Drains and climate change denial letter

I came home from work and amongst the 97 emails (all today) waiting was an email that the two drains at the bottom of Red House Lane were blocked, as are the two drains at the bottom of Ruscombe Road/Bread Street. They have apparently been blocked since the weekend - so this does not seem to fit with the statement that after rains the drains are cleared each time in key locations (see previous blogs and photos by putting drains into search facility!). Highways have been informed - we await with interest.

Photo: Ruscombe valley

Meanwhile I've just dashed off a reply to The Citizen re the correspondent Martin Kirby - sometimes he is spot on but articles like the one this week are seriously damaging - too many people today still don't believe climate change exists - how on earth can we begin to tackle it when that view is widely held? Anyhow here is my letter:

Martin Kirby had another go at Greens on Monday calling us the 'loopy league' for reiterating what the scientists are saying about climate change (17/03/08). In a comment piece, that Mr Kirby seems to deny climate change exists, he dismisses concerns about recent weather. I'm not so sure others would agree; like perhaps Longford residents whose homes were flooded again or the businesses that lost many thousands of pounds at Cheltenham races?

No one is pretending that the science around climate change is fully understood or that every piece of bad weather is a sign of climate change. Indeed it is also important to note that our vulnerability to flooding is going up mainly due to flood plain developments.

However the most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and it's analysis by 2,500 of the world's top climate scientists shows our role in causing global warming and that our weather is set to become more extreme. They paint a scary future if we don't act. Furthermore not one of the 928 climate change-related articles published in peer-reviewed journals in ten years has doubted the cause of global warming, yet more than half of the published articles in the popular press have done just that.

We need responsible journalism. Climate change is deadly serious and critically urgent. We can tackle it together, but the longer we leave it the more devastating are the consequences.

Philip Booth