In the UK regulators are urging us to be careful with water because it is now in very short supply, with no sign that rain will fall any time soon.
Welcome to the world that those, like me, who have talked about a climate crisis have been predicting.
Welcome, in fact, to our future. The world we now live in is one where we can’t any longer pretend that we can ‘grow, grow, grow’ without consequence unless the growth in question is entirely about the delivery of more face-to-face services, most of which can only be supplied by the state or as entertainment in its varying forms.
Strangely, building reservoirs is usually counted as growth – building infrastructure usually is…..
Twitter argument I have been seeing lately: “water company shareholders are cashing out and there needs to be more investment.”
Of course shareholders are investors… If they’re cashing out it’s because they have better things to do with their resources than invest in water infrastructure. Maybe because there’s not much profit in it. I wonder why that might be…
Implication of the argument is of course that the state should “invest”. Not sure it’s the right word, though.
Alternatively they could simply stop leakage
Or build reservoirs instead of golf courses
I remember 1976. In fact, I think that was the summer which put an end to the global cooling scare. I was training in England that summer, and appalled by what was happening to the land south of the Border.
Towards the autumn, Harold Wilson appointed his minister for sport as minister for drought, and three days later the heavens opened, and stayed open.
Why doesn’t the UK build more desalination plants?
water company shareholders are cashing out
Unless the water companies are on a buy back spree, others must be cashing in to buy the shares. A bit like the fossil fuel divestment farce.
If there is one thing there is NO shortage of in a country like this it’s water.
That there is tells you all you need to know.
‘Why doesn’t the UK build more desalination plants?’
Yeah DocBud. Though I suppose they’d say they need plenty of reliable ie fossil fuelled power.
Of course they could then build the nukes they’d need to run them.
Yes, new reservoirs would be nice, especially in the SE. It’s a pity the government recently cancelled two new large reservoir projects. With Labour support! Idiots.
It was bucketing down with rain as I drove home last night, so much I had to slow down to 70. 😉
The problem with (the people in) this country is all the water demand in down in the bottom corner where it’s flat and the geography is crap for collecting and storing water. Up here in God’s Country* we have plenty of deep, steep valleys that we can dam with wide collection areas.
*Except East Yorkshire, where they have the same flat flat flat flat landscape problems as That London.
Reading the post there’s an echo of the famous Yeats poem ‘The second coming’ – ‘Cometh the hour, cometh the cretin’
The EU’s agreement to ration gas is entirely due to his idiotic policies. I hope when the mob with pitchforks come round his house looking to string him up he tries to placate them by telling them ‘if only you’d listened to me’
As for the water shortages weren’t we facing floods a couple of years ago? As a couple of other contributors here have said – given the amount of water around the failure of both the government to control immigration and get a handle on the required infrastructure and the water companies themselves (Whether in the privatized world or previously) is to my mind near treasonous.
Arguably at this point one of the few things the government could do which would intensify the multiple crises we are facing is adopt the strategies embodied in the ‘Green New Deal’ which remains, amidst stiff competition in the COVID era, arguably the most idiotic treatise written on any subject in history.
A nation surrounded by water is ‘in drought’. Plenty of water up north as other commenters have mentioned, so it’s only in the bits of this fair nation where civilised people actually want to live that there is a problem. (I admit that unfortunately, plenty of ‘un-civilised’ people live down here too – I heard a Welsh voice the other day – sheesh…..).
Have noticed a trend to downplay the 1976 summer as well. They never seem to be able to slag off 15 straight days over 90F (32C) however.
And is it really climate change causing the dry weather?:
“According to the Met Office, climate change in the UK has resulted in the weather getting warmer and wetter. Compared to the periods from 1961 to 1990, 2008 to 2017 experienced longer wet spells and fewer dry spells”. https://www.statista.com/statistics/584914/monthly-rainfall-in-uk/
The fact that they cannot make their fucking minds up and will spin whatever the weather is to suit their agenda demonstrates it is bollocks on stilts….
Moron confuses weather and climate – par for the course for Mr Potato-head.
Wogan had a great little ” old country saying” for this time of year
On hearing the first cuckoo
And seeing the first swallow
Hosepipe ban sure to follow.
I believe that they built some new desalination plants in Australia after the climate change alarmists told their government that their recent spell of dry weather was the new normal. They never got to use them because it started raining before they were needed. When the place was first colonised by white settlers it was described as a land of droughts and floods. That would be the old normal I suppose.
Tsk. The answer is obviously to dilute the water we currently have.
Do I have to think of everything?
We all know why the low plains grifter keeps on harping on about climate change – because there seems to be an endless supply of idiots in various charities who are willing to pay him. If they stopped paying him he’d drop it like the proverbial hot namesake. Then he’d probably take up the Cause de Jour(trans) and mind bleach would be required.
Meanwhile i thought we had to have global warming to fend off the new ice age – the cause celebre of the 1970s
In a month: The past week’s heavy rainfall and the resulting floods are……
It’s hard to explain to idiots like P3 that even with a few wobbles the weather this year has actually been so bloody average it’s boring the socks off actual meteorologists.
We get this cry every few years. The reason we don’t build new reservoirs or de-salination plants is because there’s no money in them. And the reason there’s no money in them is because we don’t bloody need them.
As noted above, whenever the panic gets loudest, the heavens open and everything fills up.
I’ve been hearing about ‘ the whole place is covered in concrete and asphalt so the water runs away instead of filling the aquifers’ all my life but no-one does much about it and the water still comes out of the tap.
Yes, the water suppliers always tell us to use less water when the sun shines but then it rains and they shut up again.
There’s a bloody great ocean to the left of us and the great heat pump in the sky pumps the water into the air then drops it on us most of the year round but when it stops for a few weeks the professional moaners come out and tell us what sinners we are for showering and watering our lawns.
Next week they’ll be moaning about something else. Just ignore them.
In my south-eastern county we have rivers and wells, so despite the so-called drought we are exporting water to London. The wells reach down into a deep underground aquifer so any temporary lack of rainfall only matters if it last a dozen years or more.
I could, if I chose, walk to Ely from here albeit it would take most of a day, but I have no wish to do so.
Murphy’s ignorance seems to know no bounds.
At least in Queensland Stonyground, the desal plant was built because building reservoirs was the perverted Gaia-raping policy of the National party. Plus some farmers didn’t want their land taken over for the Traveston Dam. Though there was no publicity given about this problem for all the others.
But I’ll agree it’s only a backup. The standard policy is to use flood control dams as reservoirs. Of course a flood control dam needs to be empty. And a reservoir needs to be full. But failing to solve that minor problem simply shows the operators are incompetent.
《others must be cashing in to buy the shares.》
Ever hear of leverage?
If more people peed in the shower, there would be no need to waste water, at least once a day, by flushing the toilet, (apart from my mate Mick who only showers once a week – dirty bastard and water waster).
Does anyone think that there’s a chance that a reservoir would get built this side of the Second Coming?
Anyway, I see in the comments on his blog that someone called Simon has done a bit of research and not been able to find any reference to the water shortage or drought on Ofwat’s site, them being the regulator. He also says that the only reference he could find was an Anglian Water press release before the 2 day heat Armageddon asking people to be careful with water but no mention of shortage.
Having asked Spud politely which regulator he was referring to he got a terse response of the Environment Agency.
I’ve done some extensive searches on the EA and there’s no recent discussion of water shortages, just the general we could run out by 2050 or whenever claims.
Maybe Simon will ask for clarity, but I suspect he won’t because it looks like Spud is playing Fantasy Regulator, a new game that allows him to make any claim he likes because his sycophants will never call him out.
In our drier years this part of the country almost satisfies the definition of semi-arid. Even on average it’s not terribly wet (though it does manage to be uncomfortably humid in hot weather). For comparison, average annual rainfall
Cambridge University Botanic Garden 557mm ; Barcelona 620 mm; Algarve ca. 500 mm.
@DocBud
Why doesn’t the UK build more desalination plants?
Because there is no water shortage, only storage shortage because EU banned new resovoirs to promote Global Warming fear
UK pop growing at ~1 million pa (inc illegals), but no new resovoirs
As @Addolff says
“According to the Met Office, climate change in the UK has resulted in the weather getting warmer and wetter. Compared to the periods from 1961 to 1990, 2008 to 2017 experienced longer wet spells and fewer dry spells”
Hence the BBC’s regular “Climate Change” floods fearmongering, but ignore “green” undredged rivers and farmers told not to dig ditches
Bloke in North Dorset,
While applauding your cynicism, there is a reservoir under construction in the UK (well, planning approved) – Havant Thicket (near the South Coast). It will be the first to be built in the UK for I think >30 years.
Penseivat @ 6.59.
I tried the same with number 2’s but it’s the devils own job getting it down the plughole.
maybe someone might mention this to the water companies – not been very good at dealing with leaks!
@Addolff
That’s what yout big toe is for
As Wonko said – leaks waste much more water than domestic users. Thames Water used to be the worst, with up to approx 15% lost – expensively treated and filtered water of course – which we all pay for in our inflated bills.
Something where I agreed with Red Ken Leninspart. When mayor he refused Thames Water to build a desalination plant
A) it was a waste of energy
B) they needed to fix their leak problem first