Run To The Hills

[andrew]

Don't know if many of you have seen whats been happening in south yorkshire on the news......... yesterday I was told to leave Doncaster as quickly as possible as the river was possibly going to burst its banks into the college and surrounding area. They were going to tap water off a huge dam/resevoir and fill the Don which runs through Donny. The Don was already blooming high as we crawled through traffic out of the centre and back to our halls where we stay. One of the access bridges was closed and a humouring point was 6 police cars plus bobbies on bikes at one end and just the one 1 at the other...... can you guess where the local ITV film crew were?
The surrounding area still had loads of localised flooding, and the little village along the road from the halls had flooded when the barge moored there had run riot and knocked a loch gate or something open, didn't get the full story of that just that the place was pretty much done for.


So freak of nature? Global warming/changing climate? Or just poor investment by the government into flood defences and things such as drainage?
My own take is a bit of all three tbh

[Legthigh]

The seasons seem to be changing, April is now the new July and Sep/Oct is the new Dec/Jan.

btw, anyone in the West Midlands? I'm supposed to be going there tomorrow but hear its bad there too?

[Myocardial Infarction]

It's got about diddly squat to do with global warming. My dad can remember having floods when he was younger. He remembers standing filling sand bags protecting Canvey Island when that flooded (well it would considering it was under sea level and the wall holding the water back was totally inadequate.

We've had many years of pretty dry weather so many of the rivers have turned more into streams. Planners have then come along looked at the "stream" and said we're building a housing estate next to that, or we're going to build a road over." then constructed these things with no regard for flooding, and luckily until now it hasn't happened. But if you fit a tube under an obstruction capable of taking a stream, when it rains hard and turns into a river the water has to go somewhere ??

In old people used to try to cause flooding in the FLOOD PLAIN to add vital nutrients to the land for farming. now we just build housing estates there and sod the rivers.

It's no wonder that these houses are getting flooded in my mind it's the blame of local planning and government activity that has total disregard for the natural way. Nature will win, and then the insurance companies will default on payment on the basis that the houses etc were built in the flood plain of a river as per some very old map that shows an extended flood plain. But then how many of these houses have actually fallen down or had any damage other than cosmetic ? not alot

Time for people to get with the program and realise that the reality is that it's going to happen.

[Rasputin]

Thats a very good point myo. Another thing ppl need to remember is that we at still at the end of an Ice age.

[Legthigh]

That is a very good point Myo, something i'd not thought about.

[Clingy]

One of the things that has annoyed me for ages. They build on flood plains and wonder why they flood???

In my local town they are building on land that used to flood all the time. Not just your standard flood plain more like wetlands! Even before they were occupied they flooded and sooner or later they are going to flood again (and again and again). The old part of teh village where I live is on high ground. All the new development is down by the river . I ask you!

Ooooo I do love a good old rant.

[Myocardial Infarction]

I could have quite happily murdered the pair of numpties on one of the news programs last night. Global warming this, greenhouse effect that

Bloody tree huggin hippies, time they went and got some gainful employment and stopped stiring the pot and started coming up with real solutions rather than protesting at everything that people try and implement to ease the problem.

Coal is Dirty (even I can't argue that one)
Gas will run out
Nuclear isn't good enough (cept theirs more nuclear power stations within 100 miles of my house than the total in the UK as France is exporting all their cheap Nuclear energy to the UK and it's sat on their shores)
Bio Fuels - they complain about these being burnt and producing greenhouse gases (they do but then it's renewalbe source and they actually lock up more than is converted back into dangerous or environment altering chemical but that doesn't sit happy with the loony greens)
Wind farms - their too unsightly and they supposedly make a little noise and it might affect migratory bird patterns(last time I stood by one of the whoppin things it was quieter than the sodding wildlife around the area and WTF happened when all the ice melted or all the trees were cut down in the last centuries, the bird didn't seem to get too lost then)
Wave Farms - again their too unsightly and they might harm a few wild creatures supposedly (Jesus H Christ what are they going to do, bob up and down and whack a couple fish on their head only thing that would be a problem is that it could potentially block fishing in some navigable areas which imo would only be a good thing)
Solar panels on houses (since when has this country been a sunny one our main assets would be wind and rain ffs)

Every single one of the above is attacked by a different green group
Personally I think we should stick em all on a rocket with some nice plants and transport them to the moon as that's pretty unspoilt atm

I personally believe that the governement should bring in some laws (NO not another law banning something or other - shock horror they can do that) that every house should have to planet a tree in their garden and if you have over so much garden you should have to plant 2 etc etc and that instead of paying farmers to leave land empty but allowing it to be maintained as grassland that they are paid to have the land go back to nature and let trees etc grow on it.

A bit more long termism would be nice, but I doubt that will happen any time soon and we'll have some other law pushed through costing absolutely fortunes that benefits no-one except a loony minority.

oh what have you got me started on andrew another page long rant for you all to skim read and over

[Rasputin]

I must agree with most of what you have said Myo but todays techs the below point is wrong.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Solar panels on houses (since when has this country been a sunny one mellow.gif our main assets would be wind and rain ffs)<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

It does not have to be like spain to get power out of Solar panels anymore, even in our climbs it can be done. you can also put wind turbines on your house now and they are no bigger than a family sized TV. both of these options will give you about 10-20% of a house holds energy needs.

[Myocardial Infarction]

The energy costs of producing electricity producing solar panels on the small scale used on a house roof is pretty high, and the aluminium and copper used in much of the process is even greater in energy requirements.

So the meagre benefits of fitting them and their maintenance and general life expectancy is ofset against a saving of about £200-400 per annum in total energy pulled from the national grid.

To honestly make panel technology pay the panels need to become much more efficient, cheaper in energy costs to produce and imo be produced on a large scale with government backing for energy production into the national grid.

But then that is only my opinion

[Rasputin]

Well Said

[andrew]

Well I wouldn't be popular with the hippies as the site I work at was listed in either the sun or the times (can't remember which) as been in the top 15 of emissions producers in the country, managed a poor 11th place . Put into perspective Drax power station took 2nd place IIRC and that place is huge.... with like 6 generators turning 600MW a piece out.
Yey for jet engines keeps me in work at least and rolls royces pockets lined too

[Hippy]

Less of the hippy abuse!

just one thing to point out, there are 2 types of solar panel you can use. Photovoltaic cells (to produce electricity) and Solar collectors (to heat water). While the PV cells have around a 15 year payback time, they do still work in the uk, the reason they're not more popular is because the govornment wont accept electricity into the grid from them, something other european countries does with great success.

Solar collectors can still heat water to around 40 degrees on even the cloudiest days, they are very efficient and cost around £3k for an average family house installation.

With regards to the flooding, Myo is right, rivers flood, end of, if you build flood barriers and stop the river flooding, it will just get worse further down the river.

It does have a little to do with global warming, but it's clouded by the fact we're trying to change the way the rivers work.

Environmentalists get my goat too, in all honesty, it's just giving the govornment something to blame other than themselves.

[Hammer]

Can we get rid of Gordon Brown and get Myo in?

He gets my vote.

[Trig]

gets my vote.

[Tumble]

Myo for PM!!