Not all seaside residents can be protected from rising seas and some must move, the head of the Environment Agency will warn on Tuesday.
In a speech to a flooding and coastal erosion conference, Sir James Bevan will say it is an “inconvenient truth” that some British communities “cannot stay where they are”.
“There is no coming back for land that coastal erosion has taken away or that a rising sea level has put permanently or frequently under water,” he will say.
“Which means that, in some places, the right answer – in economic, strategic and human terms – will have to be to move communities away from danger rather than to try and protect them from the inevitable impacts of a rising sea level.”
Dunwich, for example. Do also note the corollary to this. It’s not worth entirely upending the global economy – you know, entirely stopping climate change – in order to save one village either. All of them, possibly, but even then that would depend upon time scales.
Not all seaside residents can be protected
Unless we are talking about places like Stansgate Abbey Farm, coincidentally owned by the Secretary of State for the Environment, in which case the Environment Agency will spare no expense.
‘it is an “inconvenient truth” that some British communities “cannot stay where they are”.’
Put this bloke in charge of the Home Office.
In the East / South East of England the sea level isn’t rising, the ground is sinking – Isostatic rebound, but that won’t lighten the wallets of the plebs and line the pockets of the climate change grifters who know it’s nothing to do with climate change (I’m including politicians in that group too).
The area around Dunwich has been losing coast to the sea for the past 1300 years. Man made climate change it is not.
If I understand it correctly, all that part of E. England is comprised of the silt deposited by the River Rhine before the Straits of Dover opened. There’ll be a Save Doggerland campaign next
I dunno if the rate of erosion has changed over the centuries but since we can all see it much better with aerial photos and it’s also known beyond the next village, then it attracts the ‘we must do something’ brigade.
As a data point, Orford was a significant port in earlier centuries but it now sits behind the big shingle bank of Orfordness. Which is eroding itself: witness the recent need to demolish the lighthouse.
Coastal erosion is due to… erosion, the action of that water-stuff that ebbs and flows with considerable force continually wearing away rock, clay, soil.
Climate change may cause sea levels to rise or fall depending what the change is, but this happens over thousands of years, slowly, incrementally.
It’s almost as if ‘environmentalists’ and Climagheddon Doomsters understood nothing about the natural world or the history of Earth beyond more than 5 minutes.
Residents of Doggerland hit hardest…
Anyhoo, weren’t the Maldives supposed to be underwater by now?
I live near the coast of East Yorkshire and the retreating coastline has been a thing here since I was a kid. There was always a road that went nowhere but the clifftop with a hastily erected red and white fence at the end of it. Sometimes the red and white fence would be part way down the cliff or on the beach.
coastal erosion happens because of tides, waves and weather, not rising sea levels! And councils expressly forbid planning for private initiatives to mitigate, whilst allowing public funds to be spent where it is considered appropriate. There was an example of this on Grand Designs. We might agree that government should not spend public money in all cases, but their actions do seem peverse.
So what Sir Jimmy is saying is that we will have to adapt, which is what a lot of people were saying back when all this climate change stuff first started.
The Climate will change whether we go ‘net zero’ or not but we will be able to adapt with much less pain if we haven’t wrecked our economy by vainly trying to stop it changing.
In fact, we should be helping poor countries get rich by investing in fossil fuel energy for them so that they will be able to adapt as well, instead of trying to bring us down to their level.
“The area around Dunwich has been losing coast to the sea for the past 1300 years”
As a visit to the Dunwich Museum will clearly show.
‘In the East / South East of England the sea level isn’t rising, the ground is sinking’. Thank you Addolff.
‘The Climate will change whether we go ‘net zero’ or not but we will be able to adapt with much less pain if we haven’t wrecked our economy by vainly trying to stop it changing.’ A pleasure to see a sensible statement about ‘climate change’ Kevin B!!!!!
The worth of the land use should guide whether it’s worth protecting from the sea. So save the Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts longterm and sabotage the Thames barrier tonight.
Almost all anti erosion schemes are useless in aggregate. Groynes just shift the erosion along the coast. That’s why private efforts are banned. Except if you are politically connect like the Wedgewood-Benns, when your private initiative will be paid for by the taxpayer.
That nice Mr Obama has recently spent a lot of dosh on two sea-level estates. Therefore sea-level rise is not a threat. QED.
20,000 years ago, during the last glacial maximum, sea levels were 120m lower than today. As the sea levels rose, humans, along with all other species, adapted as they had little alternative. Those who lived on the land bridge between England and foreign parts were not protected, they had to move to higher ground. The lucky ones headed West, the unlucky ones moved East and became French.
– Almost all anti erosion schemes are useless in aggregate.
I expect the Netherlands counts itself outside “almost all”.
Some of this “let nature take its course” stuff starts to sound very similar to greenism notions of us giving up on civilisation and resorting to living in teepees in lentil underpants. If England is worth saving from the Bosch then it’s worth saving from the North Sea.
– Groynes just shift the erosion along the coast.
Can we shift it to France?
the unlucky ones moved East and became French.
Or Belgian
@PJF The Netherlands are not so much a case of anti-erosion but making the sea foxtrot oscar by reclamation.
Adolff: Indeed so. It’s very sneakily worded: “… land that coastal erosion has taken away or that a rising sea level has put permanently or frequently under water”. The extent of the latter could fit in your front room, but the statement remains true.
@ asiaseen
Yes – but they still have to protect it, hence laddo sticking his finger in the dyke (matron).
There are some Roman ports that are now miles inland and landlocked. There are also Roman ports that are underwater. The land changes due to many factors, from erosion to isotatic rebound. Or the climate’s been changing for a thousand years so why should a decade of change matter.
1. I would imagine that Dunwich, of all places, would be just fine with rising sea levels;) (yes, I know, wrong one).
2. No one on those sea level tropical nations that we’ve been assured have been drowning for over a decade seem to have needed to move.
3. Most people living right on the shoreline need to move – the US has a nasty habit of forcing all of us to pay to have rich people’s beach homes rebuilt after perfectly normal storms. If you’re not subsidizing that sort of insurance I’m pretty sure there aren’t a lot of people living in the ‘gonna be underwater a hundred years from now’ zone.
@Addolff
+1 and Scotland is rising
Erorosion – it’s nature, it’s where sand created
We’ve been reclaiming more land from sea than losing for decades. Belfast Harbour and Sydenham good example
‘That nice Mr Obama has recently spent a lot of dosh on two sea-level estates. Therefore sea-level rise is not a threat. QED.’
So it’s all a sinister conspiracy by wealthy wokists to frighten others out of those gorgeous sea-level estates!!!!!!!! Thank you dearieme.