Summertime snowflakes

On the whole, I’ve enjoyed this hot summer. So has Richard Tice (Reform UK MP), but when he said so, he got it in the neck from the snowflakes: not the pretty, wintry ones that you’d expect to melt in this summer’s heat, but the left-leaning, humourless, miserable, pain-in-the-rear, perpetually offended snowflakes whom the late great Ann Widdicombe belittled with aplomb during her legendary appearance at the Oxford Union.

Snowflakes complained that Tricky Dicky should have been more sensitive to those endangered by the heat, like the firefighters battling wildfires. That’s hilarious, because it’s the policies beloved of said snowflakes that put firefighters in danger in the first place. I’ll come back to that (and hosepipe bans) in a mo.

But first, why exactly have I enjoyed this summer when it’s been hot and parched and energy-sapping and, yes, wildfire-causing and water-draining? Well, I’ve found it refreshing to venture out without a cardy and brolly. My hair has, despite my hairdresser’s best efforts, bleached blonde that, as we all know, gentlemen prefer. I’ve left the doors wide open to allow contractors to come and go with ease and without letting the heat out. I’ve had a good excuse not to wash the car. I’ve sat outside late at night drinking wine (and gin and Pimms) watching the owls and bats flit about. I’ve eaten chocolate ice cream with a clear conscience. I’ve worn dresses and tops every day that normally get one outing a year. This summer is also further evidence that climate change is upon us – which I’ve been bleating about for years – and that the approach successive governments are taking isn’t working and will not work; and I enjoy being proved right.

I have, on occasion, over-heated, but I recovered more promptly than when I had hypothermia while skiing in New England. Then, I needed countless hot drinks, hot water bottles, thick bed socks and an overnight self-imposed purdah to get my body temperature, breathing and consciousness back under control. In contrast during this summer, all I needed was a  cold drink, wet towel and a metaphorical lie down in a darkened room to get me up and about within the hour. 

So what about those wildfires, eh? Taking my cue from Jamie Blackett in the Telegraph, most of the blame lies with ‘rewilding’ that has replaced traditional land management techniques, especially of uplands – e.g. controlled burning. When pursued ideologically with fingers crossed, rather than scientifically and pragmatically, rewilding is not the answer; it’s part of the problem., I can confidently say that wildfires have been with us well before climate change was a twinkle in Ed Moribund’s eye. Wildfires are ignited by lightning, camp fires, broken glass, careless barbecues, firework displays, discarded cigarette butts, and arson. They spread less rapidly and are easier to control and extinguish if there’s less ‘fuel’ to burn. I mean, if you put two logs on the stove, the fire burns more fiercely and for longer than with one log. Similarly, the more dry vegetation – uncut, unburned (in a controlled fashion) – there is on the uplands, and indeed on roadside verges, the more intense and troublesome a fire will be. Trendy practices, beloved of certain charities and NGOs, that include blocking ‘drains’ in order to wet the landscape to make it more fire resistant, and leaving the ground cover to grow unchecked, rather than managing vegetation by rotational burning has, according to Blackett, “a track record of failing, not just here but around the world.” As well as facilitating wildfires, the local bird populations are being decimated even without the fires, because the landscapes where they thrive are being rewilded, to the detriment of the wild. Weird. 

Blackett is clear that he isn’t anti-wilding, but there has to be a balance. A managed mosaic of different habitats is advisable: “heather, bilberry and sphagnum moss moorland where plant succession is arrested by fire every decade or so to maintain it, blanket bog and natural forest with Scots Pine, birch, rowan and juniper.”

Most of the UK has, let’s face it, been managed by humans for millennia. Even if you believe that man should be removed from the equation completely in the best interests of nature, common sense dictates that this should be done gradually, iteratively, prudently, because the Law of Unintended Consequences is always just around the corner. Short-term problems do not respect long-term solutions.

Turning now to the hosepipe ban, it doesn’t evidence under-investment by the water industry but how much investment has been made since privatisation (1989). In 1976, the weather was less severe, the population much smaller and the per-capita usage a lot less, yet then we had standpipes. Just a hosepipe ban this year ain’t so bad by comparison.

And I fail to understand why some people who are complaining that no new reservoirs have been built in England since 1992 have previously argued against the building of new reservoirs because reservoirs don’t increase the water supply, only store it. That’s like saying we don’t have to harvest in summer to ensure food supplies throughout the winter. In addition, spare a thought for poor Thames Water who first proposed a new reservoir in 2006. They submitted one planning application that the Government refused, claiming that there was no need for it. By all means throw it out because it’s in the wrong place or the wrong design, but no need for it? They’re currently submitting a DCO for an even larger one, instead of a second one elsewhere to lessen the environmental impact on a small number of communities.

Some people reason that no new reservoirs would be needed if the water companies fixed all the leaks. Er, no. Firstly, the current hosepipe ban is more about the capacity of the water treatment plants than the actual volume of water available. There’s only so much water the plants can filter, clean and process at any one time. Increasing capacity would require more investment here, which means less investment elsewhere and/or higher water bills. You choose.

And if people didn’t Tweet, Google and ChatGPT all day long, we wouldn’t need as many datacentres that are the real villains of the piece when it comes to water consumption. Yet those who Tweet, Google and ChatGPT the most are also the most outspoken critics of datacentres guzzling water. Funny old world.

As for fixing all the leaks, according to water.org in the early 1990s we lost a third of all water to leaks. We now lose a fifth. Progress is accelerating since Ofwat allowed the companies to invest more in leak repairs, and we currently lose 20% to leaks. Some countries replaced almost all of their metropolitan pipes after WWII which is why Germany, for example, only loses about 5% of its water to leaks. The UK’s performance is actually in the top third, with lower leakage than France, Ireland and Italy, the latter losing 40%.

While researching various sources for this blog, I felt obliged to see what Fearful Sharkface had to say about the situation. I didn’t get to what he was saying about hosepipe bans because I got caught up with his whinge that water companies should measure the volume of sewage released into waterways and not just the duration. Why would they do that?! Replacing duration-measurement equipment with volume-measurements will be a complete waste of money and other resources for no improvement in useable data. For example, 10 litres of outflow per minute, say, could be so dilute it’s practically pure, or so concentrated that it’s a pollution emergency. We can ascertain that already, by combining event duration monitors with analysis of samples. The resultant data is incomplete, yes, but it provides an indication of where the worst problems are that should be prioritised for attention. Anything else is just collecting data and ticking boxes for the sake of collecting data and ticking boxes, and being a ruddy nuisance.

Back to the task at hand – drought and wild fires and water shortages. Boffins are predicting the mother of all autumn/winter storms that should wet the land, and fill the reservoirs, aquifers, chalk streams and peat bogs. However, we also know that heavy storms play havoc with sewage overflows into water courses, and it will be worse this winter because the ground is so dry, it won’t act to begin with like a sponge, seeing even more runoff and pollution into sewage treatment plants and directly into water courses. But look on the bright side: there’ll soon be enough water to service the datacentres that support all those Tweets, Googles and ChatGBTs from snowflakes lambasting the water companies that bounce politicians and regulators into making the wrong decisions that end up slowing progress, deterring investors from stumping up cash, and increasing customer bills.

Way to go, snowflakes.