Do you worry about climate change?

I can't imagine, Jess. Why so critical of people you don't know who are doing their best to limit their carbon footprint? We can't all commit to living in a yurt and knitting our own sandals, but surely doing something is better than doing nothing at all and Eleothan's friend is to be applauded.

No its science Teacher11 and lashing out at the minority who take it very seriously and try to lead a low carbon life is, well, pretty mysterious behaviour. What have keen "greens" ever done to you?

Ana -Well there are so many articles and people saying opposite things and stating them as facts that it is difficult to make out exactly what is what!

I did read about the EU Water Framework Directive which was adopted in 2000 and places constraints on the dredging of rivers.
Apparently putting in flood defences does not infringe the policy so long as the river is not dredged or embarked.
For example the gravel accumulating in the Greta river at Keswick has resulted in considerably raising the river bed over the last decade. (You do wonder what they expected to happen when the dredging stops!) Anyway they have put glass screens on the walls in Keswick! I am fascinated by glass panels I have to say!

We ignore our history and the achievements of our ancestors at our peril. Our forbears did so much draining of land and dredging of watercourses and we have come to accept that it has always been as they made it which is just not correct. Draining of the fens has been continuous since the civil war until fairly recently so that is another area to watch.

I can see I have been a little forthright in my reply. I have nothing but goodwill towards your ill friend and hope she has many holidays and good times.

I felt it appropriate to write some pithy, memorable comments on the dangers of the green movement to introduce my actual points because I feel that sentimentalist green followers; those who apply pseudo science to the issue because they are either ignorant & irrational or being disingenuous to follow their own agenda or the outrightly malevolent have seized a moral high ground to which they are not entitled. They are making many people suffer for nothing.

To be honest, the villains (like those who are profiteering from solar panels which are desecrating our lovely countryside) are the least irritating as at least you know where they are coming from. It is the woolly sentimentalists who live a hypocritical life and lecture others on green issues that drive me mad. If your friend takes long haul holidays (a 'few' you said) then she has no right to call herself green. You either are or you aren't. You can't do one or two virtue signalling activities and then let yourself off. That is a bit like the Catholic church selling indulgences in medieval times.

In fact, that's the nub of it. 'Green' is a faith which is why it doesn't stand up to rational analysis and why people who cannot deal with empiricism or logic get their knickers in a twist about it.

Wilma sorry I thought you were echoing Mombiot who last week was going on about catchment management and upland trees, which many scientists thought was a distraction from the fact that we had an exceedingly wet month, followed by 24 hour downpour.
Yes some of the things you describe might help prevent rural flooding - what they call "localised". We've had that here. Also the hard surfaces instead of front gardens does not help with localised flooding in towns. But that would be a difficult thing to address in cities where everyone wants a car and councils need to keep the traffic flowing. Traffic congestion is a big polluter of air quality and is not efficient use of petrol either.

Anyway, my view is that blaming the Environment Agency and/or expecting them to somehow solve flooding and coastal erosion is unreasonable and unrealistic. I think the media do not help by trying to point the finger of blame.
I was in Australia once when there were bad floods. One isolated community got their JCBs out and built a barrier around the town to divert the flood waters that were on their way. Australian media full of praise. Here there was a similar story last week, in which local contractors were using their heavy plant without charge to shift rocks that had built up around bridge and might lead to another flood. Reporters full of "shouldn't the environment agency be doing this?" questions. Reinforces the UK belief that "they" are responsible for solving all our woes.
Also much more emphasis in Australia on the things citizens of Brisbane were doing post-flood to help those whose houses were inundated.

rq I can see that being a problem with so many agencies being involved, especially when priorities conflict.

I couldn't live much closer to the current centre of England than I do now, so I will be fine thanks .

My understanding is the EU Directive is more about water quality and nature conservation.
Wilma I think the problem with the flooding of the Somerset Levels was that there was more concentration by the Environment Agency on nature conservation at the expense of maintaining and dredging rivers and water courses.

Anya Time I came home again

ET.

Buxton is a good bet!

RoseQ yes, literally the Midlands.

sillyoldfool to my knowledge the legislation that applies as riparian owner is the Public Health Act 1936, the Land Drainage Acts of 1991 & 1994, the Water Resources Act 1991 and some local Land Drainage Bylaws. My understanding is the EU Directive is more about water quality and nature conservation. There is a connection though around the permissions from the Environment Agency you need to carry out certain work and making sure any standing water is not polluted. I think the majority of work going on around the EU Directive is connected with river basins.

Watercourses like ditches and culverts are designed to drain surface water away, before the water levels increase to an extent that puts property, roads, land and infrastructure at risk of flooding. If the system of ditches and culverts are well maintained, any flooding is likely to only affect areas in the floodplain. DEFRA has a regulatory role as well as the EA and other bodies.

JessM I'm not sure if your post is supporting my earlier one or not, but I am not suggesting in any way that new flood barriers should be built, quite the opposite. I wasn't really thinking about trees, although they obviously play a role, I was thinking of the loss of hedgerows, unmaintained ditches, change of farmland usage, etc. Even the loss of garden lawns is a contributing factor to water drainage. The location of Cumbria with its steep mountains and rivers makes it a target for flooding as our winters get wetter. And the milder our winters are, the wetter they can be. Hopefully Cumbria County Council being appointed as a Lead Local Flood Authority after the terrible flooding in 2009, means it will have the expertise to carry out a comprehensive review of the latest floods. My worry is the government will keep councils starved of funds to carry out essential maintenance.

I am not an expert on this, I've just read a bit about it.

If you keep building barriers along riverbanks then the water is going to cause further flooding downstream or upstream

I agree JessM, look what happened in the Thames Valley during the last floods:

www.thamesweb.co.uk/floodrelief/2003effects.html#anchor700706

Man can meddle but it doesn't always work out as anticipated; this is just one example among many, not all to do with flooding.

Quite Eleothan - if those worried about climate change are "greeniacs" with a "sub Marxist, authoritarian agenda" that category includes Barak Obama
And as for the whole thing a plot to control us...
Wilmaknickerscraft there has been much spoken about catchment management but ultimately trees, especially at this time of year, don't actually remove much water from the system when we have a downpour. In the case of Cumbria Dec 2015, another downpour. Woodland may dampen down the peak of a flood but the water will keep on coming down the hill until it has drained away. Every bit of land in the north west of the UK is completely saturated after 6 weeks of stormy, wet weather. (the soil in my garden is the consistency of a thick soup) So chuck 24 hours of non-stop heavy rain on that land and no amount of woodland is going to soak it up.
If you keep building barriers along riverbanks then the water is going to cause further flooding downstream or upstream. There are limits to what you can do here.
Think for instance about London and the Thames barrier. Sooner or later there will be a high tide, a flooding river and a storm surge that will flood London. The data on the right hand side of this wiki page (below) are interesting - look what happened in 2014 when the tides were exceptionally high, combined with repeated storms (much like this winter) which have a double effect - they make the tidal bulge even higher (very low air pressure allows the tide to rise higher) and a lot more water coming down the river.
The barrier was closed.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Barrier#Predictions_for_operation
Previous highest closures/year (since completed in 1982) - just 24. 2104 - 50

And 2 years later we seem to be heading into a similar weather pattern - its just been hitting hardest just a couple of hundred miles further north.

So would it help to build 6 ft walls along the Thames Embankment from the barrier up to Teddington? I think not because the water would find a way into the hundreds of drains and tunnels in London and come welling up.
On a more cheerful note, the map posted about is perhaps a little alarmist. You'd probably have to melt the whole of Antarctica to get to that stage.

Wilma
Rivers are not being dredged because the Environment Agency has policy dictated by the EU Water Framework Directive, adopted in 2000, placing constraints on the dredging of rivers.

Anya are you nearly in the middle of the country at present?

Teacher 11 A fairly good natured discussion was taking place. I wonder why you felt it necessary to pour scorn on those that are worried about climate change, by calling them "greeniacs" with a "sub Marxist, authoritarian agenda". A very dear friend of mine is a committed Green Party member who certainly does not fit your description. She has a car, but only uses it when it's absolutely necessary. Despite recently having treatment for Stage 4 cancer, she still walks a lot and uses public transport. She and her husband have had very few long haul holidays, and despite being financially able to buy as much as you wants whenever she wants, she uses charity shops for many of her purchases. Please don't label the many genuine people like her who are trying to practice what they preach (and I wish I were more like them) as "virtue signallers".

I agree with some of the points you make but feel your unpleasant remarks at the beginning detracted from them.

I do not worry about climate change. There are too many other far more worrying issues in this world right now.

RoseQ I'll be 'beside the seaside, beside the sea' ?

How often do you see ditches being cleared these days?

I will just say that the River Severn used to be dredged because ships went right up to Gloucester Docks and the shipping companies funded the dredging. That doesn't happen now and the Severn and the Wye are getting very silted up which will cause flooding when there is excessive rainfall.

We are not managing the environment properly; we need to stop pollution but also look at land management which has been neglected over the years in this country at least.

Where do you feature on this map?
Anya - well under the water.

Re the Co2 level, November 2015 was 401.16ppm. Check that graph....

At the risk of getting shot down in flames, the flooding in Cumbria and elsewhere is as much down to lack of watercourse maintenance and building on flood plains, as it it to climate change. Too many landowners and their agents (riparian owners) with a watercourse flowing through or bordering their land are not aware or do not understand their legal responsibilities - or ignore them.

I've been flooded out and so has my Mum, but it was my Mum's circumstances which could have been prevented by the correct maintenance of the local waterways.Too often, nothing is done until a flood has happened.

We are forecast to have hotter summers and wetter winters, so it is an area that needs constant vigilance. Councils and the Environment Agency gives advice to riparian owners, but I wonder how much enforcement is required.

I drive through Carlisle several times a year and have seen it badly flooded at least three times. The best flood defences are useless of the amount of flood water is allowed to go unchecked. My heart goes out to the residents and businesses there affected this time.

Re your post at 12:23, anya, I agree that fusion is in the early stages and there's a lot of research and experimentation still to do, but I think it's a good way forward, one of the best in fact.