Tales of the unexpected
IT is, after all, February. That ought to be the natural reaction when the Met Office warns about storms or heavy snow. Yet we are surprised, because we’ve grown used to the historically unseasonal weather we’ve been experiencing for so long. Mild winters have become the norm, so much so that we’ve hardly noticed that this, the winter of 2021–22, has been so exceptionally warm as to stand out as almost unnatural.
The buds have shown an abandoned disregard for seasonal proprieties, appearing and breaking into flower long before they ought to. Although we gardeners have, for more than 20 years, been noting how much earlier spring comes, this has been a step change in that gradual development and has left us even more unprepared for the untoward ferocity of the recent storms.
It is the unexpected that disturbs the most. Perhaps we’d have been better to call climate change ‘climate disruption’ because it isn’t a move from one settled state to another. The norms of weather that we were used to are being replaced by unsettled and unsettling abnorms. Not only must we work to stop those changes before they overwhelm us, but we must also learn to live with increasing uncertainty. Adapting to the disruption that is already in the system is going to be as difficult as making the changes to that system that are necessary to prevent disaster.
That’s why the Government’s much more robust approach to flood prevention and its recognition of the role that farmers and landowners have to play in building resilience is so welcome. However, it is only the beginning and the changes presaged in the Environment Act and the Agriculture Act need urgent implementation. Only by a radically different attitude to the management of land, the recovery of soils and the planning of the built environment will we be able to adapt to the extremes of weather that are becoming the norm.
We have to take the example of what we have already done to fight climate change and become similarly determined to create the resilience necessary to live with the climate disruption that is now inevitable. This month we have seen what a difference determination can make. Wind generation is a quarter of the cost of starting a new gas-fired power station and the price of solar power has dropped by 80%, more than was thought possible. Renewables are now the cheapest way to generate electricity and the sharp rise in gas and oil prices has underlined just how valuable the shift away from fossil fuels was. Indeed, if David Cameron hadn’t given way to the doubters and delayers and slowed that move, we’d be even better off. That hesitation has taken a billion pounds from the economy annually and put at least £50 a year on household fuel bills. We’ve learned that energy security and economic logic both demand we move faster on energy saving and renewable generation.
We need the same urgency and commitment to radical change in adapting to the heatwaves, storms and heavy rains that we must expect from the global warming we’ve already caused. That’s why Michael Gove’s promised planning reforms are so crucial. All the work that Defra has been doing in environment and agriculture reform will not be successful unless it is reflected in the quality of the homes, offices and warehouses built and the care we take in using land. If Britain is to be resilient enough to cope with climate disruption, we need a radical reform of our planning system and we need it now.
Perhaps we’d have been better to call climate change “climate disruption”