on the rains.
Here in the States, one of our national TV networks has a relentless campaign to prove that global warming doesn’t exist; otherwise, why did we have record cold weather this winter? (Never mind the disruption of the jet stream that now pipes arctic weather directly to us.) I think Rupert Murdock has forgotten about that southern island he used to call Australia and the fact that right now it’s undergoing unprecedented heat waves and droughts. I’ve been thinking about suing our government for not heating up the planet fast enough because of our cold weather.
And bedsides, if evolution is true, why are there still monkeys?
(Our wise and farsighted governor pushed through a law last year to finally give Tennessee’s teachers academic freedom — to teach the fraud of global climate change and its causes, to teach God’s Truth about evolution and creationism, and to rewrite history lessons as the teacher sees fit. And yes, our governor actually listed that in a news letter touting his accomplishments. I think the Truth is finally sinking in and that I have seen the Light.)
My critical reasoning abilities are rapidly reaching their full potential, and I think that soon I’ll be qualified to report on the Fox News network, and I, too, will be able to laugh at those egghead ivory-tower academics when one of my fellow reporters delivers a fatal blow to those left-leaning Obama supporters with one of the network-proven zingers that I listed above.
Sorry about the rant (but not very). It comes naturally after visiting my mother. She only watches Fox News, and it’s on constantly.
Hold on one minute, stop making any disagreement a matter of Fox News. And stop making this some kind of sacred screed perpetrated by an agenda. Now why does this annoy me so much? I am a Meteorologist of over 30 years. The left says that Meteorologists do not count. (Talking Points period).
You talk as if these Polar outbreaks are a consequence of Climate Change. That is true and false. The fact is however these changes are rather normal and only indicative of the positive of long wave trofs and ridges.
This is not politics and Al Gore knows squat.
Now as for our part in nature we do need to start to cleaning up our environment and making our water and food suppliers safer. We also need to try and make China cognizant of the damage they due to their country. They clean cut the environment to the point where there is nothing to stop sand from polluting some cities. This and other things.
Finally this is not a social studies political agenda. This is reality and has nothing to do with Fox. Claiming everything is Climate Change is stupid just as conservatives claiming a cold outbreak is proof that this warming is not occurring,
Meteorologist Larry Olson
Yes, I know that there’s nothing funny about a flood. Some of the ideas mentioned sound like our efforts to stop flooding on the Mississippi river — and they don’t work. The only thing that has worked so far is blowing up the levees in sparsely populated areas and letting the river do its thing. It doesn’t go over well with people who started farming those areas as soon as the levees were built.
Rivers have a way of defeating the best laid plans.
Yes they do. But as I wrote in the article which led me to start this blog, waterways in the British Isles have been managed for thousands of years. We have a wonderful system of drains, ditches and canals. Those have to be repaired and dredged. https://argylesock.wordpress.com/2013/01/03/food-for-britain-when-in-drought/
This is kind of like what happened in New Orleans where they knew and every had money to fix the then possible breaches in the levees. We are learning how that politicians spent that money on other things. Mayor Nagin and Governor Blanco. Both gone and they both played the political shell game.
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Sorry. Somehow I overlooked your previous post.
That’s all right Daniel! I’m sure you have a life beyond reading my blog 😉
Reblogged this on Green Living London.
Thank you.