Save all the Rain for the Third world.
 Aug 29th, 2007
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I have just visited the town of Shrewsbury; in the past they have had many floods, many times over the years and seriously flooded several weeks ago.
The most part Shrewsbury gets flooded during the winter months very regularly but not so in the summer months. I was perusing near to the river seven, where they erect the flood barriers during the floods, I noticed a notched plaque at the riverside, sited on a brick structure displaying a history of flooded river levels in Shrewsbury. Dates of flooding engraved with historic high-water levels.Prominent on the plaque was the date 1947, the benchmark year in living memory for every subsequent flood. One of the dates I picked out and astonished by was that of 1947, one of the great Shrewsbury floods. I paused for thought and I tried to imagine this water level, in comparison to the city's landscape. It was remarkable, I asked myself; how the river seven could reach a height of this magnitude. Other dates I noticed included the year 2000 and this is the one I picked out for my tale the great flood of the year 2000; although not as great as the flood of 1947, it was still a big one. We have heard TV and media talking about the recent floods being set down as the worse in living memory, we have been constantly reminded about issues on the environment and that they are the work of global warming. Global
warming; lets stop there! Let's pause for thought again. Are we being brainwashed by the govt, are we having money extracted more and more from our pockets, is it another out of true way of finding more funding for the governments pockets. Ok, so let's agree. It is global warming and with it we face major rain events and hotter summers in the future.
Over hundreds of years the earth has fluctuated in its temperatures, just take the ice age for instance, there's no telling we could go back to those times. Lets say yes, we have concrete evidence that the environment is suffering, so why haven't the govt done anything concrete concerning the environment? Think back only to the year 1947, ok technology was not so good then, but many inventions have been thrown upon us since then. Back in the Victorian times we recycled literally everything, waste from the toilets were placed on the vegetable patch, old rags were re-stitched for their high-tech rugs and pig sty's next to the outside loo, food for thought; I will leave you with these thoughts.
Nearer time, just only 8 years ago, just after the drought of the year 2000, rationed water and hose pipe bans to boot. I remember the water table being the lowest for 8 years, even then we were blaming global warming and with the media and govt predicting desert like areas, down came the rain and the heavens opened followed by the serious floods. Could we have saved all this water I ask, but know we didn't and instead we let it drain back into the seas, we had let all this lovely rain go. Several years on after facing a water shortage and floods, we find ourselves in 2007 and nature taking care of itself once again, more lovely rain. Many years elapsing between the great floods and still there has been little movement towards helping our environment. We could have built great dams by now and could be so gargantuan we would never have to worry about water issues ever again. We could even build dams that don't crack and build them bigger than ever.
I am sure with the technical fluency and forward thinking it could be done. To build Dams so big we could export all this water too the third world, where they drink from dirty holes; intoxicated with diseases. We worry about a power station being shutdown in the course of the floods, but why had this happened, when we have all this technical knowledge, yes! I think I would be worried to be without power, although we do have candles and it would not be a bad thing if we went back to the Victorian ways.
The town of Gloucester were facing power failures. A power station in Gloucestershire that supplies 500,000 homes had been saved from flooding after a major operation involving hundreds of fire-fighters. The situation was so critical, that the cabinet's emergency committee Cobra was warned the Walham substation was in danger of being swamped, in the year 2007? Many years have elapsed from 1946 and 8 from the year 2000 and nothing as been done to protect towns like this, it sounds simple; it is. Take our cars, we love them and quite frankly I will not change; in actual fact the car industry are probably progressing faster to help the environment than the govt is.
The govt could have paved the way and built great dams and created good safe cycle paths to release cars from our roads, tram systems, and a better train service, and now, only now we are seeing more and more wind farms, Rail stations closing and now internet shopping, delivering via road to peoples homes, creating more traffic.
Climate change is already beginning to impact on us. Droughts, floods and other weather changes are causing problems that we need to deal with now. We need to adapt to the pressures of climate change, and ensure that we can cope, whatever the weather brings and its 2007; 60 years on from the more serious floods of 1947. Oh what happened to the cycle paths, have we forgotten about them, they are badly worn with trees growing across them and arrogant members of the public park on them blocking routes, in fact they are unsafe. Hospitals trying to make ends meet and more concerned about charging nurses to park their cars, to fund the NHS. When the govt should be funding alternative travel, we need to encourage the cyclist.
Wouldn't it be great if we could build great dams so we could export the water too the poorer countries and recycle almost everything we use? We could be the great leaders of the world, if only we put our heads together and create great things. Most often we do, but somehow the decay sets in and feelings fade and it soon becomes ancient history. I am not sure what happens to us, but it is a British thing; for when we build something great, the dome for instance? It soon becomes a thing of the past and then we realise it cost too much to build in the first place.
We don't need to spend millions on these worthless modern structures; all we need to do is stop and pause for thought again.
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Related tags for Geography & Environmental Management
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04.03.2008 17:46
Great Review!
14.10.2007 15:18
Big dams have caused a lot of big environmental problems too though....
30.08.2007 20:37
I remember walking my old dog a good few years back now, down to Ironbridge and the river was right across the road and she ran off to chase the ducks - lyn x