On Tuesday, the BBC reported: Within 25 years England will not have enough water to meet demand, the head of the Environment Agency is warning.
The impact of climate change, combined with population growth, means the country is facing an ‘existential threat’, Sir James Bevan told the Waterwise Conference in London.
He wants to see wasting water become ‘as socially unacceptable as blowing smoke in the face of a baby’.
‘We all need to use less water and use it more efficiently,’ he said.
Sir James Bevan was appointed the chief executive of the Environment Agency – the public body responsible for protecting the environment and wildlife in England – in 2015 after a career as a diplomat.
He told his audience that, in around 20 to 25 years, England would reach the ‘jaws of death – the point at which, unless we take action to change things, we will not have enough water to supply our needs’.
Only one slight snag with Sir James’s little theory: there has been no reduction in rainfall levels in England, and droughts used to be much more severe and prevalent in the past:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
Even commonly made claims that summers are getting drier do not stand up to scrutiny:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
Just for good measure, the area of the country which is most vulnerable to water stress is also not becoming drier:
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/datasets
Finally, summers in England are not getting hotter. The hottest summer still remains that of 1976. Indeed, last summer was the only one other than 1976 which was actually hotter than 1911!
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/summaries/actualmonthly
There may be many reasons for water shortages, such as increased demand and leaks, but ‘climate change’ certainly is not one of them.
But it is much easier for Sir James Bevan to blame global warming and ask us all to take fewer baths than have to provide solutions to problems he can address.
Read more at Conservative Woman
And in 2016, when California had had 5 years of drought, the weather alarmist modelers declared it had become a permanent drought due to climate change.
2 of the three years since then have had big rain and snow, the drought is gone.
Color me skeptic.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/10/us/california-drought-water-restrictions-permanent.html
Why let a little thing called facts get in the way of a good fear mongering.
When things cool off and it rains like crazy, it will not be Global Warming, but Climate Change. Give the Green Elitists all control and they will fix it all for us.
Because folks like them are doing such a bang-up job now.
Yes, there could well be water shortages, not because of weather, but because our idiot Government is not building any reservoirs to cope with our expanding population.
Sir James is preaching frugality. You’ll need to be enthusiastically frugal when the radical Socialists take over. Start practising now, get in shape, toughen up.
Warm water and soap, deodorant, meat, toilet paper…only for those who are more equal than you and me.
The attempt to refute the water-shortage claim in this article completely misses the point: Yes, there is a water crisis and it spans the globe. The problem stems not from climate or the rain that seemingly fails to fall in sufficient quantities from the skies. The water crisis is manifest in the water mining that takes place at nearly ever aquifer around the world, draining groundwater from the water tables at horrendous rates, mainly for agricultural purposes. This is all well and good, but the agricultural practice to pump and spray the water generally causes enormous waste as much of that valuable fluid drains away to the rivers and seas. Studies in the past thirty years have documented that up to one-half of the sea level rise during the past century is attributable to continental run-off of pumped groundwater. The other half of the sea level rise derives from melting of the ice caps, due to the continuing ebb of the glacial maximum.
Please, let’s keep our side of the debate/argument focused and accurate, not reactionary.
It doesn’t make economic sense for farmers to irrigate past the point of saturation. Run – off takes expensive nutrients with it.
Crops give up water through transpiration, especially corn.
If there’s anything wrong, it’s the production of grain the world doesn’t need on ground that normally wouldn’t support it.