I came across an old book the other day that I was thinking of re-reading and found I had written something on the fly-leaf many years ago. It was supposed to be an idea for a documentary but I never tried to sell the idea because it was such a remote and catastrophic scenario that I thought, probably quite rightly at the time, that no one would buy the idea.
The simple sentence was “What guarantee do we have that a city will continue to work?”.
By which I meant what means do we have of ensuring that huge population centres will always have reliable power, water, lighting, transport, sewerage and food? Because without all those things and many more urban society will crumble very, very quickly.
We have all seen cities that have descended into rioting, looting and anarchy when far less has happened than that. Any one who wants the doomsday scenario can read Isaac Asimov’s 1941 novella Nightfall.
The fact is that modern societies and especially large cities are dependent on a lot of things continuing to work, all at the same time and for ever. Can you imagine enough water bowsers to keep Londoners hydrated, let alone the sewerage system working?
Now look around the world where rising temperatures, heavier floods and catastrophic weather events are getting worse and worse, where infrastructure is inadequate in good times and the ability to survive summer heat waves getting more challenging every year, where the power network is vulnerable and natural disasters usual.
How much worse will those problems get and is anyone building redundancy and back up systems to ensure they can survive the worst case scenario? In the West things are bad enough, we obviously need to find the money for more reservoirs, more energy security, more back up generators, better flood defences, more fire fighting, more tree planting etc etc.
But what is being done in Sudan or Libya or Bangladesh?
Even America is not immune, vast areas of the South western USA were originally surveyed and marked down as poor but usable cattle ranching land, and incapable of supporting large urban areas. In typically American style such issues were overcome or ignored.
But now the Colorado river is drying up and the reservoirs are at all time lows, and yet the life styles continue, lawns and golf courses are watered, farmers demand and get vast amounts of water to irrigate deserts, Las Vegas is packed, and cities are growing rapidly.
Remember what happened when New Orleans flooded, and imagine something 100 times worse.
If a city ever fails let us hope it is a slow, manageable, noticeable decline, that can be dealt with.
If it happens suddenly not just cities but countries will fall.
On that bright note enjoy the weather, wherever you are.
From Jonty Bloom Media Ltd
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
A cheering read on a hot Monday morning!
Jonty is right to float this. Our society requires vital services that are, in some cases, threadbare (water, for example) to operate regardless of their condition. I’m also seeing occasional references to the need to instigate whole-of-society resilience planning and exercises. But insufficient sense of the required urgency …..