You can't drink money

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vonuber

Original Poster:

17,868 posts

164 months

Thursday 8th October 2015
quotequote all
Interesting article here:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/08...

Disclosure: I'm a civil engineer working in the water field (currently private sector, working on developments mainly in central London) so have an interest in this as it involves what I do. The article, whilst deliberately written for the layman, does touch on real issues which are happening now.

What worries me is that this issue - and it is a real issue - seems largely to fly under the radar, or get ignored by successive Governments of all colours - even when we do have a big push towards it (e.g. the FWMA 2010) it gets massively watered (ho ho) down by lobbying and outside interest.

As my thread title says - we can't drink money, and at some point the headlong rush for cost cutting, unsustainable development and a complete disregard for the environment will come back to bite us hard.

For example, this present Government has seen fit to cut funding at the EA massively. I've had a lot of (at times frustrating) dealings with the EA, but by and large there are (or were) a lot of honest and hard working folk doing their best to (among other things stop the finance sector ending up under a lot of water!) do their job. As an aside, these cuts have had a detrimental effect on the private sector, as it means permissions and approvals are massively delayed - and the loss of experienced staff has left a huge knowledge that will take years to be filled.
This does, of course, not even go in to detail about the huge new responsibilities councils now face with regards to water (protection from flooding and safeguarding it) and they as well are woefully underfunded and understaffed.

So really, the question is - what price are we willing to pay to carry on as we are? At what point do things change? The south east for example is completely unsustainable water supply wise given the rainfall and population density.

Not the most exciting topic I know, but that's partly the problem - no-one gives a st until they are affected.

Johnnytheboy

24,498 posts

185 months

Thursday 8th October 2015
quotequote all
The elephant in room behind many environmental issues is over population, whether localised or global.

Seems to be un-PC to mention it though.