I had to go to the Fenland village of Somersham to get a Covid vaccine yesterday. Why the NHS directed me there, I do not know, but they did.
For those who do not know Somersham (and that will be about 99.9% of readers, I suspect, because it is out of the way even for this part of the world), it's pretty, small, surprisingly busy on a Monday morning and totally surrounded by flat fenland fields, all of which might be underwater if, or rather when, the sea breaks through the wholly inadequate flood defences that currently protect the Fens from rising seawater levels.
Wikipedia assures me that the village has a population of 3,800 people. And their future, as far as I can see, is as refugees.
Unless action is taken (and that which is underway seems paltry in scale), the time when Somersham will become depopulated can be measured as a blink even in the history of humankind: we may be talking decades, at most. Its fields will become polluted by salt water on a regular basis. And then there will cease to be a reason for the village.
Suella Braverman is in New York today, claiming that new agreements or refugees are required. Her sole aim is to keep people out of the UK. Her claim is that no one who is an economic migrant can be a refugee. What is more, discrimination is not a basis for fleeing your place of residence, in her opinion.
That is nonsense. But what I would point out to Suella Braverman is that she is Home Secretary and we have a refugee crisis in the making here in the UK. It won't become apparent quite yet. Only a few villages dotted around the coast have now, in effect, been abandoned to encroachment by the sea. But these things are always exponential, and unless you take action soon enough, they become impossible to manage.
Or, to put it another way, unless action is taken sometime in the fairly near future to save Somersham then it might be too late. It, and all the massive agricultural production of the region in which it sits, will be lost, creating simultaneous domestic refugee and food crises for the UK, over and above any that will result from the international flow of hundreds of millions of people simply seeking, like the people of Somersham, to survive.
Of course, Somersham could be saved from this fate, but that will require that money be spent to create a common good. That is the sort of thing governments alone can do. Unfortunately, though, both Labour and the Tories claim there is no money left.
Unless we take action on issues like this, the crisis that we face in this country will be enormous. We are already food dependent. We would become much more so. And millions of people will need to be rehomed.
Are we ready for that?
And why are we talking about HS2, which is frippery, when there are so many more, such bigger issues to concern us?
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I think the somersham problem is equivalent to the problem that colliery villages had of the same size when the pit closed.
No, because the could be reimagined.
Somersham will cease to exist.
Somersham seems to sit on land @ around 7 mtres above sea level – ditto many other villages. The farm land (to the north/east) is mostly at or in some cases below sea level. Interestingly, the land towards the Wash seems to be higher (3 – 4 mtres) suggesting that the farm land inland has “shrunk” probably due to drainage and farming. To protect this land would require large-scale dyke building – similar to that done by the Dutch – on the coast opposite. However, this will only be a stop gap measure since as sea levels rise – salt water will start to percolate through even dykes. Borth, near Machynlleth has been abandoned – due to rising sea levels. Flanders in Belgium will, possibly in our lifetimes, start to flood, raising the question: where will the Flemish go? Same question for the Fens & many other places. The vile-tories have not even considered the question, ditto vile-Liebore.
As I noted – it is the end of farming that will do for Somersham. The villages are always on ridges – but will become isolated islands.
A dam across the Wash is the answer here.
A dam across the wash, another round London. New York is talking about one. We have to protect the nuclear power stations which, in the UK, are on the coasts … and every coastal community on the planet will be thinking about this.
The volume of material needed for a dam (a lot will be concrete) will depend on the area of a cross section (which will be a triangle) multiplied by the length of the dam. Area of a triangle = ½ base x height. Sea level rise will not stop for a century or more (a new-born family member might live for 100 years). For stability, in general, if the height is doubled, then the base will need to be doubled. In 50 years’ time (or whatever) the height might need to be doubled which will require 4 times as much concrete. Concrete creates quantities of carbon dioxide – a proven greenhouse gas.
Wouldn’t the best hopes of a survivable transition of any sort involve drastic policies to slow global heating as much as possible – as soon as possible? We are losing the eco-war now, much more seriously than WW2 in 1940. In 1942, the UK war-time petrol ration for private motoring was zero. In 1942, every man aged 18 – 51 and very woman aged 20 – 30) was required to register for national service.
When petrol or diesel is heavily rationed or costs, say, £50 per litre, our posh cars will be of little value. Food (and fresh water?) will have high value. Tourism is wonderful (for those who can afford it). Food is necessary; tourism isn’t. Is it time to ban holiday flying – and private cars.
Those looking for a smooth transition to a ‘sustainable green economy’, consider the transitions in places affected by floods: Libya, Pakistan; or droughts: ‘severe to extreme drought affected about 18% of the contiguous United States as of the end of August 2023’, Somalia, Botswana (but you unlikely to know about that unless you watch Al Jazeera); places stricken by fires: Hawaii, Canada, San Francisco, Greece … Their transitions were not smooth.
Nor will ours be.
You are right Joe
I was assuming the world would not listen to you
Sorry
Except that the pit villages were closed all at once, and the men all lost their jobs, in some cases 3 generations of men.
Farming losing its land is just the same as pit villages losing their pits.
By the way, how come you’ve had a covid vaccination already. I haven’t heard yet and I’m ten years older than you. Anything to do with this?
https://labourhub.org.uk/2023/09/26/a-dark-day-for-public-health/
Jen
I searched the web and found you can just ask – so I did, and got one
Richard
Im over 70 and had the text invite a few weeks ago from our surgery.
My wife found thus
We have not been invited as yet
A dam across The Wash? Don’t you realise The Wash is an internationally recognised site of massive importance for seabirds and waders, which depend on it for winter feeding grounds and stop-over during migration. Far better for Somersham to flood than to think of draining The Wash.
Of course I realise that. I am a bird watcher.
But your comment is crass. There won’t be a Wash if sea levels rise. A tidal dam that was used to generate energy most of the time would preserve the Wash. Doing nothing will not.
Eric, do you not realise that The Wash is not natural anyway and is always changing? You may as well say we shouldn’t have drained the fens.
When I was at college at Peterborough we used to go up to Gibraltar Point as part of environmental science. The birdlife there is just as important as that on The Wash itself. The West Dunes there are now a kilometer inland which means that land has been gained from the sea. That could be because there are lots of manmade lakes there now. There’s also a golf course, which I’m sure wasn’t there in the late 70s.
If I had a choice between a flood barrier and a golf course, I know which I would choose.
Agreed
Re: Mark Parr’s post – an addendum and an amendment – the addendum re: Dutch drainage …. it was them that did a lot of the fens drainage over here too (Cornelius Vermuyden). Before that I think the Isle of Ely actually was an Isle. I have been told (not verified) that some of the fenland is now even lower lying than it was before the drainage, specifically because of the drainage (water out, ground shrinks and drops). Perhaps we need to be looking at more reinstatement of saltmarshes and the development of salt water aquaculture.
The amendment – Borth hasn’t been abandoned (yet) – though it is at risk, as are other places along the Welsh coast. However, the really high risk one that has already been earmarked for abandoment is Fairbourne which is full of unhappy English retirees. It won’t be the first time Wales has shruk – there’s “the lost hundred” now under the water in Cardigan Bay, featuring the drowned forest that is more or less in front of Borth beach.
Thanks for this.
I agree that Fairbourne is most at risk – and if you go there you can see why.
You are also right about the fens sinking when drained- without water there is less bulk.
And Ely really was an island.
I live in East Yorkshire.
This article in the Hull Daily Mail https://www.hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/streets-underwater-2050-hull-climate-3508849 based on this survey https://sealevel.climatecentral.org/research/reports/flooded-future-global-vulnerability-to-sea-level-rise-worse-than-previously/ shows huge areas of East Yorkshire will be flooded by 2050.
My own house is on a bit of high land – so I will be high and dry surrounded by water – which could cut off a lot the coastal area.
And note that the area underwater will likely extend to Doncaster. in 2002, over 20 years ago, I was refused house insurance by one company who said “we no longer insure houses in the DN post code area because of the flood risk”.
My only solution will be to join the internal refugees… the question is when?
It baffles me that your question is not being asked.
Living in Exeter a few years ago I shared a house with a Dutch postgraduate working on a large scale, joint EU programme in which researchers were allocated selected stretches of coastline in each others’ countries. Their work was to talk to local people, local government, local groups and organisations, businesses, with the objective of discovering how coastal communities were preparing for climate change, and how the comparative mechanisms in the various EU countries held up in the real world.
My housemate was allocated a stretch of the South Devon coast, at precisely the time at which the Dawlish railway collapsed into the sea. She was therefore allocated the only research area engaged in a ‘disaster response’ rather than ‘disaster preparation’ scenario!
I don’t know what happened to the project, but if any JOURNALISTS are reading this, I suggest it might be worth chasing up…
According to that map, Ely is going to be on an island of its own, no route to Cambridge or Peterborough. Another place to be inundated is the holderness area east of Hull which is also farming land, and parts of Hartlepool, where they are talking of building a new nuclear power station to replace the old.
The reason they are built on the coast is because they use vast amounts of water!
It sounds like the water will be coming to them!
I was born in Hull, moved away at 18 then moved back in the late 80s for ten years.
The Hull barrier has made a huge difference to flooding along the River Hull up to and beyong Beverley. In fact they used to have a festival there every year to make sure it is still in working order. Not sure if they still do.
Hull is second only to London in the list of cities at risk of flooding.
However, to stop more flooding looks almost impossible, without a barrier across the Humber, and I’ve no idea how that will happen.
There are nowhere near the number of ships n the Humber as there used to be, and now there’s a Humber Bridge, it could be possible to allow shipping to land at Immingham and Grimsby, then take freight across the bridge. Then there could be a barrier west of Grimsby and East of Hull. However, the barrier would have to be 4 times the size of the Thames barrier.
People don’t realise how important the Humber is. The River Ouse is tidal up to York from the Humber. The trent flows into the Humber, too. The Humber is a tidal Estuary just like the Wash, which has 4 rivers flowing into it.
Agreed
The problems facing us are being ignored
And this very ignoring, it has to be said, perhaps gives the lie to the idea the UK’s going to be sold off to privateers in the form of Charter Cities, ending national govt and restructuring the UK to a series of City States. The problems the UK faces are so huge they can only be approached by a national govt. That’s if it is intended to survive at all, of course, and not merely left to moulder after the present looting runs its course.
I was in the process of buying a house near Burton Pidsea, East Yorkshire in 2007, when the major floods of that year struck. The house purchase had to be dropped, not just because it was under water, but as there would no longer be any insurance for a mortgaged property in an area of flood risk. We hear a lot about how government is in the pockets of big business lobbying, so I wonder why the insurance companies aren’t managing to prevail upon the government in a way that would influence policy in favour of taking climate change effects more seriously?
We lived in York from 1999 to 2010. There were four one hundred year events in those years. We definitely knew about climate change then. One time there was only the A64 open out of York to Leeds, not the Scarborough side.
Precisely because it’s frippery, I’d think. Once again, distraction, a metaphorical dead cat. Heaven knows what this govt will be entertaining us with if No. 10’s Larry dies (as is sadly being suggested) and they find themselves in possession of an actual dead cat.
What about all the huge cellars dug under very expensive houses in London?
As sea level rises, the water table will rise too, however high you build dykes & barriers…
But this is just the start. What happens when a city floods? Southampton, maybe. Now is the time to start talking about land reform.
You’ll get plenty of warning. Hull is going to be under water well before Southampton.
Maybe that’s why Hull rarely gets a mention on the northern cities rail link-up. They know there’s no point.
In a sane and rational world, an Environment Minister who happens to live in and represent (in the loosest possible meaning of the word) a low lying and predominantly agricultural coastal community, would be leading by example. Here in coastal Suffolk, memories of the catastrophic 1953 flooding are still very raw.
I know
I was brought up in Suffolk
It is why I think Sizewell a timebomb
Does she not live in her constituency? Why did/do they vote for her?
Thinking and planning does not extend beyond the life of the current government. Make that beyond the current PM.
On second thoughts, what they think will appeal, campaigning for the next by-election.
Perhaps society can manager but our institutions are unable to cope? Our institutions, not least the main political parties, represent a highpoint in indiidualism. Reflecting the world view of Thatcher’s and Reagan’s children. Those who grew up in the 21st Century have a much more collective outlook. The technology in their hands has enabled them to a manage and organise differently, harnessing the power of networks. They will want to organise the world differently. But increasingly it seem that such a level of change will be in response to a crisis.
Maybe no surprise that so much of our institutional response to climate change focuses on change at an individual. Very many institutions, national and international are unfit for purpose; unfit for the future. They are unable to concern themselves with the villagers of Somersham.
“… We have no heart for the fishing, we have no hand for the oar —
All that our fathers taught us of old pleases us now no more;
All that our own hearts bid us believe we doubt where we do not deny —
There is no proof in the bread we eat or rest in the toil we ply.
Look you, our foreshore stretches far through sea-gate, dyke, and groin —
Made land all, that our fathers made, where the flats and the fairway join.
They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work stood fast.
We were born to peace in the lee of the dykes, but the time of our peace is past.
….
Now we can only wait till the day, wait and apportion our shame.
These are the dykes our fathers left, but we would not look to the same.
Time and again were we warned of the dykes, time and again we delayed:
Now, it may fall, we have slain our sons, as our fathers we have betrayed.
Walking along the wreck of the dykes, watching the work of the seas!
These were the dykes our fathers made to our great profit and ease.
But the peace is gone and the profit is gone, with the old sure days withdrawn…
That our own houses show as strange when we come back in the dawn! ”
“The Dykes”
Rudyard Kipling
1902
The rest is at https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_dykes.htm
Thank you
The Tories have never been a party that thinks ahead. I think that most of the crises that we face you can probably trace back to a time when the Tories decided against doing anything. They’ve messed up many things, but climate denial is the one where they will screw it up big time. The clock is ticking.