The three main substantive issues about the autumn 2000 floods are:-

* Firstly, was the rainfall during the autumn 2000 storms caused by global burning or some other climate phenomena?

* Secondly, were the floods caused by the state of the environment or by bad weather dropping massive quantities of rain? In other words, were the floods caused by an unusually large amount of rainfall which the land, being in good geophysiological condition, could not absorb or were they caused by moderate amounts of rainfall accumulating on a devastated environment? At one end of the spectrum, the more unique the rainfall (whether in quantity or intensity), the better the condition of the environment, and the more unique the flooding, the more likely it is that the floods were caused by bad weather. At the other end of the spectrum, the less unique the rainfall, the more devastated the environment, and the more unique the flooding, the more likely the floods were caused by the state of the environment. Then again, it’s possible the floods could have been caused by both bad weather producing excessive quantities of rainfall and a devastated landscape. What is of particular interest here is the state of the country’s Photosynthetic capacity, the Earth’s life support system. Paradoxically, however, even if it turns out that the floods were caused primarily by global burning this would not diminish the role played by the decimation of the country’s Photosynthetic capacity because the latter would have been an important contributor to global burning - a factor that is dogmatically overlooked by environmentalists.

* The third substantive issue is what should be done to combat such floods. Determining the major cause of the floods should pinpoint the solutions needed to combat flooding. If the floods were caused by the unpredictability of the british weather then, perhaps, little can be done. If, on the other hand, they were caused by global burning would it be best to build more flood defence systems or restore the Earth’s life sustaining processes in britain?

There are three main factors behind flooding anywhere around the world - including the autumn 2000 floods in britain.

One of the critical factors producing floods is a high intensity of rainfall. The greater the intensity of a downpour, the more difficult it is for the land to drain the water away, the greater the likelihood of flooding. If the same amount of rain falls over a much longer period of time there is far less likelihood of the water overwhelming rivers and causing floods.

It is not possible, however, to dismiss the quantity of rainfall as a source of flooding even when it is spread out over a long period of time. The quantity of rainfall may cause flooding, even over long periods of time, because of the waterlogging of soils. If soils are dry then rain will soak through the ground without flooding. If, however, the soils are waterlogged it is much more likely there will be a flood. If there are two equal downpours, one may cause flooding whilst the other may not because of the difference in the condition of the soils. As a consequence, a heavy downpour may fail to produce flooding but a few weeks later a lighter downpour causes flooding because of waterlogging. Thus, the greater the intensity of downpours or the greater the quantity of rainfall and waterlogging, the greater the likelihood of flooding.

The third factor contributing to flooding is the nature of the terrain. Some terrain encourages waterlogging and floods whilst other terrains do not. The nature of the terrain differs between, at one end of the spectrum, a Rainforest and, at the other end, a vast, flat, featureless, impermeable, landscape such as prairieland or a car park. Rainforests are able to soak up vast quantities of water. They are vast sponges. One commentator calls them green lakes because they contain so much water. It is not merely soils that soak up water - after all the amazon Rainforest has little in the way of soils. The canopy retains huge amounts of water and it also seals off the air within the Rainforest so that it absorbs huge quantities of moisture. On the other hand, a car park simply cannot absorb any rainwater - all it can do is drain away the water. The more Forested the landscape, the greater the absorption of water. The more artificial the landscape the more vulnerable it is to flooding. In general, torrential downpours are more likely to cause flooding in europe than in brazil.