Broadly, that's a given.
It must be about 10 days ago that we touched on the subject of pollution and the need to deal with that; back in my days, a key topic used to be lead in paints and lead in fuels.


I am a little bemused otherwise.
My last post drew attention to the small influence that CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere have compared with those of H2O.
Along the way it is recognised science that CO2 is essential to plant life photosynthesis, as is the presence of water of course.
CO2 Science

Some years ago the USA EPA was considering declaring water vapour to be a pollutant.
Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act | Climate Change | US EPA
What became of that concept?

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Dave

Just hanging out in the bar on a saturday night brings to mind another dastardly gas.

Methane: The Irrelevant Greenhouse Gas | Watts Up With That?

There is a lot of scientific bar talk in the linked discussion.

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Dave

Clearing up in the HUBB pub bar after another mid-winter saturday night session, I came upon some on-topic reading matter that is possibly published on a weekly basis:
http://www.sepp.org/twtwfiles/2016/TWTW%201-9-16.pdf

It has some interesting views concerning recent flooding events in the UK, US policy, the recent conference in Paris and a few other commentaries including the concensus of 97% of scientists.
Oh yes, and, the location of North Pole.

It's in pdf format, so it can lie around on the bar for anyone to read.
The owner is here:-
Which Way for Now

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Dave

Talking to yourself is the first sign of madness ::

So you post another link to another online source.

The pdf in question blames the recent flooding in the UK entirely of the WFD stopping people dredging rivers................what about the exceptional levels of rainfall over the December period and the continued development in flood plains?

A natural river system does not require dredging to function, this is only needed when man kinds activity affects the natural process whether that be through intensive agricultural practices, constructing in the flood plains removing the natural ability to flood or our habit of constraining natural watercourses in artificial channels.

And just so we are clear the Water Environment (Water Framework Directive) (England & Wales) Regulations 2003 can be found here

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2...0033242_en.pdf

Dredging does not appear in this legislation once

Broadly so, although I don't think the commentator in the link was completely blaming lack of dredging; the people of the Somerset levels were of that view a year ago however when there was no doubt that dredging of their local rivers had ceased for some years in order to protect or otherwise preserve or enhance the local wetlands for the use of wildlife (or words to that effect at that time).
The folk of Glenridding are also of a similar view concerning the shambles that their village became in December 15 - 3 times in one week I think it was.

Flood RE is the answer to the issue; coming into force in April of this year, it gets the current govn out of a hole and passes the problem over to all those who carry house insurance in the UK.
It does this via the simple expedient of imposing a tax on all household insurance so that flood insurance is provided by "Flood RE", still at a cost, to those who live on the flood plains. In effect, it provides insurance cover against the occurance of a racing certainty (3 times in one week?).
But, some flood insurance policies now carry an excess of £10K or 25% of the total bill per event; Flood RE may do similar (3 times per week?).
As I understand it this day, it does not apply to properties built after 2009 - connect with the OTOH below.

Many of our towns and cities were first located upon flood plains, and the confluences of rivers, many centuries ago for goodish reasons at that time, and haphazard development of them continued over many more centuries.
Arguably, they are no longer fit for purpose and should be relocated within this "crowded" island.
OTOH, those who choose to live next to a known flood hazard need to man up to their own responsibility for taking that personal decision.

anyone?

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Dave

The Somerset Levels are a different issue to this year flooding, they are a natural wetland/marsh system artificially drained to allow grazing and in more recent times arable crop production. The first attempts to drain the area was possibly in Roman times

Here a cessation of dredging did have an impact with flooding, but naturally it is an area of wetlands/marshes/peat bogs were the changed use by mankind has altered the natural situation.

Somerset Levels:
The name says it really.


Agreed, the post-flooding event solution came, in part anyway, by dredging the rivers of that flooded area.

The locals had dredged the rivers for years under the auspicies of the local drainage boards, all disbanded in favour of a national body that knows best.

And, the flood effects were dealt with by means of pumping.
Once push came to the big shove, everyone had had their say and the media had waded up and down the drowned roads a few times, the Dutch hydraulic engineers were called in to assist in solving UK issues on the levels with the pumps.


Just as we now need French engineers to design our next nuclear power station, basically because it is so long since we last did anything of that nature that all the British expertise in nuclear technology has retired in the meantime.
C'est la vie.
Do what you are good at doing and buy in expertise for what you are not.


But, there again, the people of York have not heard the last of the failure of pumps on the rivers in that area last month.

Just can't get the staff nowadays!

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Dave

Canute – commended reading


Reading some of the other documents left lying in the late night detritus of the HUBB pub bar, among all the more usual Sunday MSM, I happened upon this more interesting discussion; the author rang a bell immediately with his description of the tale of King Canute.
Exactly the same storyline was fed to me as a child, especially the aspect that says he was the worst King ever and the evidence proffered of his antics on the beach.
As the article says, the Danish King Canute, who managed to rule most of England, was denigrated by his successors once he was safely dead and out of the way – that does sound much like modern methods of character assassination.


Quite a few centuries later a certain Will Shakespeare carried out a similar role on behalf of the Tudor dynasty in order to blacken the name of the Plantagenets, especially the last one who was also King of England for a while, Richard 3 (killed on the battlefield by those loyal to a certain Henry Tudor).


Modern Day Versions of King Canute Find It Difficult To Replace God.


Commended reading because there is a moral to the story, apart from the treachery of ancient Kingdoms.

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Dave

I am not sure what logic you think I am applying to CO2.

Lead.
Yes, not the first time I have mentioned this because it was a major issue here in the UK (and elsewhere of course) quite a few years ago; children taking in lead from a polluted atmosphere was clearly attributable to lead additives in fuel.
As a child I owned many toy soldiers made of 100% lead (and some kids made their own by use of moulds and melting down the solid to a liquid) and I would suspect that I put them in my mouth now and again. Again, in school we all had a stash of mercury, obtained from the chemistry lessons – a matchbox full of the stuff would be in my pocket; it could be traded for other attractive items, such as Nazi regalia from the recently finished WW2 including bayonets, brass shell cases, gunpowder etc
Damn, what a dangerous world it was when the kids of my youth were conceived.


I also mentioned it because I have seen in the news here about the current issue there is ongoing in Flint, Michigan.

CO2 Science website and plant/sea life.
I find this aspect pretty interesting by which I mean that it catches my attention more readily than the mass hysteria of the climate alarmists and their whole show business.


The single page linked below, written in 1998, deals with the effects of CO2 enhancement on plant development and gives a good summary of other aspects, including the matter of water in the atmosphere that has now just started to be mentioned in this discourse.
They, the CO2 science research group, do appear to have a well developed and extensive research programme into plant and sea life research..
CO2 Science


Ah, now there's the rub.
That is a hoax.
You have proven that someone is reading this!
More detail about the hoax is here;
Water Vapor The Next Demon Gas | The Resilient Earth

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Dave

Lead is a naturally occuring element, by using your same logic for c02 it was a mistake to mitigate it
. While Plants need CO2, too much is bad, as is too little. SO lets explore this, what happens if there is too much Co2? Well wallstreet would love it as it causes plants to grow bigger, they do however lose their nutritional value as they do so. Think of it like this, plants also need water, too little water a plant dies, too much it can also die, depending on the type of plant mind you. https://www.skepticalscience.com/co2-plant-food.htm
Where in that link?