How we ended up paying farmers to flood our homes | George Monbiot

This government let the farming lobby rip up the rulebook on soil protection – and now we are suffering the consequencesIt has the force of a parable. Along the road from High Ham to Burrowbridge, which skirts Lake Paterson (formerly known as the Somerset Levels), you can see field after field of harvested maize. In some places the crop lines run straight down the hill and into the water. When it rains, the water and soil flash off into the lake. Seldom are cause and effect so visible.That's what I saw on Tuesday. On Friday, I travelled to the source of the Thames. Within 300 metres of the stone that marked it were ploughed fields, overhanging the catchment, left bare through the winter and compacted by heavy machinery. Muddy water sluiced down the roads. A few score miles downstream it will reappear in people's living rooms. You can see the same thing happening across the Thames watershed: 184 miles of idiocy, perfectly calibrated to cause disaster.Two realities, perennially denied or ignored by members of this government, now seep under their doors. In September the environment secretary, Owen Paterson, assured us that climate change "is something we can adapt to over time and we are very good as a race at adapting". If two months of severe weather almost sends the country into meltdown, who knows what four degrees of global warming will do?The second issue, once it trickles into national consciousness, is just as politically potent: the government's bonfire of regulation...
Source: Guardian Unlimited Science - Category: Science Authors: Tags: Comment The Guardian David Cameron Farming Flooding World news Natural disasters and extreme weather Owen Paterson Politics UK news Environment Agency Conservatives Labour Agriculture Comment is free Source Type: news