[Republicanprofessor]

ping for later read.

[The Working Man]

Central Planning and one size fits all solutions-— work every time! /sarc

[gusopol3]

“Baroness Young of Old Scone”— that’s gotta be something out of Harry Potter doesn’t it?

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Great post!

The UK Environmental Agency stopped dredging in farmland to create bird habitat. The entire EU environmental policy mindset is full of this nonsense.

It's also been revealed how a dry spell in California has been turned into a drought courtesy of "green" policy. They diverted water intended to help the southern parts of the state [the bread basket] during drier years [up to 5 years length] in order to help preserve the Delta smelt (a bait fish).

Obama blames climate change, not green policies, for California drought

And then the Priests of Climate Change Ideology step forward to proclaim more of these green policies must be enacted globally [citing their green policy caused disasters as evidence that we must submit to more of the same].

Yesterday, John Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State [greenie extraordinaire] is using the volcanic activity near Jakarta to advance a push for more global climate dictates.

Kerry Burnishes Green Badge in Asia as Volcano Disrupts Trip

[originalbuckeye]

Bookmark

[SunTzuWu]

Bookmark.

[Pietro]

"But how to disentangle ourselves from this mess?"

See Alexander and the Gordian Knot.

[Jumper]

Amsterdam probably pays only lip service this EU regulation... would be interesting to see all these populated cities and regions go underwater. Maybe that is what actually happened to Pompeii!

[GladesGuru]

“Gang Green” syndrome is as damaging to the body politic as gangrene is to the human body.

[Moltke]

But in no nation has this ‘green’ ideology found such a sympathetic response as in Britain

Many just fart in the general direction of Brussels and are done with it.

[Winniesboy]

A rather misleading article. The Somerset Levels are in many places below sea level. You don't have to be a hydrologist to realise that flood prevention below sea level, where you're fighting gravity, will always be several magnitudes more costly than flood prevention above sea level, where you're assisting gravity.

The Levels were first drained centuries ago because it made economic sense to do so: they were the best site in the country for cultivating willow, and thus the vital basket-making industry. The value of the fertile drained peatland for agriculture was also great. The benefit thus outweighed the cost (mostly huge quantities of dirt-cheap unskilled labour). That cost equation no longer holds, since plastics killed off the basket-making industry and the contribution of agriculture to the national economy isn't what it once was (alas).

None of the historic protection measures, or dredging, would have kept at bay cumulative rainfall totals of the exceptional kind experienced in the last two months (indeed, much larger areas of the levels were flooded early in the last century). A national flood prevention policy which prioritises population centres, the protection of life, and economically vital locations is logical and wise, even though its application may have been maladroit and poorly communicated.

Blaming the consequences of an Act of God on that policy is pointless. Those who have chosen to live in this artificial human habitat are obviously suffering, and I've every sympathy with those with generations of family history there. Less so for those who have chosen to build and live there recently - the caveat emptor rule surely applies.

[I live just a few miles from the Levels]

[P.O.E.]

the hidden background to our floods disaster. Aided by that wettest ever January, it has been brought about by a synergy between ‘green’ ideologues here in Britain and an array of legislation from Brussels which has to guide policy in every EU member state

Same thing happens here in the US with forest fires.