Pull together (From Malvern Gazette)

Pull together

11:22am Friday 27th July 2007 in Letters

AS the entire region draws its breath following the appalling floods of last weekend, let us not forget how impossible it seemed beforehand. Let us not forget that it is only a month since the last inundation, and that there was a previous flood this year in January! However resilient the local people are, unless we realise the reasons for these occurrences we are sleepwalking into a nightmare.

The repercussions of the floods will stay with us for weeks and months, but let us not forget how fragile our everyday life is when faced with the forces of nature. The much vaunted flood barriers did not arrive in Upton, but that was all right, as the floods would have overtopped them anyway! We should start to realise that our leaders are not planning in the right way but merely tinkering at the edges. This lack of vision extends to central government as well as local. I have been a consultee on the Severn Catchment Planning Consultation for four years now, and the consultation still continues without a bureaucratic decision actually to do anything. It was set up after the floods of 2001!

At the highest levels there is a lack of leadership and practical ideas. National building regulations are years behind Green thinking.

If you want to build on a flood plain, build houses on stilts! Otherwise don't bother. New houses: are they energy neutral? If not, don't bother because the climate is changing as a result of human folly and denial.

Have your readers considered how all of our expectations will be dashed aside when we can no longer plan our food supply. You can't eat gas guzzling cars. It isn't cool or fun to think it is a status symbol to show what a wasteful car you can own. Nor is it cool to enjoy soaking other road users while showing it off.

Food prices are already escalating because of the failure of this year's crops, caused in turn by climate change. It is no longer Global Warming. Now we can see the results of a small change in temperature that can have the most dramatic effects on the weather, on our environment and on us.

If we will not pull together to reduce pollution we will pull apart. After all, one man's flood defence is another man's flood.

Malcolm Victory, chairman, Malvern Hills Green Party, Wells Road, Malvern.