Topic: Climate Emergency is already here. How much worse it gets is still up to us (?)

[Red-Soldier]

Heatwave led to London firefighters’ busiest day since second world war

Mayor Sadiq Khan warns ‘the grass is like hay’ as temperatures fall and UK travel disruption continues

The fire service in London faced its busiest day since the second world war on Tuesday as fires raged throughout the UK amid brutal temperatures.

Temperatures dropped dramatically on Wednesday, but further travel disruption was expected as repairs were carried out on road and rail networks and at airports. Heavy showers and thunderstorms were predicted to hit parts of the country, potentially causing localised flooding.

The London mayor, Sadiq Khan, warned Londoners not to have BBQs and to take care with bottles in public areas, where grass remains tinder-dry after temperatures topped 40C in the UK for the first time. The sun shining through glass bottles can create heat and cause a fire.

Khan said the fire service would usually expect 500 calls on a busy day, but had received more than 2,600 calls on Tuesday, when more than a dozen fires were raging at the same time.

Fire brigades in London, Leicestershire and South Yorkshire declared major incidents on Tuesday, as fires destroyed business, houses, schools and churches.

Three fires broke out around London, affecting grassland, farm buildings, houses and garages from midnight in Wennington, Uxbridge and Erith, with almost 300 firefighters deployed in the early hours of the morning. Evacuations were carried out and no injuries were reported.

Khan said he spoke on Wednesday morning to the fire commissioner, who expressed concern about the potential for further fires.

“The grass is like hay, which means it’s easier to catch fire. Once it catches fire, it spreads incredibly fast like wildfires, like you see in movies or in fires in California and parts of France,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Asked if the need to get net zero by 2050 was in danger of being ignored, Khan said it “beggared belief” that global heating was not being spoken about more prominently by the Conservative leadership candidates.

“Look, it’s unarguable now that the weather we’ve faced in our city and in our country over the last few days is a direct consequence of climate change,” he said. “We should be dealing with the consequences of climate change adaptations of our cities and country, public transport homes and so forth, but also dealing with the causes of climate change as well.”

Sixteen firefighters were injured tackling blazes in the capital on the hottest day of the year, with two admitted to hospital, according to the London fire brigade’s assistant commissioner, Jonathan Smith.

Smith told Times Radio: “The conditions that our firefighters were operating in were unprecedented – operating in 40C heat, needing to drag significant amount of hose across fields, making sure we were rescuing people where we needed to.”

Simon Clarke, the chief secretary to the Treasury, told Sky News that the fires were a “warning sign” about the impact of climate change.

“This is a reminder today I think of the importance of tackling climate change. This is a remarkable, unprecedented event and something which obviously, because people have been saying, we are not used to seeing in this country,” he said.

“What we’ve seen in recent days is not normal and it is a warning sign.”

Dozens of trains were cancelled or delayed across England on Wednesday morning because of problems caused by the extreme heat. Record temperatures caused damage to overhead wires, tracks and signalling systems.

National Rail told customers to check before setting off on their journeys and to travel only if absolutely necessary as tracks and overhead wires were repaired.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jul/20/heatwave-led-to-london-firefighters-busiest-day-since-second-world-war

[Pistolero]

The patently orchestrated, dismissive response to the heatwave by the entirety of the right wing media and a host of gutless, spineless shithouse Tory backbenchers ... 'snowflake Britain' ..'remember 1976'..'stay cool and carry on' ...blah blah blah...is deeply worrying but completely unsurprising.....puppets and cnuts on fuckin strings

[Red-Soldier]

Climate emergency is a legacy of colonialism, says Greenpeace UK

Report says global south has been ‘used as place to dump waste’ and that people of colour are suffering disproportionately

The climate and ecological crises are a legacy of systemic racism and people of colour suffer disproportionately from their harms, a Greenpeace UK report says. Globally, the report says, it is people of colour who, despite having contributed the least to the climate emergency, are now “disproportionately losing their lives and livelihoods” by the millions because of it.

“The environmental emergency is the legacy of colonialism,” the report says. This was because colonialism had “established a model through which the air and lands of the global south have been … used as places to dump waste the global north does not want”, the report says.

It adds that similar inequalities are visible in the UK, where almost half of all of waste-burning incinerators are in areas with high populations of people of colour. In London, black people are more likely to breathe illegal levels of air pollution, and black people in England are nearly four times as likely as white people to have no access to outdoor space at home, it says.

YouGov polling alongside the report shows widespread ignorance of the racial divide in environmental impacts. of those polled, 35% believed that people of colour were no more likely than others to live close to a waste incinerator; 55% believed there was no difference in exposure to air pollution between white people and people of colour in London; and 47% believed there were no significant differences between ethnicity groups in access to green outdoor spaces.

Produced in collaboration with the race equality thinktank the Runnymede Trust, the report traces the roots of the environmental emergency to colonialism, slavery and the plunder of resources from the global south. Greenpeace says it is making environmental justice a central pillar of its work.

“We argue that the outcomes of the environmental emergency cannot be understood without reference to the history of British and European colonialism, which set in motion a global model for racialised resource extraction from people of colour.”

The report’s publication makes Greenpeace UK the latest big campaign group to link racial justice to the environment agenda. Pat Venditti, its executive director, described the issues as “two sides of the same coin”.

“This is why it’s absolutely vital that, as a campaigning organisation, we help to shed light on the links between racism and environmental harm and make it a central pillar of our work,” Venditti said. “As a predominantly white organisation located in the global north Greenpeace UK recognises that it still has a lot of learning to do. But we’re pulling out all the stops to make sure we get it right in future.”

Mainstream green groups have “not done enough to recognise the links between systemic racism and climate change”, says the report, in acknowledgment of long-held criticism of the environmental movement’s understanding of the impact of racism.

It says Greenpeace UK has “work to do to centre environmental justice” in its campaigns and will do so “through its relationships with impacted communities, other allies and the wider environmental and climate justice movements in the UK and around the world”.

The report is a key development in a journey begun by Greenpeace and many other institutions in 2020, when Black Lives Matter anti-racist demonstrations spread across the world after the murder in the US of the civilian George Floyd by a police officer.

Asad Rehman, the director of War On Want, an anti-poverty charity that campaigns on environmental justice, said he welcomed the report, “especially as many big NGOs historically ignored issues of race and intersectional justice”.

Rehman said: “They have been forced to address this because the broader climate justice movement is shifting the discourse and narrative. However, it’s still baby steps. What we now need to see is that reflected in their policy demands, their campaigns and internally in their organisations.”

The report could be a resource for Greenpeace supporters, who are largely white, to help with understanding the racial context of the climate crisis. By drawing together examples of environmental racism in the UK and abroad, and showing the roles UK institutions have played in them, it aims to tell the environmental justice story in a way that audiences can relate to.

Greenpeace UK said it would also be launching two initiatives to support environmental and social justice groups. It will offer warehouse space to grassroots groups for the design and planning of campaigns, and create a fund “to contribute to the initiatives of groups that advocate for social, racial and/or environmental justice”.

“Funds can help cover things like venue costs, equipment rentals, materials for actions, investigations or workshops, or setting up a community fridge, to name a few,” Greenpeace UK said.

Dr Halima Begum, the chief executive of the Runnymede Trust, said: “This report, by two leading organisations in their respective sectors, reminds the world of something that should be glaringly obvious – the climate crisis is also a racial crisis.

“Speaking as someone from one of the sacrifice zones identified in the report, whose father’s village in Bangladesh remains underwater due to the increasing devastation wrought by climate change, this report confirms that we cannot overcome the environmental emergency faced by the entire planet without addressing patterns of global racial disparity.”
Pollution and deprivation

Newham, in east London, has the largest minority-ethnic population of any local authority area in the UK, and it is one of the most deprived. It is also the most polluted.

On average, Newham residents, 71% of whom are from ethnic minorities, are exposed to levels of particulate matter air pollution that is a third higher than World Health Organization limits, and one in seven are exposed to levels of nitrogen dioxide above the UK’s limit for human health.

Poor air quality in the borough kills 96 residents a year, according to the local authority.

“There are days, particularly in a really smoggy day in autumn or winter, where it’s really noticeable how heavy the air feels to breathe,” said Liam O’Hanrahan, an outdoor learning teacher at Newham primary school. “You do physically notice the pollution. And that’s before you get on to the kind of journeys that children have to make coming to school, where I know they’re walking down extremely busy roads.”

Yet it seems Newham can expect more traffic, not less. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has approved a Ł1.2bn tunnel beneath the Thames, connecting Newham’s Silvertown area with the Greenwich peninsula.

Campaigners say the tunnel will vastly increase congestion in the borough, and that the decision is at odds with Khan’s efforts to show leadership on pollution and climate issues. Newham and Greenwich local authorities have called on Khan to ditch the scheme. Rokhsana Fiaz, Newham’s mayor, said the project would undermine pollution and climate-change commitments.

Daniel Rodrigues, a builder who lives close to where the tunnel will emerge in Newham, says pollution in his local area is bearable – though he moved to the area with his family from west London to try to protect the health of his daughter, who suffers from a lung condition.

Rodrigues and fellow campaigners believe the new tunnel will lead to thousands more cars in the area.

In its latest report on racism and the environment, Greenpeace UK highlights the building of the Silvertown tunnel in Newham as a key example of environmental injustice in the UK. The group said it reflected a “bigger picture … in which people of colour are disproportionately exposed to, and are particularly vulnerable to, air pollution”.

Khan’s office has said a tolling scheme on the tunnel and the existing Blackwall tunnel will manage demand and reduce congestion.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/climate-emergency-is-a-legacy-of-colonialism-says-greenpeace-uk

[Mister Flip Flop]

Everyone is concerned over this but few will make the necessary adjustment to lifestyle to suit. For instance how many would stop following the team to away day games both here and abroad? Thousands of fans from hundreds of clubs driving the length and breath of the country to follow their teams every year and to further afield on flights. The carbon footprint from that alone must be huge but will people make the effort and stop, of course they won't.

[Nobby Reserve]

Ben Phillips
@benphillips76
A clip from Don’t Look Up, and then a real TV interview that just happened

https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1549768004233314306


 

[The_Nomad]

Everyone is concerned over this but few will make the necessary adjustment to lifestyle to suit. For instance how many would stop following the team to away day games both here and abroad? Thousands of fans from hundreds of clubs driving the length and breath of the country to follow their teams every year and to further afield on flights. The carbon footprint from that alone must be huge but will people make the effort and stop, of course they won't.

We need air, water, food and shelter in order to live. In our hunter gatherer days, you had to forage to bring home the bacon, literally. The better able you were to find sustenance, the better your chances of survival and very probably the higher you were regarded.

Now, economic activity has effectively replaced foraging. The more able you are at this economic activity lark, the better your chances of survival and how society views you. It’s biologically hard wired. As long as society rewards your real and perceived ability to procure and consume resources at will, nothing will change. Why should a more capable or hardworking person not be able to consume more resources than someone less able or more lazy? Who’s going to arbitrate how much is enough consumption per person or household?

Plus, when every aspect of modern economic activity brings the bacon home for someone else, the less we consume, the less someone poorer is able to consume. Personally, I don’t know how we dig ourselves out of this one. Back to subsistence farming?

[[new username under construction]]

Ben Phillips
@benphillips76
A clip from Don’t Look Up, and then a real TV interview that just happened

https://twitter.com/benphillips76/status/1549768004233314306


 

Was watching the BBC the other day and they had a professor on who had degrees coming out of his butt.........asked him what people should do when they are warm and then went on to the next story

World is fucked

[Red-Soldier]

Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years

Vast sums provide power to ‘buy every politician’ and delay action on climate crisis, says expert

The oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (Ł2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, a new analysis has revealed.

The vast total captured by petrostates and fossil fuel companies since 1970 is $52tn, providing the power to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis, says Prof Aviel Verbruggen, the author of the analysis. The huge profits were inflated by cartels of countries artificially restricting supply.

The analysis, based on World Bank data, assesses the “rent” secured by global oil and gas sales, which is the economic term for the unearned profit produced after the total cost of production has been deducted.

The study has yet to be published in an academic journal but three experts at University College London, the London School of Economics and the thinktank Carbon Tracker confirmed the analysis as accurate, with one calling the total a “staggering number”. It appears to be the first long-term assessment of the sector’s total profits, with oil rents providing 86% of the total.

Emissions from the burning of fossil fuels have driven the climate crisis and contributed to worsening extreme weather, including the current heatwaves hitting the UK and many other Northern hemisphere countries. Oil companies have known for decades that carbon emissions were dangerously heating the planet.

“I was really surprised by such high numbers – they are enormous,” said Verbruggen, an energy and environmental economist at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, and a former lead author of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

“It’s a huge amount of money,” he said. “You can buy every politician, every system with all this money, and I think this happened. It protects [producers] from political interference that may limit their activities.”

The rents captured by exploiting the natural resources are unearned, Verbruggen said: “It’s real, pure profit. They captured 1% of all the wealth in the world without doing anything for it.” The average annual profit from 1970-2020 was $1tn but he said he expected this to be twice as high in 2022.

The profit-grabbing is holding back the world’s action on the climate emergency, he said: “It’s really stripping money from the alternatives. In every country, people have so much difficulty just to pay the gas and electricity bills and oil [petrol] bill, that we don’t have money left over to invest in renewables.”

Some of the rents go to governments as royalties, says Prof Paul Ekins, at University College London: “But the fact remains that, over the last 50 years, companies have made a huge amount of money by producing fossil fuels, the burning of which is the major cause of climate change. This is already causing untold misery round the world and is a major threat to future human civilisation.

“At the very least these companies should be investing a far greater share of their profits in moving to low-carbon energy than is currently the case. Until they do so their claims of being part of the low-carbon energy transition are among the most egregious examples of greenwashing.”

Mark Campanale, at Carbon Tracker, said: “Not only is the scale of these rents eye-watering, but it is salient to note that, in the midst of a cost of living crisis caused by record oil and gas prices, this flow of money to a relatively small number of petrostates and energy companies is set to double this year. Shifting to a carbon-neutral energy system based on renewables is the only way to end this madness.”

The Guardian revealed in May that the world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts. The fossil fuel industry also benefits from subsidies of $16bn a day, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Verbruggen’s analysis used the World Bank’s oil rent and gas rent data, which the bank compiles country-by-country and is expressed as percentage of global GDP. He then multiplied this by the World Bank’s global GDP data and adjusted for inflation to put all the figures in 2020 US dollars.

Verbruggen said oil-rich nations, such as Russia and those in the OPEC cartel, including Saudi Arabia, kept rents high by restricting supply: “They change the fundamentals of the markets.” Military action, such as the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and political action, such as the embargo on oil exports from Iran, had also increased the rents, he said. If all available oil and gas could be freely supplied to the market, the price of conventional oil would be $20-30 a barrel, Verbruggen said, compared with about $100 today.

There is far more oil, gas and coal in existing reserves than can be burned if the world is to limit global heating to 1.5C, the target agreed by nations in the Paris climate agreement in 2015. Campanale said: “To keep to 1.5C, this means [international oil companies alone] forgoing around $100 trillion of potential revenues. You can see why oil oligarchs and nations controlled by political elites want to keep their fossil fuel rents, the source of their power.”

May Boeve, the head of campaign group 350.org, said: “These profits have enabled the fossil fuel industry to combat all efforts to switch our energy systems. We have to dismantle such rent-seeking systems and build our future based on accessible and distributed renewable energy that is more sustainable and democratic in every way.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/revealed-oil-sectors-staggering-profits-last-50-years

[Sudden Death Draft Loser]

Revealed: oil sector’s ‘staggering’ $3bn-a-day profits for last 50 years

Vast sums provide power to ‘buy every politician’ and delay action on climate crisis, says expert

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/21/revealed-oil-sectors-staggering-profits-last-50-years

The Guardian revealed in May that the world’s biggest fossil fuel firms are planning scores of “carbon bomb” oil and gas projects that would drive the climate past internationally agreed temperature limits with catastrophic global impacts.

People still believe that driving a bit less and recycling is going to save us.

[Stockholm Syndrome]

Everyone is concerned over this but few will make the necessary adjustment to lifestyle to suit. For instance how many would stop following the team to away day games both here and abroad? Thousands of fans from hundreds of clubs driving the length and breath of the country to follow their teams every year and to further afield on flights. The carbon footprint from that alone must be huge but will people make the effort and stop, of course they won't.

But frankly it shouldn't be on the common person to hold the responsibility for climate change, given that consumer pollution is in fact a very minor aspect in the grand scheme of things. Corporate pollution is still the main culprit here, is still the major issue.

To the point that I believe some level of the shift to individual responsibility is a lobbied PR response to guilt people into minor actions they think are making a difference, rather than actually pushing against massive corporate pollution.

Hell even the phrase "Carbon Footprint" was apparently coined by BP to get people to focus in on their own footprint and shift the blame onto the individual.

Don't try and protest us to cut emissions, all you have to do to save the world is use cardboard straws and ride your bike for a few journeys a week, maybe even avoid going abroad this year (on a flight which will still go anyway wether you book it or not). It's your responsibility to save the world, and you can drop your eco concerns with a few slight changes to your lifestyle and then stop worrying.

Everyone will have to change how we live for climate change, but there are solutions that are not only possible, but can be brought in without majorly changing our lifestyle. There just has to be commitment both from the public and governments to cut down of corporate polluting. But that government action is really where it has to come - we can make all the reasonable changes to our lives as members of the public to go greener, even go further and strip down to the bear bones to be eco friendly as individuals, and it won't make a lick of difference unless there is concentrated action against the corporations.

[Nobby Reserve]

But frankly it shouldn't be on the common person to hold the responsibility for climate change, given that consumer pollution is in fact a very minor aspect in the grand scheme of things. Corporate pollution is still the main culprit here, is still the major issue.

To the point that I believe some level of the shift to individual responsibility is a lobbied PR response to guilt people into minor actions they think are making a difference, rather than actually pushing against massive corporate pollution.

Hell even the phrase "Carbon Footprint" was apparently coined by BP to get people to focus in on their own footprint and shift the blame onto the individual.

Don't try and protest us to cut emissions, all you have to do to save the world is use cardboard straws and ride your bike for a few journeys a week, maybe even avoid going abroad this year (on a flight which will still go anyway wether you book it or not). It's your responsibility to save the world, and you can drop your eco concerns with a few slight changes to your lifestyle and then stop worrying.

Everyone will have to change how we live for climate change, but there are solutions that are not only possible, but can be brought in without majorly changing our lifestyle. There just has to be commitment both from the public and governments to cut down of corporate polluting. But that government action is really where it has to come - we can make all the reasonable changes to our lives as members of the public to go greener, even go further and strip down to the bear bones to be eco friendly as individuals, and it won't make a lick of difference unless there is concentrated action against the corporations.

Generally, yes.

By far the biggest two single factors of GHG emissions are power generation and transport (around 55%)

We need to move away from the attitude of electricity being a cash-cow for corporations and their shareholders. Nationalise it. Make domestic generation (chiefly solar) universal as far as possible (subsidise/fund it). Build tidal lagoons/barrages. Build more nuclear (not subsidise private companies for the tune of Łbillions, so they can syphon a chunk of that out as profit/executive pig-troughing/dividends).

Then go after those with the really high carbon footprints. Limit flights to, say, 4 per person per year. Ban high-emission cars (like super-cars, big-engined Chelsea Tractors, etc). They're not necessary. Limit consumption of non-self generated power to hit those with multiple/massive houses with energy-intensive things like heated swimming pools.

[Red-Soldier]

Big Oil v the World

The most important story of our time. Despite climate chaos raging across the planet and urgent warnings from experts, our dependence on fossil fuels persists. How did we get here?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0cgql8f/big-oil-v-the-world


I watched the first episode last night.

[Machae]

No ones going to do anything save for a ballsy leader and a revolution

The world will continue walking into a disaster for future generations

[Indomitable_Carp]

Big Oil v the World

The most important story of our time. Despite climate chaos raging across the planet and urgent warnings from experts, our dependence on fossil fuels persists. How did we get here?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0cgql8f/big-oil-v-the-world


I watched the first episode last night.

I will get around to listening to the podcast. But this reminds me of this analysis of the oil and gas industries profits over the last 50 years.

The oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn (Ł2.3bn) a day in pure profit for the last 50 years, a new analysis has revealed.

The vast total captured by petrostates and fossil fuel companies since 1970 is $52tn, providing the power to “buy every politician, every system” and delay action on the climate crisis, says Prof Aviel Verbruggen, the author of the analysis. The huge profits were inflated by cartels of countries artificially restricting supply.

The analysis, based on World Bank data, assesses the “rent” secured by global oil and gas sales, which is the economic term for the unearned profit produced after the total cost of production has been deducted.

Ł2.3bn a day profit for the last 50 years!!

[Nobby Reserve]

Some climate change-denying plum in the weather thread was dismissing that the fossil fuel industry was behind much of the attempts to muddy the waters with regards to the link between climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.

Here's a good article about how the fossil fuel industry went about it.

[Robinred]

Stewart Lee in fine form in today’s Guardian:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/24/tory-death-priests-have-our-lives-in-their-hands?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[idontknow]

It's always hot in summer.
Global warming, Global cooling, climate change,
judt wake ip and believe Hilary,
ain't nothing gong on but the rent.

[Red-Soldier]

Big falls in crop yields across Europe feared due to heatwaves

From Spain to Hungary, output of staples such as corn, forecast to fall by up to 9%, adding to impact of Ukraine war on food security

Yields of key crops in the EU will be sharply down this year owing to heatwaves and droughts, further exacerbating the impacts of the Ukraine war on food prices.

The yields for maize, sunflower and soya beans are forecast by the EU to drop by about 8% to 9%, owing to hot weather across the continent. This will have a particular impact on prices as supplies of cooking oil and maize were already under pressure, as Ukraine is a major producer and its harvests are under threat from Russia.

Large parts of Europe have been afflicted by drought and hot weather in recent weeks, including Spain, southern France, central and northern Italy, central Germany, northern Romania and eastern Hungary. Cereal yields are down about 2% overall, compared with the five-year average for yield, though a handful of crops such as sugar beet and potatoes are doing better than average.

According to the latest monthly edition of the Mars Bulletin, published this week by the EU’s Joint Research Centre, drought and heat stress in many regions coincided with the flowering stage for key crops, which reduces yields, and water reservoirs in many regions are at levels too low to meet the demand for irrigation.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/27/big-falls-in-crop-yields-across-europe-feared-due-to-heatwaves

[Red-Soldier]

Act now on water or face emergency queues on the streets, UK warned

Hosepipe ban and compulsory water metering needed, say advisers, as nation braces for drought

A national hosepipe ban should be implemented as a national priority along with compulsory water metering across the UK by the end of the decade.

That is the key message that infrastructure advisers have given the government as the nation braces itself for a drought that is threatening major disruption to the nation. Failure to act now would leave Britain facing a future of queueing for emergency bottled water “from the back of lorries”.

The government was warned four years ago by the National Infrastructure Committee (NIC) that considerable new investment would have to be made in the nation’s water supply equipment by the 2030s. Although some improvements have been made by water firms, nearly 3billion litres of water is still lost every day.

Plugging these leaks will require an investment of around Ł20bn, Sir John Armitt, chair of the committee, told the Observer this weekend. Failure to invest now will mean, he added, that more than twice as much will have to be spent on distributing bottled water to UK residents by lorry as increasingly frequent droughts grip the nation.

“You have to pay for it, one way or another,” he said. “That could be investing in new reservoirs or moving water around the country, as well as stopping leaks.” Water metering is considered by the industry as the best tool for cutting water use – the UK has the highest usage in Europe. It is estimated that water meters have been installed in only about half of households in England and Wales, but these customers use 33 litres a day less than the national average, of 141 litres a day.

The call by the NIC was backed by the Rivers Trust, which was one of the key agencies at the emergency National Drought Group meeting the government convened last week as dry conditions spread across England.

Mark Lloyd of the Rivers Trust said measures should be taken much earlier than the end of the decade. “There needs to be a nationally coordinated publicity campaign to reduce water use, and universal water metering,” he said. “Low flows in rivers are disastrous for wildlife and, ultimately, we need to take much more care of this incredibly precious resource.”

Mark Owen of the Angling Trust said hosepipe bans needed to be extended across the country, after Southern Water became the first firm to bring in a ban on Friday, for the Isle of Wight and Hampshire.

“We need to see these bans brought in proactively in many more places,” said Owen.

He criticised the lack of government planning for extreme weather. “There is no strategic, coherent, joined-up approach. The reaction is always kneejerk. What happens when we get to this stage – when it is very dry and hot –is that all of a sudden usage shoots up as people fill paddling pools and water their gardens.”

Tom Bradshaw, deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union, said more investment in water irrigation, on farm reservoirs and a better plan to manage water resources was needed. “The lack of rain means crops such as sugar beet and maize are showing signs of stress, while there are challenges for farmers needing to irrigate field veg and potatoes. The dry weather has also severely hampered grass growth, which could hit feed supplies for the winter.”

Critics say the government has had plenty of warnings, but seems to have taken no action.

“What we are seeing now is that climate impacts in terms of more extreme weather events are happening more frequently and at a greater magnitude than was anticipated,” said Martin Baxter of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. “We have really got to become more resilient to what we know is on the way.”

A conglomerate of government bodies said that major plans were being prepared to improve water storage and transfer across England and Wales. A Ł500million scheme called Rapid – Regulators’ Alliance for Progressing Infrastructure Development – was set up jointly in 2019 by Ofwat, the Environment Agency (EA) and the Drinking Water Inspectorate.

“We are now investigating different schemes with the aim of implementing the most promising in a couple of years,” said Paul Hickey, managing director of Rapid.

Among the projects being considered are a series of new reservoirs that could be built in different parts of the country and schemes that would allow engineers to transfer water from the north of England, where supplies are not stressed, to the south. These would involve using the River Severn and the Grand Union canal as conduits for fresh water that would alleviate situation in the south of England, which has been worst affected by the drought.

These schemes will cost billions of pounds, however, and are unlikely to be implemented in the next decade.

July was the driest month on record since 1911, with only 24% of the amount of rain that would be expected in an average July, according to Met Office data. All areas of the country are affected, but in the south and east in particular the conditions are critical – with rainfall this July just 14% of an average July over the decade to 2020.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, rejected the call for compulsory water metering.

A spokesperson told the Observer:

“Water companies have a duty to ensure supplies. That’s why we continue to challenge those with a poor record on leakage and are working to ensure they introduce new infrastructure such as reservoirs and water transfers. We’re also taking forward measures to support water efficiency in homes.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/31/drought-water-queues-uk-hosepipe-ban-compulsory-metering

[[new username under construction]]

If you threw money at salt water into fresh water like Corona Virus we'd probably solve it in no time

[Red-Soldier]

If you threw money at salt water into fresh water like Corona Virus we'd probably solve it in no time

No, desalinisation is not the answer.  It is incredibly expensive and energy intensive.  We need to invest in resilience and sustainable infrastructure.

Mandatory water meters are part of the solution.  Average daily water usage by someone on a meter is 33 litres a day, compared to 140 litres a day, without a meter.  That's approximately 25 % of the usage.

[spen71]

No, desalinisation is not the answer.  It is incredibly expensive and energy intensive.  We need to invest in resilience and sustainable infrastructure.

Mandatory water meters are part of the solution.  Average daily water usage by someone on a meter is 33 litres a day, compared to 140 litres a day, without a meter.  That's approximately 25 % of the usage.

.
And fix all the bloody leaks!    It is an investment for the future plus gives jobs to the manufacture of the pipes and installation of the pipes etc

[west_london_red]

No, desalinisation is not the answer.  It is incredibly expensive and energy intensive.  We need to invest in resilience and sustainable infrastructure.

Mandatory water meters are part of the solution.  Average daily water usage by someone on a meter is 33 litres a day, compared to 140 litres a day, without a meter.  That's approximately 25 % of the usage.

Take a look at your stats again, the article you posted said people with meters use 33 litres less then someone without, not that they use 33 litres.

And water meters are a horrible idea. There is one reservoir being build currently in the UK, the first in 40 years. In that time the population has grown by 12 million people, that’s about 20%. As usual we privatised businesses, don’t invest in infrastructure (wont somebody please think of the shareholders!) and then it’s on everyone else to fix the problem.

[Red Raw]

If you threw money at salt water into fresh water like Corona Virus we'd probably solve it in no time

Not sure it is quite as easy that.

Desalination is energy intensive (more than half the cost is energy related) and uses up to ten times the amount of energy of traditional water treatment processes. Renewable sources of energy can help, but even these are finite given the wholesale electrification of heat and transport which is anticipated by 2050.

It can lead to other environmental problems too, damage to marine life arises from extraction but also from the disposal of byproducts (brine and toxic chemicals) which can be dumped back into the sea or require further treatment (and energy) to be useful. Plants that extract brackish groundwater can increase salinity in the water table which, apart from anything else, increases the effort required to desalinate.

In areas which are already water stressed it may already be a necessity but increasing the reliance on desalination in areas where there are reasonable alternatives is likely to create more problems. As is nearly always the case with things like energy and water, it is cheaper, more efficient and better environmentally to reduce waste and moderate consumption.

[Red-Soldier]

Take a look at your stats again, the article you posted said people with meters use 33 litres less then someone without, not that they use 33 litres.

And water meters are a horrible idea. There is one reservoir being build currently in the UK, the first in 40 years. In that time the population has grown by 12 million people, that’s about 20%. As usual we privatised businesses, don’t invest in infrastructure (wont somebody please think of the shareholders!) and then it’s on everyone else to fix the problem.

Yes, I misread it.  That's still 12,045 litres less a year - which looks like this:



Not sure where I'm arguing against investment in infrastructure etc.  I've been banging on about how privatisation has been a huge failure for ages!

All utilities need to be brought back into public ownership, and investment needs to be made where needed.

I'm an ecologist with a particulalr interest in rivers and freshwater ecosystems.  Water meters are very much part of the solution and should be mandatory.  People should pay for what they use, just like energy usage.  I'm fed up with being careful with my water, when I see others hose their gardens and water their cars every day.  Not to mention daily baths and showers!  Water is a finite resource, and should be valued accordingly!

There needs to be a two-pronged approach; action from the water companies, and action from the public.

People take the absolute piss when it comes to water usage, it's about time that changed!  One of the best ways to enact that change is by mandatory water meters.  Guaranteed to help people become more aware of sustainable water usage.

[[new username under construction]]

I don't mean fund existing techniques, I mean money into new science to do it

[Red-Soldier]

I don't mean fund existing techniques, I mean money into new science to do it

No.  We need money for action now, not new science that will perhaps help in a few decades.

We have the tools and knowledge already, just no political will.

[west_london_red]

Yes, I misread it.  That's still 12,045 litles less a year - which looks like this:



Not sure where I'm arguing against investment in infrastructure etc.  I've been banging on about how privatisation has been a huge failure for ages!

All utilities need to be brought back into public ownership, and investment needs to be made where needed.

I'm an ecologist with a particulalr interest in rivers and freshwater ecosystems.  Water meters are very much part of the solution and should be mandatory.  People should pay for what they use, just like energy usage.  I'm fed up with being careful with my water, when I see others hose their gardens and water their cars every day.  Not to mention daily baths and showers!  Water is a finite resource, and should be valued accordingly!

There needs to be a two-pronged approach; action from the water companies, and action from the public.

People take the absolute piss when it comes to water usage, it's about time that changed!  One of the best ways to enact that change is by mandatory water meters.  Guaranteed to help people become more aware of sustainable water usage.

3 billion litres lost a day, that’s 44 litres per person per day. And not only do we not build reservoirs, we’ve closed a fair few too just to make matters worse! And this isn’t aimed at you, your just one bloke on a football forum like all of us, but I have never heard anyone on the environmentalist side point out that we don’t have enough storage in the mainstream media.

I’m gonna hope your joking about people taking the piss with daily showers or baths?!?!

Meters just move the responsibility from the monopoly private business on to the end user, whose having a hard enough time of it as it is, and will impact those with larger families more which I struggle to justify, although I should say I am one of those people. But I guess you’d argue we have too many people as it is.

[Red-Soldier]

3 billion litres lost a day, that’s 44 litres per person per day. And not only do we not build reservoirs, we’ve closed a fair few too just to make matters worse! And this isn’t aimed at you, your just one bloke on a football forum like all of us, but I have never heard anyone on the environmentalist side point out that we don’t have enough storage in the mainstream media.

I’m gonna hope your joking about people taking the piss with daily showers or baths?!?!

Meters just move the responsibility from the monopoly private business on to the end user, whose having a hard enough time of it as it is, and will impact those with larger families more which I struggle to justify, although I should say I am one of those people. But I guess you’d argue we have too many people as it is.

No.  There's no need to have a bath/shower every day.  And if you were on a meter, guaranteed you wouldn't be having them either!

There's a collective responsibility!  Like I said; action from water companies and action from the public.  I guessed you had a large household, that is why you're so against having water meters.

Sorry, but there is no moral argument against a water meter, just a selfish one!  Would you expect not to pay for your enegy usage???  No.......then why don't you want to pay for your water?

Water is no different than energy, and it's about time people pay for what they use.  It's also about time some serious investment was made by water companies too, but nothing has happened regarding resilience spending at all.  Obviously, nothing progressive will happen under the Tories either.

As a society, it's about time we start to value freshwater more.

[west_london_red]

No.  There's no need to have a bath/shower every day.  And if you were on a meter, guaranteed you wouldn't be having them either!

There's a collective responsibility!  Like I said; action from water companies and action from the public.  I guessed you had a large household, that is why you're so against having water meters.

Sorry, but there is no moral argument against a water meter, just a selfish one!  Would you expect not to pay for your enegy usage???  No.......then why don't you want to pay for your water?

Water is no different than energy, and it's about time people pay for what they use.  It's also about time some serious investment was made by water companies too, but nothing has happened regarding resilience spending at all.  Obviously, nothing progressive will happen under the Tories either.

As a society, it's about time we start to value freshwater more.

I can promise you metered or not, I will still be having a shower every day, I cannot go more then 24 hours without a wash and that includes washing my hair everyday. I actually start to feel physically dirty if I dont and that’s even in the winter, never mind days like today when it’s feels really humid.

There’s 6 in my house as my parents live with me, so yes I would certainly pay more with a meter.

My moral argument is based on a couple of points. A lot of the lowest paid jobs in society are where people work in the most unpleasant, physically demanding or unhygienic conditions, and I don’t really think it’s fair to then penalise them for wanting to go home and have a wash. Secondly, as you say the sector isn’t investing enough so why should I pay more? To protect their profits? You can guess my answer to that!

Water is also very different then energy in several key ways. Water companies don’t have to buy the water from someone, they just collect what’s there. There’s also a much stronger correlation between cost and usage with energy then there is with water, the marginal cost of producing an extra litter of water will be a lot lower then a KWh of energy. There’s also alternatives in terms of suppliers of energy, how we use it eg electric heating or gas or example, can get solar panels etc, none of that exists with water, you can’t get it from someone else or use something different.

Thats not to say we can’t a shouldn’t use water better where we can. Reduce water pressures and flow rates so there’s less wastage, bring in hose pipe bans earlier, look at how water is collected etc but unfortunately we seem to live in society where the first response to every problem is let’s just charge people for it when it should be the last.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

No.  There's no need to have a bath/shower every day.  And if you were on a meter, guaranteed you wouldn't be having them either!

There's a collective responsibility!  Like I said; action from water companies and action from the public.  I guessed you had a large household, that is why you're so against having water meters.

Sorry, but there is no moral argument against a water meter, just a selfish one!  Would you expect not to pay for your enegy usage???  No.......then why don't you want to pay for your water?

Water is no different than energy, and it's about time people pay for what they use.  It's also about time some serious investment was made by water companies too, but nothing has happened regarding resilience spending at all.  Obviously, nothing progressive will happen under the Tories either.

As a society, it's about time we start to value freshwater more.

Depends on your job mate.

[Jiminy Cricket]

My moral argument is based on a couple of points. A lot of the lowest paid jobs in society are where people work in the most unpleasant, physically demanding or unhygienic conditions, and I don’t really think it’s fair to then penalise them for wanting to go home and have a wash. Secondly, as you say the sector isn’t investing enough so why should I pay more? To protect their profits? You can guess my answer to that!

There is reasonably simple solution to that: water tariffs based upon the number people in the household who perform dirty jobs.

[WhereAngelsPlay]

Maybe we should all have ration books or maybe we could build more fucking reservoirs.

[Elmo!]

Screw meters. We still have our water in public hands up here, and we pay for water through council tax. The higher band council tax you are in, the more you pay for water. If you don't pay council tax, you don't pay for water, as it should be.

[west_london_red]

Maybe we should all have ration books or maybe we could build more fucking reservoirs.

[Jiminy Cricket]

Maybe we should all have ration books or maybe we could build more fucking reservoirs.

If the water shortage is serious and present, and reservoirs take, what, 10, 20 years to plan and build*, and fixing leaks takes time (and money) and is always a 'whack-a-mile' exercise anyway, what do you suggest for the interim?

* Not to mention that there are always serious ecological costs to building reservoirs too.

[west_london_red]

If the water shortage is serious and present, and reservoirs take, what, 10, 20 years to plan and build*, and fixing leaks takes time (and money) and is always a 'whack-a-mile' exercise anyway, what do you suggest for the interim?

* Not to mention that there are always serious ecological costs to building reservoirs too.

I’m sure within the entire UK landmass a few square miles can be found to build a reservoir or two FFS, and if we can’t we’ll we’re even more fucked as a country then I thought we were. I actually live across the road from one, it’s actually quite good. You can go sailing on it, it’s quite a nice walk around it, is surrounded by a good sized strip of greenery and keeps the traffic low in the area because it’s not built up.

And let’s be honest, it will never be an interim measure. If introducing meters helps reduce usage it’s exactly what the water companies want, means they can sit on their hands rather then spend money themselves and when the next crunch point comes of their not enough water to go around you know exactly what they will say, it will be “oh, we need to increase prices more because people are still using too much”, it’s a one way street once you start down that road like it is with everything else, they’ll say it will save you money, it’s more fair that way, it’s just a new way to work out the charges but it will cost you the same, and eventually the gouging starts.

[Elmo!]

I’m sure within the entire UK landmass a few square miles can be found to build a reservoir or two FFS, and if we can’t we’ll we’re even more fucked as a country then I thought we were. I actually live across the road from one, it’s actually quite good. You can go sailing on it, it’s quite a nice walk around it, is surrounded by a good sized strip of greenery and keeps the traffic low in the area because it’s not built up.

It's not really anywhere within the UK landmass though is it? You need them in the right places, as it's not very easy to transport.

[west_london_red]

It's not really anywhere within the UK landmass though is it? You need them in the right places, as it's not very easy to transport.

There is space around just about every major population areas that could be used I’m sure (I’m sure there will be some NIMBYism like there always is), we’re not talking about Singapore or Hong Kong.

[Red-Soldier]

If the water shortage is serious and present, and reservoirs take, what, 10, 20 years to plan and build*, and fixing leaks takes time (and money) and is always a 'whack-a-mile' exercise anyway, what do you suggest for the interim?

* Not to mention that there are always serious ecological costs to building reservoirs too.

You are correct.

I don't understand why it's so unacceptable for people to pay for the water they actually use.  Like I said, people don't have an issue paying for energy, so why not water......?

Freshwater and wetlands (rivers, lakes, swamps, marshes, bogs etc.) are the most threatend ecosystems globally, and this is relected in the UK too.

It's a sad state that people have such issues trying to help them.  You've even got someone trying to paint it water companies vs people, to try and justify not paying for what they use.  I find it bonkers!

There will be a time when there will be mandatory meterage - it would be best sooner rather than later!