[Diggers350] Somerset levels

[greenwomble]

Hi Paul. I know you think on things which aren't  conventional like anti
economy aspects like durables, and your interests are wide.

I wonder if you've had any thoughts on ice ages and if so what are they..

We are reckoned to have them cyclically. With approximately10,000 years
warm periods as now where we live on the hill tops and then 100,000 years
where the top and bottom of the world are full of ice and snow. It is not
precisely like this but we do live on an ice planet not do much a water
planet. though we actually call it Earth!

According to Wikipedia. An ice planet where the water levels are 100
metres, 300 ft below the present and where as much land becomes uncovered
from the sea as is covered by the increasing deposition of snow and ice at
the top and bottom of the world.

Ice ages explain why there are under sea cities off Cuba and the one off
Okinawa plus there are others.

As humans have had this size brain for 200,000 years there, there may be a
lot of knowledge buried in the sea bed as well as previous human
historical archeological wealth.  This also explains the many flood stories
when they're would have been rapid precipitation and the ice would have
melted pretty fast coming flooding in and humans being intelligent they
would very likely known about it and have prepared for it and, given their
liking and attachment to animals they would probably have saved quite a few
animals as well as families.

Hence the storey we know but there are others of flood.

I wonder if ice ages are taken into account in the scientists models on
climate change. I would expect they are a big part.

Frank


On 8 Feb 2014 22:40, "Paul Mobbs" <mobbsey at gn.apc.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I didn't want to reply on this, but I feel I have to... if only to try
> and drag this back towards reality from "Daily Mail Dreamland"!
>
>
> What did or did not happen in the past relating to drainage in the
> levels is irrelevant. That's because those past patterns of
> planning/action have no bearing on the climatic changes taking place
> today, and more especially in the future. It's because changes in
> weather patterns are negating past measures that we're seeing the
> problems which exist today.
>
> Over the next 40 years large parts of the Somerset levels will become
> uninhabitable. Not just because of climate change, but because the cost
> of pumping water from the levels into the drainage system will become
> prohibitively expensive.
>
> Not just the levels either -- large parts of Lincolnshire, Suffolk and
> Yorkshire will face these same decisions in the near future. For
> example, in Wast Lancashire they're already cutting back on pumping,
> allowing water levels to rise in the Crossens Drain and slowly
> saturating farmland, because the Environment Agency can't justify the
> cost of the electricity bill.
>
> Building hard sea defences will make no difference. As we've seen this
> week when hard defences are over-topped by large waves, all they do is
> trap salt water behind the defence. Hard defences are of questionable
> benefit in the Bristol Channel anyway because of the potential scale of
> future storm surges. And in any case, it's going to be difficult to
> justify the costs of defences against the costs of relocating people.
>
> Likewise dredging the rivers and drainage channels in the levels will
> make little difference; whilst it allows water to drain away towards the
> sea more quickly, during a storm surge it allows water from the coast to
> run inland more quickly. Building sluice gates -- in effect Thames
> Barriers on the Parrett, Axe, and Brue -- to stop that would, once
> again, cost far more than the value of the land behind the defences.
>
> The people living below the ten metre contour on the levels will have to
> move, certainly within the next 50 years. It's not seal level rise
> that's the problem, it's the increase annual probability and severity of
> storm surges, and how they operate within the confines of the Bristol
> Channel. If they are not relocated now in an orderly way, then it will
> be as a result of the pure misery of living there and getting flooded
> out year after year.
>
> This is the bit about climate adaptation which many -- certainly not the
> media and definitely not local MP Ian Liddell-Grainger -- don't appear
> to understand. Climate change is "in the post" -- if people want to its
> arrival then they should move! There is nothing that we can do except
> accommodate the realities of what it means.
>
> Sadly, for the historic lands of the Somerset levels, that means
> returning to what they were 1,000 years ago before they were
> progressively drained. There's no point in debating what is past,
> because that's not going to help people accept what is. When debating
> climate, and more generally the "limits to growth", reference to the
> past is increasingly irrelevant because we're entering a period in human
> history for which there are no past templates to refer to.
>
>
> P.
>
> --
>
> "We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
> nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
> for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
> that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
> righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
> God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
> (Edward Burrough, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')
>
> Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
> 3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
> tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
> email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
> website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/index.shtml
> public key - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mei/mobbsey_public_key-2013-2.asc
>
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