The tragedy in Valencia should be a wake up call to us all in Europe that natural disasters are not just something that happen to Third World countries or those living in the tropics.
Most of the scumbags have spent more on dividends and bonuses than on investment (and now they want us all to pay shedloads more in bills for investments that should have happened years ago).
Water privatisation hasn't delivered what we need, but the Valencia example illustrates the problems of adapting to a volatile climate. If we are to design our systems to cope variously with months of drought and a years rainfall in a day, resilience must take
precedence over daily efficiency on a massive scale. This means living with a lot of resource redundancy for most of the time. At some point across the board this becomes impractical which is why there are real limits to adaptation and suffering is inevitable. Its why prevention is far better than cure.
We have had major flooding but nothing on this scale. The correct way of designing for these circumstances takes years of study planning tree planting, removal and avoidance of covering the land with hard impermeable paving. So it is fair to say that we are unprepared but it is not a simple matter that can be designed out quickly. Meanwhile house building in Cambridgeshire is halted for the lack of sufficient water supplies amongst other factors.
Most of the scumbags have spent more on dividends and bonuses than on investment (and now they want us all to pay shedloads more in bills for investments that should have happened years ago).
Water privatisation hasn't delivered what we need, but the Valencia example illustrates the problems of adapting to a volatile climate. If we are to design our systems to cope variously with months of drought and a years rainfall in a day, resilience must take
precedence over daily efficiency on a massive scale. This means living with a lot of resource redundancy for most of the time. At some point across the board this becomes impractical which is why there are real limits to adaptation and suffering is inevitable. Its why prevention is far better than cure.
We have had major flooding but nothing on this scale. The correct way of designing for these circumstances takes years of study planning tree planting, removal and avoidance of covering the land with hard impermeable paving. So it is fair to say that we are unprepared but it is not a simple matter that can be designed out quickly. Meanwhile house building in Cambridgeshire is halted for the lack of sufficient water supplies amongst other factors.