The Failure of Government in the Face of the Flooding Crisis

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The Failure of Government in the Face of the Flooding Crisis

Flood Crisis, Climate Change, and What Is To Be Done

The government and the Environment Agency are to be condemned for their complacency in the face of one of the worst environmental crises in Britain in living memory. Their stated attitude, typified by the Prime Minister, is that "we will do what we can" and to mouth expressions of sympathy. After the floods in South Yorkshire, the Environment Agency under sustained criticism took the official line that these were exceptional circumstances, and that although of course it was regrettable that people were suffering the effects and dangers of flooding, in general the flood defences had done well where the problems were only of "normal" dimensions. Much the same attitude is being taken with the floods in Gloucestershire, Worcester, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and other areas.

Individuals are just supposed to get on with things, cope, and find a way to get to work so that business can continue. People, not relying on the government, have been acting together and organising themselves.

While the government has left the flood victims to fend for themselves, the emergency services have been going all out in a self-sacrificing manner to ensure that the people are rescued and that the hardship they are experiencing is ameliorated.

Meanwhile Gordon Brown has merely said that assistance will be provided to help get things back to normal "as quickly as possible", quoting some figure for flood defence budgets and looking to further increases "if necessary". In other words, the sheer scale and depth of the problem is in no way appreciated, come to terms with or acted upon by government. The government did no more than promise to "do something to help" the disaster funds which were independently set up after the floods in South Yorkshire, Hull and elsewhere, and there is no indication that funds will be provided on the scale needed now. Furthermore, the immediate issues are avoided.

It is clear that the attitude from the official circles that "we will do what we can" is the norm. Despite that fact that the crisis of climate change has become one of the foremost issues in society, the government has taken no responsibility to respond to the scientific evidence and put in place a national plan, expediting alternative sources of energy. Instead, it is making the issue one of individual carbon footprints and exhorting individuals to change their attitude and behaviour. Gordon Brown has indicated that building on flood plains will not only continue but be stepped up, without the recognition that measures must be taken to harness nature to human ends.

Environmental funding has also been cut in the period preceding this crisis. And during the crisis people have been left, for example, without a supply of drinking water. The pitiful amount of money that the government is to provide to the "forgotten city" of Hull has already been mentioned. All this points towards the failure of the state and the government. Some charities have pointed out that, despite all the technological potential in this country, they are treating the crisis in the same manner as they would flooding in the developing world. Facts are facts, and scientific predictions on the implications of climate change back up these facts. Yet the government and the Environment Agency persist in speaking of the crisis as it is one that can only be expected "once in every 150 years", to quote Gordon Brown. If, in addition, it were true that the problem is "19th century infrastructure", as he also said, this is an even more telling indictment of the lack of investment by 20th century governments, in particular the present Labour government, in these vital social programmes.

The government is exposed, and the question is how should the authority be held to account? Who should pay the costs? What is required from a responsible government is a conscious plan in which the shaping and management of the environment in the interest of human beings goes hand in hand with conservation and rendering nature its due respect.

Faced with the failure of government to take responsibility, the people are organising themselves to deal with the situation and become activated. They are overcoming the fragmentation of society that prevails, and are becoming conscious that it is the government’s failure of social responsibility that is an issue they themselves must take up for solution in order to overcome this crisis and avert future ones.

As floods invade hundreds of homes and leave a third of a million without drinking water, 350,000 without basic supplies, 50,000 without power, thousands more people homeless and cause £2bn worth of damage, and are still not over, what is the cause of this mass water rainfall? What is being done to not only provide for those affected by the floods, but to address the root causes of this unprecedented weather?

The greatest flood of modern times was predicted to worsen today as rivers burst their banks and deluged more people, buildings and countryside with storm water. A month’s worth and more of rainfall fell inside an hour. What has become obvious, as The Independent of July 24 writes, is that the government and civil authorities are "struggling to cope, not only with the sheer physical scale of the disaster itself but with the very concept of it". The last big flood was in 1947, and was not near the scale of this recent flood, so in this sense this onslaught of rainfall is unfamiliar and new, yet this intense flood is exactly what has been forecast for a decade or more.

No one can yet attribute the flood events of the past week directly to global warming; but the catastrophic "extreme rainfall events" of the summer of 2007 on June 24 and July 20, are entirely consistent with repeated predictions of what climate change will bring

"It is nearly 10 years since the scientists of the UK Climate Impacts Programme first gave their detailed forecast of what global warming had in store for Britain in the 21st century – and high up on the list was rainfall, increasing both in frequency and in intensity," The Independent writes.

"This was thought most likely to happen in winter, with summers predicted to be hotter and dryer. But yesterday Peter Stott of the Met Office's Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, an author of a new scientific paper linking increases in rainfall to climate change, commented: ‘It is possible under climate change that there could be an increase of extreme rainfall even under general drying.’

"The paper by Dr Stott and other authors, reported in The Independent yesterday, detects for the first time a ‘human fingerprint’ in rainfall increases in recent decades in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere – that is, it finds they were partly caused by global warming, itself caused by emissions of greenhouse gases."

Scientists have been fully aware of extreme rainfall predictions, attributed to climate change, and has steadily reinforced the warnings. The Independent points out, "One of the most important came from a group of experts commissioned to look at the risks by the Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir David King, under the Government's Foresight Programme, in 2004. Their report, Future Flooding, said that unless precautions were taken, more severe floods brought about by climate change could massively increase the number of people and the amount of property at risk." Yet the Environment Agency and government have not acted according to these findings: the Environment Agency failed to install defences in areas known to be at risk. Only now is the government promoting action: Hilary Benn, the secretary of state for the environment announced an independent inquiry into the impact of changing weather, coastal and river flood defences and drainage systems, and the co-ordination of the siting of water and power works. For those who have experienced the impact of the floods this is too little too late. It may be viewed as incompetent for ministers to go back to square one because a review only three years ago had recommended the agency be given an over-arching role in handling floods. The idea had been accepted by the government but not implemented.

On Monday, Gordon Brown denied that flood defence budgets had been cut, pledging that £600million that would rise to £800m, when what is actually needed, as suggested by the Environment Agency and other bodies is £1billion.

Although the effects of climate change are not at the top of the government’s agenda, coming behind war, privatisation with which to pay the monopolies, climate change is certainly affecting the people both directly and indirectly. Our mother earth is in danger and as these floods show so too are we. This is our cry to build sustainable ways of producing energy that is carbon efficient, to build public transport systems that are nationalised and carbon efficient. The workers and people have mother earth, their earth, at the top of their agenda. This was highlighted in the recent Durham Miners’ Gala where union leaders addressed the environment as a priority concern, suggesting coal as a clean way to produce energy.

The workers and people in solidarity with those who have been ravaged by this rainfall should step up the fight for their agenda which holds the earth and its atmosphere as one with humanity’s survival and prosperity. The workers and people realise what the earth provides for us is not to be jeopardised by a ruling elite that does not represent their interests. The earth belongs to the people and humans and animals alike are threatened by the careless and egocentric actions of a few. The workers must inherit the earth, but we cannot take that for granted. The world is crying as we see it in environmental turbulence, and war; there are answers and there is a way out of the various crises. This is why the workers must take up the programme to become the decision-makers, creating an anti-war government, creating an environmentally sound government, creating a pro-social government. Only by leading the way can we empower ourselves to show that we are the ones who hold the answers to all human questions. We are the problem solvers and we shall solve the major and minor problems of our day.